Light up the Fire

The other day members of the local Christian fellowship held a barbecue and bonfire on the beach at Railway Crossing. The fire was pretty cool (yet extremely hot at the same time!), though I did get twitchy at the 50 pallets which were used to build it - they would have made a good fence or sold to be reused (at, I believe, between £10-£25 per pallet).

Why were they doing it? Mission, outreach, breaking down barriers. There was a reasonable number of people in the village went along (free food always being a good incentive!), with a good mix of ages, though mainly children. Some of the children recognised me from assemblies, so I got chatting to them, especially when helping them to toast marshmallows without toasting my own face...that was easier said than done! But I digress.

The people who started this event moved to the village a couple of years ago. They are passionate about God, about Jesus and want to share their faith with others, as do the other members of the fellowship. As I was talking to one of them, he mused about how difficult evangelism is in this place, that you mention God and people run away. We agreed that for too long the 'main stream' churches roundabout have been preaching that people are bad, bad people and are damned if they do not repent.

But what about God's love? It's not that we disagreed that everyone falls short of God's glory, but that always telling people of God being an angry, wrathful judge will not turn people towards seeking God. It will turn them off and they may never want to know, and that would be said. I wonder if God cries when he sees people reject him because of church teaching?

They, and I, believe people need to know God loves them, God loves them no matter what they have done, no matter where they are from, no matter their background. From that, people may get into a relationship with God and know that what we say (we hope and pray) is true.

Of course, with the bonfire on the beach, taking God's love to people did remind me of the hymn Colours of day. We may not have been in a park, but we were where people where or would come to, rather than expecting them to come to us. Isn't that what church should be for, sustaining people to take the gospel message into their day-to-day lives?