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Munching my muesli reading through the March edition of Evangelicals Now my eye was drawn to an article about Cuba. Last summer I had sat next to a Cuban Baptist pastor at the Evangelical Ministry Assembly. It was a real privilege to meet him and he very kindly gave me his contact details just in case I was ever passing through Havana! I was keen to read more about what was happening in Cuba.
The Western Baptists in Cuba are praying that they will reach 100,000 people by 2010. It is a bold prayer. Because of restrictions on the size of public meetings in Cuba most will meet in groups of less than 20.
They are encouraging current members of their churches to do three things:
1. Pray to make contact with 10 friends and neighbours
2. Take a real interest in those people and be good friends and neighbours
3. Pray that the Lord will bring those people to know Him personally.
The Gospel partnerships movement in England is planning a nationwide evangelistic initiative in 2010 called A Passion for Life providing nationally available resources for local evangelistic initiatives which will climax in the week before Easter 2010. Christ Church, I hope will be fully involved in this. I've been thinking about how we start planning after Taste the Difference.
Perhaps the first thing we should start doing is praying to reach 10 friends and neighbours, get to know them, be good friends and neighbours, and praying for the Lord to bring them to a personal knowledge of Himself.
Just imagine for a moment that this prayer is answered. What would be the implications for Christ Church Bromley? How would we nurture and grow that number of new Christians?
On the one hand it sounds terrific. But on the other there is something terrifying about it as well! And something a bit uncomfortable too: a church that had grown so much would be unrecognizable from the church we know now. Are we ready for the Lord to challenge us and change us quite so much?
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