What to Expect if you Join an Open-Air Mission Team

I’ve recently returned from Lincoln Christmas Market (LCM) having served on an Open-Air Mission (OAM) team. I’ve written about the experience before here, but as that was in 2017, five years ago, I thought it would be good to bring things up to date. My friends find it amusing that although I've been on this mission four times now, I've never actually visited the market itself.

This time, I travelled with an enthusiastic new(ish) believer from my church who had been praying about getting more involved in open-air work. The main thing she had been told by multiple people was to make sure she brought sufficient clothing as LCM is usually freezing!

Arriving at TCM Baptist Church on Thursday in the late afternoon, we met the rest of the team who were all men, apart from two ladies cooking for us. There were some younger men this time though as the mission has taken on some new evangelists.

The eldest team member, in his early eighties, who sadly lost his wife fairly recently, arrived with two giant suitcases, a massive rucksack, a trolley and a carrier bag. People may laugh, but various items from his extensive luggage have come in handy over the years, or so I’m told.

We had dinner together, then a short team meeting before heading to Lincoln Evangelical Church for their weekly Bible study and prayer meeting. Then, the men bedded down in the church to endure each other’s snoring, whilst the two of us headed to a church member’s house for comparative luxury, at least that’s how the men saw it judging by some comments the following day.

Breakfast the next day, then another team meeting with a Bible study and prayer time. The book table literature was explained to us including some items in foreign languages.

Two of the men volunteered to head to the market stalls with the OAM year planners. The oldest man kept volunteering but pointed out that he would need to get the bus to get there. The team leader looked a tad concerned that this dear man might not make it back again if he did go up the hill and thankfully there were enough volunteers that this unnecessary risk wasn’t necessary.

A slight debate about why the market traders want the calendars which are essentially a black and white grid with a small Bible verse on the bottom, and the OAM logo at the top. No pictures or colour. A few admitted they were also baffled by the popularity of the pretty uninspiring gifts.

Ready to go, we all begin layering up; thermals, gloves, hats, scarves, fleeces, and big coats over the top of everything. I ended up wearing five pairs of socks as memories of previous LCM’s got the better of me.

We no doubt looked ridiculous as our motley crew headed out dressed for the Arctic. It’s amazing how cold it gets when you’re just standing around rather than moving from stall to stall, or shop to shop. Don’t join an OAM team if you’re at all concerned about your appearance as these things go straight out of the window.

Facing the annoyance of the railway crossing, where despite the option to cross the footbridge, most people wait for anything up to twenty minutes for multiple trains to pass. There was also some buzz about a steam train which never seemed to materialise. Everyone was craning their necks to get a look at the elusive machine, but after a lengthy wait, the barriers opened without the anticipated sighting which made some people very angry!

Then, a Romanian woman, kneeling in the cold street with a sign, “I’m hungry” and a small cup. We tried to talk to her, but her English was poor. She said she had a house. I gave her a sausage roll then wondered afterwards if she was Muslim and would be unable to eat it. Several other people stopped and tried to help; one man told her to get up as he was distressed that she was kneeling on the floor. He then put £20 in her pot and, a few seconds later, someone else put £10 in. She was there the whole time we were in Lincoln, even kneeling in the rain, and we had to keep passing her to get to and from the church. There was nothing we could do not being local but knowing that people were being generous helped us to continue to our destination. Cynically, she may have been a professional beggar, but it’s better to give people the benefit of the doubt.

There was an NHS kiosk and a busker where we usually set up in the main street, so we moved further along. The guys set up the open-air board and one of them began preaching. The large book table was set up nearby.

After a while, one of the team suggested I might need to rescue my friend who was being preached at. I turned around to see a lively debate taking place. I sidled over to discreetly listen. A little lady was excitably quoting from her phone containing a version of the Bible. My friend was listening politely having identified that this lady was a Jehovah’s Witness. She told the lady that her version of the Bible was different, but the lady wasn’t listening. Seeing that the conversation wasn’t progressing, I joined them and after a bit of back and forth, I informed her that she was deceived and was misleading people. At this point, she left. It’s good to try and talk to JW’s as we have seen some converted, but if they are not open to hearing the truth, they can waste our time.

