“Our biggest fear should not be of failure, but of succeeding in things that in the light of eternity don’t really matter.” (D. L. Moody)
Some of you will know that I don’t usually go to conferences. I’m just someone who would rather be doing something than listening to people talk about doing something. I’m not really into training days either as I’ve found that the best training is on the job where you can learn from your mistakes!
However, I am a big fan of the Open Air Mission (OAM) and have been to several of their one-day events over the last few years. I was in two minds about this event as it was over three days, a little pricey (everything seems expensive after living in the Philippines,) and it would involve forfeiting the usual outreach I’m involved in. (This ended up being cancelled due to the weather anyway but I couldn't have predicted this as, being up north where it always rains, we tend to brave most weather conditions.)
My mind was made up just a few days prior to the start of the conference on hearing the very sad news that a former missioner, Geoff Cox, had died after an accident in his garden. I’m not sure I’d actually met Geoff although I may have seen him at OAM team events. I knew his name very well though because of his regular activity on social media and ongoing links to OAM.
Having been made aware of the book table outreach that myself and several others are involved in, he asked to receive my newsletters and subsequently sent me a cheerful email requesting that I enlarge the print as he couldn’t read it. I had mistakenly assumed that everyone would now be reading it on their phones or computers and would therefore be able to zoom in and had therefore set the font to size 7 to try and squash everything onto the one page!
Geoff’s reason for contacting me wasn’t only to gently point out that the font was ridiculously small. It was to tell me that he and his wife, Ruth, were printing off my newsletters and praying specifically for the things mentioned. He also requested details of times and places for the weekly outreach so that they could pray when we were out. I was humbled, and grateful, that someone who I wasn’t even sure I had met would have such an interest in the work that they would be this faithful in prayer.
So, I decided to go the conference in the hope of encouraging people there by being one of the handful of people under the age of 60. The timing of the conference also fitted in with a visit down South to my family who have recently moved to Reading.
Arriving, there were many familiar faces which was an immediate encouragement. Having been on a number of the OAM team events, it’s always interesting to see the full-timers smarten up, and get serious, as they give their reports. There tends to be a lot of banter and laughter on the teams which keeps things enjoyable. We all know that the work is serious but people aren’t going to be attracted to Christianity if there is no life, passion or obvious conviction in the messengers.
On this occasion, however, the mission had chosen several men who were able to highlight the humour in the various situations they found themselves in. One London based missioner told us about his unplanned ministry to taxi and bus drivers, and to passengers on the tubes. It seemed people were curious about his work and by extension keen to read his Gospels of John which he was only too happy to give to them even when they were in the process of navigating a bend whilst driving a bus and he had been standing on the pavement. He had specially adapted his open-air board to sit on specialist skateboard wheels purchased from a “surfer dude” type shop in New Quay. This man is one of the 60 pluses (at least I hope so…) and has a grey beard. He was asked where he planned to use the skateboard and gave the name of the area where the skaters congregate as this happens to be where the open airs are held. You can imagine the bemusement as the board was handed over.
He also relayed a story from the very busy tube. Missioners end up carrying a lot of stuff around. Most of the time this is okay as there are regular supporters who can help bear the load but this isn’t always the case. For some reason, this missioner was pushing a trolley of literature whilst simultaneously attempting to manoeuvre on open air board through the crowds in London’s tube stations. He managed to get halfway onto a train as the doors started to close on his literature which began falling out of the trolley. The passengers grabbed him and pulled him in as he battled with the doors. The trolley landed on a woman’s feet and he crashed into someone else. Then, as he was apologising profusely, a group of younger people asked if he could show them his “art”. He started to explain that he wasn’t an artist and didn’t have a painting. They wanted to see what he was doing anyway, so he opened the board and gave them a Gospel presentation on the tube!
We also heard stories of divine appointments; people happening to walk past an open air having recently been bereaved, a Chinese man who had just bought an expensive Bible and was encouraged to continue investigating the faith, people looking for churches, and many with questions looking for answers. These contacts tend to roll into one especially when added to our own local outreach contacts. However, it’s always encouraging to hear how God is at work in different places and how the missioners keep going day by day. All those reporting back had an obvious, and contagious, enthusiasm for the work even though we are talking about the ones and twos--what can be more important than one soul and its eternal destination?
The conference was also a good opportunity to catch up with people and share outreach ideas. It was a real blessing to see the committee chair, David Fielding, looking so well after his recent operation. He gave a talk on the life of John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim’s Progress. He told me that his church in Derby had recently run something akin to a beach mission in the town centre complete with pirate and Smuggler’s Trail, and that the local police had ended up getting involved in the tug of war! The church backs onto a new council development so they are taking the opportunity to reach the community with some “outside the box” thinking.
