BlogJack! Mission Special!

Hi everyone! It's Gareth here again, masquerading as Peter!

A few posts ago, Peter talked about partnership in the gospel. I was one of the partners mentioned (although not by name, I noticed), and it was indeed a joy to work with some very cool people during the week. But the Gospel partnership spread quite a way beyond Lancaster during the week I was there. So I thought I would tell the story...

On Monday night, the CU at the Unversity of Cumbria in Lancaster held an event called "Text a Toastie" (or some variation on that - everyone called it something different). The concept was simple - maybe too simple we thought at first. We spent the day giving out flyers and putting up posters giving details. Then from 5pm, people could text in a toastie order and a questions about Christianity. Moments later, a hot toastie would be delivered to the door along with the answer to their question.

I have to admit, I was sceptical at first, but it is actually a stroke of genius. The difference between this and doing something like questionnaires is that people invite you to talk to them about the gospel. And you kick off by talking about something they're already thinking about. Genius.

At about 8pm, this question came in: "If there is life on other planets, and they haven't heard about Jesus, what would happen to them?" We were asked to deliver the toastie to NCL.
"Where's NCL?" we all asked. It turned out the question was from a girl in Newcastle who'd been texted by her friend. She said not to worry about the toastie, although the question was serious.

We decided to offer to either text a short answer, or call her with a longer answer. Then, just as we were about to reply, someone said, "don't we know anyone in Newcastle?" We didn't. But we knew that there would be a UCCF staffworker nearby. The next half an hour was spent calling everyone we knew who would know who it was, and how to get in touch. Eventually we got in touch with a guy called Lewis. He asked where the girl lived, and it turned out he has friends living in the street. Before long, some Christians were visiting the girl who'd texted in (I'm not sure whether they had a toastie with them or not), talking to her about Jesus. All very 'random'.

Apparently she had been wanting to talk to some Christians for a while, but hadn't met any. From her point of view (and I guess from ours too), it was a miracle!

Gospel partnership is great, isn't it?!