Prayer, Planning and Tragedy

Since the last post we've not done much in terms of frontline youthwork. Two Monday's ago we prayed, Monday gone we planned - Phil's vision is for a couple of bods to go out in Old Woking prayer-walking, while others wil run a drop-in at New Life Church throughout the months when we have darker evenings. Others, we hope, will be praying inside the building while this goes on. Previous drop-in's have been something of a challenge since fights apparently broke out most weeks when the old Gloster Road Group last ran drop-ins a couple of years ago. We have God with us though. We trust Him.

The next couple of weeks, however, will be on the field as normal - although we're hoping to hold a final bbq on the last week to promote the drop-in.

We really would value your prayers about these plans. As I indicated in earlier blogs, it's been a bit mad in Old Woking of late. BUT, maybe that's a good thing. Just maybe this is our old adversary taking a pop at us because we're getting places with some of the kids we're talking to. There's definitely a polarisation between kids who are very engaged and talking to us, and those whose behaviour is something more challenging than mere 'naughty'.

MONDAY's

Sadly, tomorrow is the funeral of one of the lads we met on the field on a regular basis. Tragically injured in a motor accident after collecting his GCSE results, he died a few days later in hospital. Our prayers must be that he absorbed some of the seeds that were planted during our encounters with him. Our thoughts right now are with his family and his mates; I can't at the moment imagine the scene tomorrow - I don't want to imagine it. My heart goes out to everyone for the tragic loss of his young life. He'll be sorely missed.

There's a lesson here though. There has to be urgency about what we're doing. To not share the Gospel with those we meet is like not handing out parachutes to the passengers and crew of a plane that we know will crash. Can we really bare the responsibility of knowing that we had the means or message that could save someone but chose not to share it - perhaps because we were a bit scared, or thought our faith should remain private, or thought we weren't good enough?