I didn’t need to rescue my friend again as she knows her stuff, although I did keep an eye on a conversation she ended up in with a young man who, after a few minutes, was gazing at her and hanging on her every word. Usually, we try to start conversations with people of the same gender but, if you are giving out leaflets, you can’t refuse to talk to someone if they start talking to you, so it can be unavoidable. Introducing them to a guy on the team usually does the trick if it becomes awkward! 

There were some really good discussions taking place. Our team leader chatted with a man who said he had lost everyone during Covid 19 and that a Christian had previously tried to talk to him. He felt he had squandered his opportunity to hear by ignoring that preacher and was now determined to listen. He said he would go home and read the Gospel of John straight away.

 I spoke to a lady and her mother. The mother was a spiritualist. The younger lady became more and more interested as the Gospel was explained. She then said, “Oh, I think I need to get a Bible.” I was able to give her part of the Bible and literature to read. Another girl from Laos said that she had heard bits of the Christian message from friends but didn’t really understand. She too was given literature and seemed keen to read it after I had explained the Gospel. Also, a couple who said they were new to the area but seemed interested in attending the church were given details and encouraged to do so.

There were also those who stopped and half-heartedly engaged but weren’t really interested. A small group with one girl who said she came from a pagan background and wasn’t religious. Nevertheless, they listened to a Gospel explanation but remained entrenched in their apathy towards Jesus.

During this period, we had lunch back at the church where we were teased for buying hot snacks from Greggs, rather than relying on the sandwiches.

After lunch, another couple, the guy saying that he often heard a street preacher in Grimsby and considered himself a Christian. I asked what he thought the main message of Christianity was based on what he had heard. “To be a good person,” he said thoughtfully. I explained why this wasn’t right and wondered who he had been listening to.

It was pointed out later, in our team chat, that it may have been that he was hearing what he wanted to hear rather than the street preacher having said the wrong thing. Spiritual blindness is a strange entity. I’ve explained the Gospel to someone multiple times before, emphasising that it’s not through good works that we are saved, only for the person to say that they are going to try their best at the end of the discussion.

 Then, a heckler. The preacher had just quoted John 3 vs 16 when a passing man stopped in his tracks. He said “What if I don’t want eternal life? I’m not enjoying my life now; I’d rather be dead.” To his credit, the preacher recognised this as a genuine heart cry and with compassion explained the alternatives of Heaven and Hell as a final destination. The man engaged for quite a while before refusing literature and further conversation, but he had been offered hope in his dark situation.

We packed up at around 4pm and headed back to the church for dinner and another team time where we shared the various contacts we had had and prayed for them.

Then, the heat pads I had brought suddenly became very popular as we headed back out for the evening stint. They were shared around, especially amongst the older folks, and provided some welcome relief from the cold.

Setting up in the same place as earlier in the day, we observed a number of drunk people around. One woman, carrying a bottle of wine, came and stood directly in front of the board and began interrupting the preacher with questions. I attempted to move her into a one-to-one conversation, but her partner was also there, and then another man, seemingly high on something and unaware that his trousers were falling down, randomly appeared and standing next to the preacher kept interrupting him as well. I managed to signal to a few of the guys that I would talk to the lady if they could keep the two men at bay.

The lady began telling me terrible details about her tragic life. When we moved on to the Gospel, she suddenly said really loudly to her partner who was standing a fair distance away, “Here, this woman says that I’m not a Christian because I’ve been christened, she keeps saying that a Christian is someone who has been forgiven of their sin through Jesus or something. That’s not right though, is it?” I felt a little embarrassed as everyone turned to look at me as this lady indignantly accused me of offending her.

We continued talking after she calmed down. She kept saying, “I really want to hear this,” but then only listening to parts of what I said because she was drunk. She did tell the other guy to go away though when he tried to join the conversation. In the end, I gave her a Gospel of John and a leaflet and told her to read them the next day when she was sober. She knew what I meant and gave me a hug as she went back to her partner.

