Dear Friends,

This month sees our church holding a course on sharing our faith entitled, ‘Just Walk Across the Room.’  The material is produced by the Willow Creek Association and centres round the book by Bill Hybels of the same title.  The premise is that sharing our faith with others can by deciding to just walk across the room. 

In Bill Hybel’s book, he tells the true story of how one man of another faith became a Christian.  It was at a business function that this man was stood alone in a corner and another man, who was a Christian, was chatting with another group of friends.  The Christian man looked up and saw the man on his own and promptly  left that group to just walk across the room to talk to this man on his own. 

From this initial meeting, the friendship between the two men grew as they would meet for lunch regularly and learn about each other’s faith.  The story concludes with the business man becoming a Christian
because of the friendship formed with the Christian man.  The point Bill Hybels makes is that it all started because the Christian man walked across the room to talk to the business man on his own. 

Part of the mission of our church is to see new people become Christians and it may well happen on occasion by people just walking through the doors of our church. However, it is far more likely that we will have to go and walk across the room to those that do not know Christ, whether it is in a work setting, football match, social event or the neighbour across our street.  Jesus instructed all of as His followers to ‘go and make
disciples’ (Matthew 28:19).  Jesus did not say wait for people to come to you.  It is true that there will be people who will just turn up at church on occasions but the command of Jesus is for us to go out into the world. 

What we learn from this course, is that we do not have to be great
evangelists or theologians but simply people who love God and their neighbour and want to see people find Jesus as Lord.  And it can all start by deciding to ‘just walk across the room.’  Now isn't that something we can all do?  Why not come along to the course and find out more!

May God bless you.

Paul & Louise Wood
Captains