Thank you so much for praying for our London team. This trip was amazing and God did some incredible things in us and through us during our 8 days in London. We are convinced that none of this would have been possible were it not for you and your daily prayers for our team. You and your prayers made this trip a success!
We had three major take aways from this trip.
The first is that God is faithful and opens doors where we do not see any. Up to this trip we have not found a local body of believers that were interested in God, scripture, and the gospel outside of Kings Cross Baptist. This has become a major prayer concern for us as we continued to search for like minded believers only to find trip after trip churches that were already closed, almost closed, or not able to reach out into their community. In this trip God lead us to discover not one but two churches that are like-minded and eager to reach their community. The first is Kentish Town Evangelical. Their pastors name is Eddie and he leads a congregation of around 30 people. The second church is Highgate Chapel and their pastor's name is Andrew. Please be in prayer for both congregations, for their pastors, and for how we can come along side of them to encourage and support their labor in the area.
The second take away was that the gospel is needed in London. We were able to get into more spiritual conversations during the week than ever before and time after time we heard the same response, "I have never heard this before." Many times we assume that the people of London surely have heard aspects of the gospel but that is a costly assumption that we can no longer afford to assume. London is in need of the gospel message! It is an area where people who live in the shadows of great cathedrals do not know who Jesus is outside of a person that existed at some point in history. Please continue to pray for the local congregations that we have mentioned above to continue in their task of living and speaking the gospel to those that they live with and around.
The third take away is that prayer is the most important thing we can be about. During this week we studied Luke chapter 10. In verse 2 of this chapter Jesus tells the 72 to be about prayer, specific prayer, to "pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest"! In other words it is not about us being the laborers right now it is about us being the prayers. To take seriously the opportunity and privilege to lift up and intercede on the behalf of London, Camden, Kings Cross, Kentish Town Evangelical, and Highgate Chapel.
With that we want to leave you with one last story of a cab driver some of our team came into contact with. Please intercede on his behalf as well as all the other names that we have told you about during our week in London. Thank you again for your prayers for us, and as always, we would love to have you join one of our teams leaving for London in 2010. If you are interested please let us know. Email Spencer Knight, spencerk@hsbc.org .
Begin forwarded message:
From: Grant Bruner
Date: October 25, 2009 4:31:15 PM CDT
To: Spencer Knight
Subject: London - Thursday, October 15 - Cab Driver
Thursday, October 15 – Cab Driver
Prayer walking Area 1, we met a cab driver, Les (pronounced Lez). He was attending his cab at his garage on Cranleigh Street. He lived in a different area nearby. He owned his own cab and had been driving a cab for 40+ years. Although he was about to buy new tires for his cab, he seemed eager to talk to us. He turned his cab off and talked to us for about 30 minutes.
We learned he is 77 years old. His children and grandchildren lived in and around London. He and his family are Church of England. Although he admitted he does not attend regularly. He goes to baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Much the story of the groundskeeper a day earlier. He said the C of E used to be a “center” of the community, but not so much now. He said “I do believe in God and all of that.”
He talked of the war and how the local school had become a mortuary during the war. He was sent to Germany during the war. His sergeant had told him he could pray in the trenches. And he did. Unfortunately, he seems to have interpreted that to mean he really did not need to attend church at all.
He also seemed a little bitter that many foreigners are moving into London and “getting a free ride”.
It was about time for lunch so we asked him to take us to a café nearby. He seemed to enjoy our company and commented that he had never run across Americans that were not as friendly as we were. Toward the end of our ride, we were able to let him know that we are all Christians, we agreed with his sergeant in that we can pray to God from anywhere, it is not about works, and what the Gospel is. He did not want to take a fare, but we insisted and tipped him well too.
Please pray that Les will seek a deeper walk with God, know the true Gospel, and understand the need for Christian fellowship in a local church.
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