London … not Jamaica! I wish!

After Thirst, I managed to meet up with a couple of great people.

First I caught up with Richard from Oxygen to hear more exciting stuff on what they are doing. Under Richard’s guidance, Oxygen, has just exploded I the projects it supports! He has a real kingdom, rather than empire, vision and I think those who come into contact with him easily see this. Because of this, people want to work in partnership with Oxygen.

Richard has also made a great comment here on ‘Who is your neighbour’ which is well worth reading.

After spending some good quality time with Richard I was able to catch up with Jade in pizza hut. Jade was one of the first young people who became a Christian while I was Director of Gillingham YFC. After an Activate gig in a school she turned up to a follow up event the next day on Saturday for lunch. While talking with her, I learned that she had phoned her work for that day to say should not make it, and losing £25 or so in the process. When I asked her why the answer from this 17 year old amazed me:

“well, if what you people were all saying last night is true …Thenn I need to check this out properly as it’s worth a lot more than £25!”

That sums up, pretty much, the level of maturity of Jade. For the next few months Bex and myself met with Jade and the rest is history. Jade took her time to examine the claims of Jesus and how they related to her, and has a strong and real faith now which is so exciting to see. Connecting with church, on the other hand, has not, and is not, easy – an example of churchlessss faith?!

It was really encouraging to see how Jade is loving life as a drama/theatre student – a great and encouraging end to a cool day! Good excuse for a pizza too!

On reflection, meeting with Jade yesterday has reinforced the fact that my SEITE training is worth it. We need people out there who can work in communities, work with people who are dying to connect with God, be free to think through what ‘good news’ means to the millions of people that would never set foot in a church – and maybe one day I will know what I am talking about!