Dear friends,
Our Mission and Easter have come and gone in a flurry and it is now time to reflect on and learn from the work we have done by God’s grace and in God’s strength. As a first port of call, here are some statistics from Peter Hayward about the impact of the mission across the Region….
- About 10,000 people attended events where they heard the Gospel (not including church or schools ministry).
- About 700 visitors attended performances of The Mark Drama.
- More than 10,000 students heard the gospel in public and Anglican schools.
- About 6500 Flyers were handed out at railway stations
- About 90,000 Flyers were placed in letterboxes or otherwise distributed
- About 9000 items of Jesus is merchandise were on display
And here we get to the guts of it in my books…
- 6000 conversations about Jesus were had during March
- About 450 people made decisions of some kind to follow Jesus
- About 2500 people are being followed up
Hallelujah! All glory be to Christ.
And how good it is when brothers and sisters work together in gospel unity.
What’s next? Here are some reflections. We would be glad to hear yours!
1. You should keep wearing or using the “Jesus is” merchandise and seeking opportunities.
2. If you wore or held or displayed the name of Christ, but did *not* get a conversational opportunity be encouraged. Your willingness to go public for Jesus meant lots of other people were helped to get opportunities in the pretty massive way mentioned above!
3. I think it would be good for us to learn a “conversational closer”. We insisted people should learn the conversational opener off by heart (“We’re interested in people’s opinions, Jesus Is _____. What goes in the blank?”) – now I reckon we need to learn this off by heart, ready to use where appropriate (*not* every time like a robot):
“I’m looking for someone to read the Bible with me… Would you be interested?”
(This courtesy of Dale Stephenson of Crossway Baptist in Melbourne.)
4. Please keep your t-shirts, keep cups, wristbands and badges etc. for another go at this campaign in the future. We will probably do another big Jesus is mission in 2020. I know this might feel a little frustrating because now you’ve got the vision you may want to go again almost straight away; but if we go again straight away next year, I am very sure it will actually lose momentum and feel old hat. Other’s experience is that the good will and the learnings can be retained for a couple of years, and then returned too more freshly.
Anyway, that’s my 2c.
What are your thoughts?
In Christ
Nigel