Inter Mission

Nothing profound today, I suspect - just a chance to raise my head above water and reflect on the week of mission we've nearly finished.

The coolest outcome has to be something that happened right at the start. We arranged letterbox advertising in the week or so leading up to the mission, and one guy turned up the week before with his son, prompted by seeing our flyer. He'd been thinking that he should look into finding a church, and there was the prompt in his letterbox. Well, it was a pretty slick flyer... And so he came back last Sunday, heard the sermon on John's prologue, and repented. On his way out, he farewelled me with a 'definitely see you next Sunday' that meant more when I read his comment card. How good is God?!

Another highlight has been the opportunity to do scripture seminars in the high schools. We had half of the year 11/12 school in a seminar on Tuesday, and it generated piles of follow up - more than a tenth of the school. Some of that is spoof responses, but even so...God is good.

It's been interesting to coordinate the mission - particularly in thinking about the impact of advertising/branding. My impression is that for many, it was when they started seeing the same fonts, slogans and colours that they started to recognise that the mission was on. Or perhaps, more accurately, that they started to have confidence in it. Momentum was negligible for most of the months leading up to mission, but has picked up markedly in the last couple of weeks. We've been well served by the mission team, which has reinforced the impression that the whole thing is worthwhile.

The tricky part now is managing follow-up, which isn't very public, and avoiding a post-mission slump around the church. Providentially, we've arranged to have a baby next month, so that might help keep people focused.