This weekend I had the pleasure of speaking at a prayer breakfast for Kick at West Wickham and Shirley Baptist Church. Kick are great and use football as a means to help young people connect with God. My role at this morning was to talk about why we use sport.

Kick have developed a football academy which could be seen as quite contentious as it runs on a Sunday. (It’s great to know that Holy Trinity Richmond, where Kick is based, changed the time of their morning service to accommodate the Academy!)

While at SEITE the week before I was caused to think differently about the story in Luke 24 where two followers of Jesus are walking towards Emmaus. Some things struck me anew as Justine, our lecturer, spoke and introduced me to this picture.

The things I drew from it that I shared:

These 2 followers are walking away from Jerusalem. They are going the wrong way! They are moving away from where they should be.

Jesus joins them. Unlike most of what I have experienced in mission, Jesus does not stand in front of them and point out their mistake, nor does he tell them that they should stop and turn back. Jesus walks with them. Jesus walks in the wrong direction with them; or at least he walks in what appears to be the wrong direction. Jesus journeys with these two followers and listens, earning the right to speak into their lives only because he has spent time with them.

A lot of what Kick and YFC does generally through our local ministries is an Emmaus journey type experience, rather than a Damascus type experience. An experience where we get alongside and walk with young people. Interestingly, the ‘church’ can look at what might seem to be things going in the wrong way, such as running a football academy on a Sunday morning maybe!

Mission has to be about risk. Mission needs to be breaking new ground. Mission needs heroes to immerse themselves in local cultures, forsaking themselves and asking ‘what is good news o these people?’ Mission sometimes means stepping out even when others say it is foolish (too big a risk), even when your head tells you this is madness (too big a risk), even when you feel very scared (too big a risk) but when your ‘prayer heart’ tells you its right (just another risk!)

I’m so excited about being part of YFC. Today, many centres have received their teams of young people that have taken a year out to be used by God in mission. This is always a great time; its great because these young people are taking that risk, scared, feeling mad, ignoring some safe suggestions of others – so that they can learn more of god and put themselves in the place where they can be used.

I’m looking forward to hearing about more Emmaus journeys from our centres.