Later, one of the team that had been talking to her partner said that when she came over to them, she said that it was the first time anyone had told her that she wasn’t a Christian just because she had been christened. So, at least that was something!

During this exchange, a large group of youths had gathered around the board as well as some other people. There was a discussion taking place and many took leaflets to read. My friend had a profitable chat with three girls, a Muslim, an atheist and someone from a religious background. They all took Gospels away.

9pm couldn’t come quickly enough by this point at it was very very cold. We headed back to the church for a quick meeting before departing to our beds.

 Day two, a little colder and there was some rain about.

Almost immediately, after we had set up, a girl hesitated as she walked past the preacher. I asked her what she thought of what was being said and she swore in her response. I asked her why she felt like this and she told me that she had been hurt by the church. She had been very hostile initially, but I encouraged her to remember that the church is not God, and that it is made up of sinners. She seemed to soften. She didn’t like the idea that babies were born sinful, but I pointed out that she wasn’t a baby, and it was more important to focus on her own standing before God. She didn’t say much more, but at the end of the conversation when I gave her a Gospel of John, she offered me her hand to shake and then gave me a hug!

Later, after lunch, where both myself and my friend had been ushered into what can only be described as a professional recording studio, to be interviewed on camera about our OAM experience, I was interviewed again by one of the men in the open air. This time, for details of my conversion. I saw some ladies listening at the back of the group as I was asked an interesting question. The team leader highlighted that I had travelled a lot and lived in various cultures with other religions. In light of this, he asked why I had chosen Christianity. I said that it was the only faith that offered me an eternal home in Heaven. Of course, afterwards, I realised that the main reason is because I believe it is the truth, but sometimes when we are on the spot we focus on another aspect.

After this, a small group of children were told to listen to my story, about dealing with addiction, by our team leader. We spoke to them afterwards, but they were joined by some friends who were a bit disruptive. They all ended up taking Gospels of John away in any event and promising not to just throw them away.

We then had a mini carol service with people from the churches we were connected to. I hadn’t been looking forward to this as I had memories of half-hearted and out of tune singing with about ten people in the rain. However, this time there were around thirty people from the churches, who could sing, the rain was only light, and many people joined in. I even heard part-singing from one direction, a definite first for the OAM team!

I spoke to two ladies who had been singing with us afterwards. They handed me the carol sheet and thanked us for having the service. The one lady was saying how great it was that we were out singing in the street at Christmas.

It’s always an awkward moment as they’ve enjoyed the entertainment, but I know that somehow, I have to turn the conversation to the Gospel. I asked them if they were Christians. The lead lady said, “Yes, I’m a Catholic.” She started speaking about God and love and how all God wants is for us to be happy. I gently challenged this which led to a Gospel discussion. The lady seemed to be born again but was lacking assurance in her salvation. I pointed her to various promises in the Bible to encourage her. She kept saying that she wasn’t worthy of Heaven. I responded that none of us are, but that Jesus is and that is why He died for us. She finally said that she didn’t want to be in Heaven if her loved ones who had gone before were in Hell. She was focusing on trying to move them out of Purgatory. I explained that Purgatory doesn’t exist, and we talked through the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. Her friend listened quietly to our friendly discussion which was becoming quite passionate as I really wanted this lady to have assurance. She took a copy of The Unique Jesus, and I gave her friend a Gospel of John. The first lady gave me a big hug (my third of the two days!) and the second one shook my hand and thanked me for speaking to them.

Heading back to the church for the final time, we chatted about the mission. My friend had really enjoyed it, “Phew”. There’s always a fear that someone who is keen will be put off and never want to be involved in open-air work again. I remembered that after my first OAM team, I went home re-energised and wanting to do more evangelism, but you never know how someone else will react.

Discussing homeward journeys over dinner, someone mentioned a train strike and I realised that the only way to ensure our oldest team member got home in one piece was if I took him and all his luggage in my small car. Fortunately, another team member, with slightly more muscle for carrying bags, who was also concerned about the strike, opted to come with us. We therefore squashed four lots of luggage in my car before heading for the North.

