The week has been fantastic. It has been a real privilege to be part of this and to hear Serpentina say that this is the first art project she has worked on (and clearly she has worked on many!) where people have not fallen out with each other is a real encouragement and a real witness to God’s spirit working within and uniting us to enable us to work together.

It has been mindblowing to see young, old, catholic, pentecostal, baptist, URC, Salem, anglican, methodist (and possibly others) all working together for a weeks mission within the town.

It is strange but today in our meetings we heard at least 2 people starting to beat themselves up because they felt they had not shared enough about Jesus. Sarah, quite rightly, challenged this and reminded them that we are to love others in action and not just words (1 John 3:18. Too often we feel we need to bring God into a conversation, too often we feel the need to take God into the community; too often we forget God is already there, too often we make it difficult for ourselves. The Good News needs to be good news to all, even those sharing it! If it’s hard work and scary, how can it be ‘Good News’?

God makes it easy for us. God is there already, God is everywhere, and when we show love and acceptance to others, as we have been doing this week, then God is able to shine in such a way that others experience that love of God in ways that mean so much to them, in ways of their culture and in ways of their community. While we show love, God shows people that he has been there all along, and they have just been too busy, too unfocused, too uninterested to notice.

A week like Love Gillingham reminds us how everyday and normal the gospel is, how everyday and normal bring the Kingdom in can be, how everyday normal ‘being a Christian’ is.

It’s been a fantastic week, but I want to ask what next, where do we go now, can we wait another whole year before we do something, should we wait a whole year, or could we, as th churches of Gillingham, do something ordinary more regularly so that we really can continue to serve our town, to love Gillingham.

Thankyou to everybody that has made this possible, but particularly to Jim and Sarah … and of course God!