Each month, the South Eastern Baptist Association’s News from the Networks page shares stories about what’s happening in churches across the association. In June 2022, it was the turn of Life Community Baptist Church, and the articles written by Pete is reproduced here.

Gatwick Network

Life Community Baptist Church

We’ve got lots to give thanks for at the moment, and it’s a blessing to witness God at work, planting seeds throughout our neighbourhood. We’ve seen God at work through people’s frontline mission fields – offices, schools, homes, cafes, school gates, hospital waiting rooms – all those everyday places where we have amazing opportunities to share faith through our words and our actions as whole life disciples of Jesus. It’s been wonderful to be able to visit the Phoenix Stoke Club on several occasions, with our singers and musicians leading them in afternoon singalong. We hire the Phoenix club on Sundays, so this literally is mission on our doorstep. The Phoenix is also one of site of Forest Secondary School, and our church family have recently baked cakes for all the staff, with offers of prayer and support during the exam season.

There’s also been lots of conversations throughout the church family, as we’ve been intently listening to one another, seeking new ways of being church that reflect who we are now as a church family. Flowing from these conversations, we’re moving towards a more flexible and mission focused approach to Sunday’s services, to help us engage with what God is already doing in this place. Over the summer, our service on the first Sunday of the month will transition to a menu of options, including table talk in local cafes, prayer walks around the neighbourhood and children’s activities in the local play park. In the autumn, our services on the third Sunday will move to the dining table, as we gather through a meal marked by welcome, sharing stories of God at work in people’s lives, and prayer. Our hope is that these will open up conversations in the community and make it easier to invite people we have relationships with through our frontline mission field.

Pray

Please do join with us in prayer by

• Thanking Jesus for his leading over the last year, and for the way God has already gone before us to prepare the way.
• Asking the Father to equip us through his Spirit, so that we can be bold whole life disciples in our everyday, missional frontlines.
• Thanking God for our new leadership team, and asking for his wisdom as we seek new ways of being church together
• Praying for our future, as we seek to embrace the adventure of mission with Jesus.
• Asking the Lord to provide the financial resources we need to journey together as church family.

Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and worship his holy name. Amen.