Love Gillingham 3 started today.
Love Gillingham has the strap line of ‘showing the love of Jesus with no strings attached’. It’s a great mission statement, and it’s a mission statement that we should have 24/7 as Christians. This week is about being good news for people and not expecting or wanting anything in return.
It was great today to see from Christians from a number of local churches working together. People from different traditions forgetting the non-essential aspects of faith and uniting around the essentials that unite us.
After a morning of worship, teaching and prayer the teams had lunch before getting involved in various projects. The projects all seemed to go really well. Tom was involved in the retirement home again where he did some gardening and chatted to the people. Tom is developing a real love for OAP work and has done this for the last 3 years. Sarah, Beth and Joe were involved in a drop in at church for people to drop in for a drink and chat while there were activities such as face painting for their children. I was involved with many other great people in clearing rubbish from peoples homes in 3 different locations around the town. Today we have filled 4 massive 12 yard skips (or the equivalent).
The rubbish teams today have cleared greenhouses, rubble, trampolines, baths, toilets, wood, tables, chairs and much more. While all the ‘stuff’ has been happening in the teams, something very special has been happening. We have been chatting with people and in those conversations I believe we have seen God at works in the lives of people outside the church.
Today I have seen in the hospitality and love of God in various ways in peoples actions:
through the lady and her 3 children who invited us all in for a cup of tea
through the old gentlemen who brought out a carefully wrapped sheet of glass for the skip as he did not want us to be cut
through the lady who wanted to buy my t-shirt
the person who wanted to reward us with a donation
It was great to be reminded today that God is loving Gillingham and very much at work here.
The photo shows a local councillor opening the event and you can see the photos of today by clicking on y Flickr album or by clicking here.
The Shiny Headed Prophet 
Yeah Love Gillingham is ace..I really enjoyed it two years ago when I did it…I think the essence of what Love Gillingham is all about is absolutely the same as 24-7 ibiza…showing kindness to people…the way Jesus would..it’s brill…and remember “whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me” x