Having dropped the two guys off in Leeds and Manchester, myself and my friend were sleepily chatting about the mission as we made our way back to Rochdale.

Suddenly, an unfamiliar ring tone from the backseat. Our Liverpudlian friend had left his phone, presumably with his train ticket on it in my car. Praying that he wouldn’t end up bedded down at Manchester Piccadilly, I decided it was tomorrow’s problem as each day has enough trouble of its own.

I told my friend that having endured the cold at the OAM Lincoln team event, she should now be ready for anything. The conversations I've mentioned here are mostly ones that I personally had but all of the team had opportunities. The Gospel was shared with many lost souls. 

Why don't you join an OAM team event in 2023 and reach out with the saving message of hope in Jesus?

10 Reasons I Am a Christian and You Should Be Too!

Maybe when you see a title like this you feel irritated, annoyed or even angry. Who am I to be telling you what you should believe? What gives me the right to suggest that every person needs to become a Christian? What about other religions? Or a combination of these and other questions.

The truth is, I have no right (apart from God's command), and my plea for you to consider Jesus has nothing to do with my believing that I’m in any way better than anyone reading this. We are all the same. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfect standards. We are all in need of a remedy for that broken relationship with God.

The good news of the Bible, that Jesus died on the cross for our sin making a way for us to receive forgiveness, peace with God, and a permanent home in Heaven, is available to ANYONE who will repent of their sin and trust Him. Repentance is a complete change of mind and direction from living for ourselves and what we want to do, to following Jesus as Saviour and Lord.

This message is urgent as we are not guaranteed tomorrow. The loving thing for me to do is to tell you so that you too might be saved.

It is with this in mind that I ask you to consider these reasons:

1. I believe Christianity is exclusively true. Jesus said, “I am the way the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through Me.” This statement should silence those who believe all religions lead to God, or that you can pick and choose bits of one and then another. It’s either a true statement or it’s false. My believing it doesn’t make it true, but there is plenty of evidence that it is.

Rather than being a faith I have just accepted because of my cultural roots, my parents, or a label I have had since birth. I became a Christian in my early twenties having wandered far from God for many years.

2. I don’t want to end up in Hell. I have listed this before speaking about Heaven because personally it was a greater motivation for me in coming to faith.

Many Bible characters, including Jesus, warned about Hell being eternal, conscious torment, facing the wrath and justice of an angry God towards unrepentant sinners. A place where people will want to die but won’t be able to. We are told to flee from the wrath to come.

Thankfully, Jesus has made a way for us to do this and, believing the warnings, I took it.

3. I want to go to Heaven. In the Bible, Heaven is described as a place with no sin, suffering, sickness, pain or death. We are told that no one can imagine the amazing things that God has prepared for those who love Him. Christians will be there forever with God.

Heaven is not a worldly place full of carnal lusts like the Muslim’s paradise. It does not celebrate sinful vices as we tend to do on Earth. Nor is it a boring place with people sitting on clouds playing harps as some seem to imagine. Finally, it is not too crowded as someone else surmised.

Heaven will be perfect like the world was meant to be in the beginning before humans rebelled against God.

4. The meaninglessness of life/purposelessness of life as a non-Christian. I’m not a Christian purely because I was lacking purpose and meaning in my life. However, being a Christian has given me both.

Prior to my conversion, I was seeking satisfaction and happiness, perhaps fulfilment, in worldly things; vices, relationships, career, material things, money. I ended up realising these things were empty and meaningless by themselves which led to hopelessness. It was also a very selfish way to be living and I was troubled by guilt because of my sin.

5. Receiving forgiveness of my sin- past, present and future, and peace with God. On becoming a Christian, I clearly remember that my biggest emotion was a sense of relief. Relief that I was no longer at war with God, no longer running from God, no longer at risk of Hell. I felt an immediate sense of peace knowing that all of my sin had been forgiven and that I couldn’t lose my salvation which had been secured by Jesus on the cross.

Then, I wanted to live a life that pleased God out of gratitude to Him for rescuing me.