In terms of outreach ideas, DF also told me about a slightly more charismatic church than our circles that had ended up taking over a large community centre for £1 a year as no one else wanted the responsibility. As part of the deal they undertook to continue providing various community services, but the building is completely controlled and managed by the church. This brings them into contact with large swathes of the community using their facilities in a completely natural environment. I have been sceptical about this type of social enterprise in the past because even with the best intentions, the community aspect tends to trump the Gospel purpose over time. However, this was something different as the church had complete control and there had been no deception at any level; people know the building is part of the church and run by Christians. Church members had been informed that this was their outreach as a church and everyone was expected to be involved!
I also had opportunity to chat with a retired pastor local to me whose church had blitzed their town with a thousand copies of Ultimate Questions by John Blanchard one year and who was planning a distribution of Mark’s Gospels on the doors, if people would agree to read them. Lower key, they are encouraging church members to agree to put leaflets through doors a few times a year in areas that they pass on their usual journeys. It’s such an encouragement to meet people who are always thinking of ways to get the Gospel to those still in darkness in our towns and cities.
Towards the end of the conference we learned that we were being spied on by a missioner based in Scotland. Snap shots of him undertaking activities such as drinking, eating and stretching as he watched the proceedings live had been captured, no doubt without his knowledge, and were posted on the big screen for our entertainment.
I'll conclude with the notes I took during the preaching ministry, but summing up, it was a great conference, full of life and inspirational ideas and I especially enjoyed the hearty singing rather than people mumbling into their hymn books!
Mike Mellor expounded several chapters in Exodus under the banner, the making of a servant of God, obviously referring to Moses. He paralleled the situation in Egypt with today’s society. The Egyptians no longer recognised what a blessing it was to have the people of God in their midst. Egypt was a place of self-reliance which made the people greedy and ultimately sick. Prosperity deadens the heart to spiritual things. We tend to look for approval in all the wrong places when we should be looking to God in a godless age.
We should have compassion for people in their emptiness. People around us are hopeless and helpless. The masses are living lives of quiet desperation. But, God’s timing is perfect. He was bringing the people to the end of their tether so they would feel the bitterness of sin and desire to escape it. The darkest hour is just before the dawn. Pharaoh’s actions exemplify the futility of fighting against God. When Pharaoh was doing his worst, God was about to do his best. What will it take to awaken the church in Britain?
Persecution serves only to strengthen the people of God. It’s prosperity not persecution that will kill us. You can’t bind the church or silence the Gospel. We shouldn’t be praying for an easier life but to be strong men and women of God. We need to be people of courage and confidence not cowering in a corner. God says He will honour those who honour Him.
The trials in our lives are not wasted (Romans 8 vs 28). God had to chisel away at Moses so that his power could be displayed through him rather than him being self reliant. It was a lesson in vulnerability when the bottom dropped out of his life. God has ways of bringing us down to size especially through our families. When things happen that we don’t understand we must trust the nature of God. There are no short-cuts in the work of God. God’s power is made perfect in weakness. Men have no taste for God’s power until they have need of it (Calvin). The place of failure will eventually be the place of victory.
When we are groaning, suddenly God breaks through. Moses had been in the desert with no hope and no sense of God for 40 long years. Then, he sees the burning bush in the middle of another dreary day and his whole life changes. Fire brings light into a dark world; the burning wrath of God and the blazing love of God.
He finished with a challenging quotation (and the poem at the end):
“I have thought, I am a creature of a day, passing through life as an arrow through the air. I am a spirit come from God, and returning to God: just hovering over the great gulf; till, a few moments hence, I am no more seen; I drop into an unchangeable eternity! I want to know one thing the way to heaven; how to land safe on that happy shore. God Himself has condescended to teach the way; for this very end He came from heaven. He hath written it down in a book. O give me that book! At any price, give me the book of God!”
(John Wesley)
Prayer Points for the Open Air Mission
1. More full-time workers, particularly young(er) men but also the right men who will remain in the mission.
2. Large areas of the country have no associates and no open air work. The Gospel needs to be taken to the streets everywhere.
3. For more churches to partner in the open air work and catch the vision for it. There are some areas where churches have been able to take over the work of a missioner freeing them up to go elsewhere. However, there are still churches/church leaders who don’t see the need for/don’t agree with this work.
4. For more supporters to join teams and the missioners on their daily patches.
5. For wisdom in appointing a new General Secretary for the office.
6. For the ongoing work of OAM; their current workers, families, regular open airs, team events, beach missions and Bible exhibitions….
“When I am dying how glad I shall be
That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee.
I shall be glad in whatever I gave,
Labour, or money, one sinner to save;
I shall not mind that the path has been rough,
That Thy dear feet led the way is enough.
When I am dying how glad I shall be,
That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee!”
Author unknown
That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee.
I shall be glad in whatever I gave,
Labour, or money, one sinner to save;
I shall not mind that the path has been rough,
That Thy dear feet led the way is enough.
When I am dying how glad I shall be,
That the lamp of my life has been blazed out for Thee!”
Author unknown
