We believe in the gospel - the
good news that in and of ourselves we are filthy sinners but Jesus Christ is a
forgiving Saviour who faithfully suffered the punishment we deserved, was
resurrected from the grave, and now calls all men everywhere to repent and
trust in him for eternal life. We believe that the gospel is the power of God
to salvation – that among the many foolish lies that send the world further
into darkness and suffering, the message of Christ crucified is God’s wisdom
and truth to bring people into the light of salvation. We believe that this
power of God to salvation is for everyone who believes regardless of colour,
class, creed, cultural heritage or personal history, and that anyone who turns
from his sin and trusts in Christ the Son will be declared righteous by the
Father and made righteous by the Spirit to the praise of our gloriously
gracious God. If what we believe is true, how can we ignore the reality of
thousands of people around us dying now and perishing eternally without being
called from their wickedness to trust in the One who is righteous?
With this foundation, for five
Sundays from May to June, Grace Baptist Church Wood Green held a series of
gospel events in the community centre of the Sky City housing estate, a
government housing project built on the roof of The Mall (formerly Shopping
City). Residents in the estate’s 200 flats were invited multiple times through
leafleting and door to door work to come to the community centre Sunday afternoons
at 3:30 for a study drawn primarily from John 1 and 3 and aimed at introducing
unbelievers to the big story of God’s grace. Each week we looked at a different
component to the story: God – who he is and what he is like, Rebels – who we
are and what we are like, Atonement – how things are made right between a good
God and bad people, Confession – confessing our sins and confessing Jesus as
Lord, and Eternity – what happens after we die. After several people on the
estate told us that we could hold anything we wanted to in the centre but that
no one would come, we can boast in the Lord that 3 people from the estate came
and heard the gospel, one of whom has since attended a normal church service.
Additionally a local young man with a Muslim background came to the estate for
a few of the meetings and is continuing to attend church services as he
seriously seeks Christ.
The day of the first meeting, a man from church was
‘propositioned’ by two women leaving the estate just as he was entering it.
Halfway through the five week period, I was caught between a drunk man walking
into a flat and a high man who was letting him in, both of whom yelled at me
incoherently about 'the Vatican' as I breathed in the smell of booze and skunk before violently slamming the door in my face. In
the week leading up to the last meeting, I saw a man from one of the flats
closest to the community centre who allegedly too unwell to come to the meetings... leaving a betting shop completely off of the estate at the other end of the
High Road. Whether prostitutes, drunks, druggies, gambling addicts, or those
perhaps deemed by society as more ‘respectable’, all stand in need of salvation
and it is found only in Christ. The gospel is for them, so we will take it to
them.
This was printed in the worship bulletin of Grace Baptist Church (Wood Green) on 15 June 2014.
No comments:
Post a Comment