6. Jesus changed my life. I’ve spoken briefly about vices but some of these were deeply ingrained. I had tried hard to deal with them myself and was unable to. It was only when I recognised that they were sins against God which had become idols in my life, and asked for God’s help, that I was able to be rid of lifestyle sins that had plagued me for years.

In time, I found that I no longer wanted to do these things and, whilst I have to be careful with some things, others are no longer a temptation for me. I have seen others trapped in these vices and been able to help them because Jesus helped me.

7. Creation makes sense of the evidence. I’ve never believed in the Big Bang or the theory of Evolution. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. I’m a logical thinker. I’m often astonished when talking to people far more intelligent than I am, who seem to have swallowed the evolutionary nonsense, hook, line and sinker, despite all of the flaws in the theory, and the much more plausible alternative.

How do people explain the conscience, the soul, our wills, feelings and emotions? Also, the irreducible complexity of things created which have obviously been intelligently designed? The Bible tells us that people are without excuse for rejecting God because His Hand can be clearly seen in Creation.

8. The Bible is factually reliable. There is a lot that could be said here. I’ve never had an issue with accepting the supernatural in the Bible because if God created everything then He can do whatever He wants.

A few of the main evidences are that there are hundreds of specific prophecies in the Old Testament that came true thousands of years later in the New Testament. There were many witnesses to Jesus' life, death and even His resurrection. The tomb was empty. The disciples went from being timid and afraid to associate with Jesus when He was arrested and killed, to boldly proclaiming that He had risen from the dead. Most of them lost their lives for their stance.

Additionally, there are plenty of facts from sources outside the Bible that confirm its reliability. Facts about the Geography of the area, the language used at the time, the names of people etc.

We know that the Bible hasn’t been changed as we have the Dead Sea Scrolls and eyewitness testimonies from the time.

9. God answers specific prayer. I know of people who have had supernatural experiences including someone who asked God to switch a TV off if He was really there. Imagine the terror when it actually happened!

Though I haven’t personally experienced anything supernatural, I have seen answers to prayer that cannot be explained away. When I was first saved, I prayed for an opportunity to speak to a group of lads that were smoking drugs on my train. I was so stunned when it happened, and was initiated by the lads, who were being chased by train security at the time, that I was almost lost for words!

10. God orders circumstances. We need to be careful about reading things into our circumstances especially when seeking guidance. But there have been several times in my life where circumstances have miraculously come together to give me the confidence to move forward in faith.

A major example was when I was seeking God about heading to the mission field, but I had a mortgage. God used my lodgers, who weren’t Christians at the time, to provide for me for the next seven years. Even my lodgers said that it felt as if things were being taken out of their hands and they later became Christians. This type of intervention gives me confidence in my faith knowing that God works things for good for those who love Him.

I could add a section dealing with the fact that Christianity works but experiences are subjective and can often be explained away. If you do want to look into this aspect, there is a good series on this YouTube page every Saturday night called Real Lives that tells individual stories of lives changed through becoming Christians. There are millions more around the world with similar stories from the mundane to the miraculous. Jesus does change lives, but this doesn’t mean that all of your problems will disappear, or that Christianity will make your life easier. My life got a lot harder when I became a Christian.  

I’m not going to mention that the Bible is the world’s best-selling book, or that Christianity is the largest world religion. Muslims often ask why, if Christianity is true, Islam is the fastest growing religion. These facts are largely irrelevant as many people who think they are Christians are just born in a “Christian” country but have no faith to speak of. Likewise, anyone born in a Muslim majority country is automatically classed as a Muslim even if they convert to another religion. A lady I know who converted to Christianity from Islam is still repeatedly told that she is Muslim by her neighbours because her father was a Muslim despite her being a member of a Christian church!

The Bible says that "narrow is the way that leads to life, and few will find it and that broad is the road that leads to destruction with many on it." This immediately makes a nonsense of any statistics regarding religious adherence. We all know also that people can be sincerely wrong, and that the majority are not always right.

These are some of the reasons I am a Christian. I’m praying that if you really think about these things, you’ll realise that you too should become a Christian for “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

Inside the Mind of a Prodigal

In Christian circles most, if not all, people know the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke chapter 15. This story is especially useful in our current day. It proves that the Bible is not only relevant but can be applied directly to people’s lives thousands of years after it was written. This could only be possible if the Bible was written by a God who knew the future.

The story also proves that humanity, with all its celebrated progress, doesn’t change. We are still the same weak creatures falling victim to the same temptations over and over again. The devil doesn’t need to change his strategy because we still succumb to his original one.

In brief, the prodigal son demanded, then squandered, his inheritance on wild living until he reached the point where he was penniless and desperate to eat pig food because of the gnawing hunger. Eventually, he came to his senses and returned to his father requesting a position as a household servant. Instead, his father forgave and reinstated him. The story is a picture of God’s patience as we wallow in our sin, and His mercy and forgiveness when we reach the point of repentance.

You may think the idol here was money, but it was actually the things and experiences money could buy. The son was dissatisfied with his life and thought the grass would be greener on the other side. He thought he could find satisfaction in the pleasures of the world, and he probably did, for a while. His happiness, though, was always going to be temporary because our sinful appetites are never satisfied.

I love the NIV rendering of the key verse and turning point in this parable: “When he came to his senses….” This verse tells us that all that had gone before was senseless but it had taken a crisis point in the young man’s life for him to realise it. He had his head buried in the sand as he languished in the consequences of his sin, but there came what we might call a “light-bulb moment”.

I was a prodigal, once. I don’t recommend it. Prodigals are tortured souls.

The difference between those who have made professions of faith and wandered away from the truth, and those who have never heard the truth is stark.

The ever present knowledge that God exists and that one day you will appear before Him as Judge. The restlessness of knowing you can never be completely happy without God and that you will have to return to Him…one day. The desperate search for satisfaction in all manner of things to prove that life without God is possible, and preferable. The desire to enjoy worldly experiences without that nagging twinge of conscience. The gradual distancing from Christian family, friends and church, due to guilt. The anger when people presume to judge your lifestyle. The terror of going to a very real place called Hell, forever.

I could go on, but I think you get the point.

Romans 1 tells us that everyone knows that God exists because He has created them with that knowledge and they can see it in creation. The difference for a prodigal is that they know that they know. They can’t find safety in the crowds of agnostics and atheists because they know that they are lying to themselves. Perhaps, they refuse to talk about religion and avoid the subject altogether, for a limited time. A prodigal is consciously suppressing the truth about God which leads to a lack of peace and turmoil in the soul.  

Maybe, if no one prayed for you, God would leave you alone. Unlikely, because God cares for you much more than the prayer warriors. It’s one thing, though, that you can’t stop people doing, and trust me when I say that they will be doing it. Your parents, relatives and former church friends are praying, and will continue to pray, until you come to your senses and return to the Father who is patiently waiting for you.

Looking back, I can’t believe I spent those six years attempting to run from God. It was all so empty and meaningless. I shudder now at the risks I took each day as I gambled with my life and presumed upon God’s patience and grace. I could have lost my life many times either through recklessness, or through one of the many accidental tragedies that occur every day around the world, one of which took my younger brother during my period of backsliding. Then, where would I be? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

When I came to my senses, the overwhelming feeling was of gratitude and relief; I was grateful that I was no longer carrying my many sins because Jesus had paid for them on the cross, and relieved that I was finally at peace with God. I was no longer at risk of a lost eternity in Hell but had Heaven to look forward to.

Are you a prodigal? Are the brief and passing attractions of the world really worth risking your eternal soul?

Mark 8 vs 36

“For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

Where Will You Spend Eternity?

The craziness of Christmas is over and we are already into a new year. Was Christmas everything you hoped it would be? Were the celebrations as exciting as you wanted? Did you enjoy the time with family and friends, and was it peaceful? How about the food, are you suffering still from the over-indulgence, or was it as good as you were expecting? Did the children’s wishes come true? What about the gifts, did you get everything you asked for? Did the presents satisfy you?

Do you feel tired as you head back to work? How will you make next Christmas better than the one before? Do you feel exhausted just thinking about it?

My Christmas was disrupted by a stark reminder of the frailty of human life; a member of my extended family was rushed to hospital where she remains in critical condition. Our plans for Christmas were swiftly changed as the lady’s direct family rushed to her bedside.

Suddenly, things were in perspective; a husband could lose his wife, a son his mother and small children their “Granny.” The material celebrations were pushed to one side as everyone rallied round. We made our way to church praying for God’s will but hoping for a miracle. Phones were constantly being checked and the bleep of a text message took on new significance.

This week, in the UK, we have seen news reports of an eighteen year old, with her whole life ahead of her, struck down and killed by the flu virus. Reports in The Daily Mail suggest that flu deaths have soared by 77% in a week.

The inquest into another eighteen year old girl’s death is also being reported. This young lady died after suffering a fatal reaction to a burger. She had known allergies and had told the waiter about them. The response from the restaurant to this investigation was interesting. When asked what ‘lessons they had learned’ and what they would be doing differently in future. They basically said that everything was already in place to prevent this type of tragedy and they didn’t plan to change anything…

I’m sure the restaurant will end up with findings against them and they likely have been negligent. However, the point to note is that regardless of the lessons learned or things that are put in place, needless and preventable deaths will continue to occur. The restaurant staff have just responded in a way that doesn’t sit comfortably with those who believe we should be able to make the UK 100% safe, by some unspecified date in the future.

Assuming that were even a vague possibility, what about the person who dies every 3 minutes from heart disease, the 5 people killed in road accidents every day, or the total of 1,500 people who die each day, in the UK alone? Can anyone legislate to prevent this or do anything else to stop it?

I’ve made the point before that it’s almost possible to overlook these morbid statistics until reality bites when someone we know is taken from us. Have you noticed how shell-shocked people seem when a violent crime or fire kills people in their village, or even their street? 

It’s the wake up call that it could happen to any one of us at any time. None of us is guaranteed tomorrow. Even if we take all of the precautions possible; never venture outside, never have contact with anyone else and live like a hermit. Death still comes eventually, and no one returns from the grave. The Bible tells us that: 

“It is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgement,” (Hebrews 9 vs 27.)

Why am I offering you this gloomy reminder at a time of year usually reserved for renewed hope as the resolutions are sincerely made? 

Our church leaflet for the year has a three word headline:

STOP AND THINK!

We live in a world corrupted by our sin and under God’s curse. The earth is slowly dying and we see the evidence all around us in people’s suffering. We cannot prevent every accident. We cannot predict or vaccinate people against every disease. We cannot really control anything about our lives, and our claims to be able to do so are out of touch with the reality. God maintains and controls everything and we are entirely dependent on His grace and mercy to us.

I’ve just finished a book, Heaven and Hell by Edward Donnelly. It is a terrifying reminder of the reality of hell for non-believers, but offers hope (certainty) of heaven for all who will put their trust in Jesus:

“Imprinted on human consciences is the uneasy awareness that beyond this life is a place of punishment for those who do wrong. It is so often denied not because it is unreasonable but because it is extremely unwelcome….Suppose the Bible had told us nothing about hell, not a single word about future judgement and condemnation. Would that make it a more loving book? Is concealing unpleasant reality an evidence of true caring? Not at all, just the opposite. People complain about God’s warnings when they should fall down on their knees and give thanks for them. It is in love and mercy that he warns us about hell, so that we may be delivered from it.

The most foolish aspect of all is that your everlasting damnation is unnecessary. For the Lord Jesus is pleading with you at this very moment. He is calling you to himself, commanding you to turn from the sin that brings only destruction. He is infinitely kind and gracious. If you ask him to be your saviour, he will receive and forgive you. He will wash you clean and make you safe forever, and you will be holy and happy, looking forward to an eternity of joy and glory in heaven. 

                                                                                                    ‘Today, if you will hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’ (Hebrews 4 vs 7.)”