Discipleship

Bev Webb, of City Life Church in Southampton, writes about her experience of taking 'not-yet-believers' on mission trips to Thailand:

Jesus came and told his disciples:

'I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. Therefore go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'

I have been asked to share something of our experience of discipleship both locally and overseas hopefully as an encouragement to us.

When God led our family to Southampton in 1993 he told me I would find the church of my dreams, or I would make it so. After being here a couple of years our church experienced great difficulties and had to rebuild. At that time I felt God urged me to think about what the church of my dreams looked like. Having come out of London, a cosmopolitan place, and having previously worked in an inner London secondary school in Hammersmith that was made up of 40% white children, 40% West Indian children and 20% from many different nations, the first thing I knew about the church of my dreams was that it was multicultural. But at that time Southampton, apart from the Asian community, seemed very lacking in the nations, and I didn't even have a passport myself!

Not long after that, and in fear and trepidation, I made my first trip to Thailand as part of a team. We were going to visit and work among children who had been rescued from brothels in Bangkok and among tribal refugees from Burma who had fled ethnic cleansing in their country and who were hiding out and working on farms in N. Thailand.

As I went, everyone back at home was left praying and fasting that God would deliver me from the bugs, the toilets, the food, the heat, the emotional breakdown at the stories and the suffering of the people I would be meeting. I was part of a team of eleven which included my neighbour and friend who was not a believer, but who came to give me moral support and who proved to be a vital asset to the team as a trained GP. While I made paper snakes on sticks and elephant masks with refugee children, she gave all the babies a complete heath check and the adults in the villages a thorough overhaul. She was also amazingly touched by God, as was I! Since that time I have taken teams to Thailand twice a year and in April I leave with 23 others, including a Sikh lady, to revisit these communities who have become my friends.

On almost every team I have taken not-yet believers. All have been touched by God and would no longer deny his existence or the effects of Christian love on needy communities, and at least five have become Christians through the experience. I have also seen the faith of long-standing slightly jaded believers become reawakened and young people really impacted and envisioned. I began to see from this that maybe discipleship is about taking those who do not yet believe with us on the journey as we serve others. Thailand has proven to be the easiest thing to talk about to others, and my dentist, my local nurse and pharmacist, my other neighbours, and hairdresser have either already been or are lined up to come or are wanting to help in some way! My local newsagent, who is Sikh, is collecting magazines for the Christian prisoner I write to, held on a false drugs charge in a Bangkok jail, so that I can post them to him when I'm there. Some people who I met while working on Winchester market on Fridays last year would always let me keep the change from getting their teas and lunches, telling me to put it towards a gift for those in Thailand; one gave a percentage of their Christmas sale towards the same cause. What I have come to realize is that people in the world want to be counted in when we are trying to make a difference to those less fortunate than ourselves.

This was also borne out when about nine months ago I began volunteering at the Community Café New Community Church run every Sunday tea-time for the street homeless or the vulnerably housed. One of the first helpers I met there is a biker who says he's an atheist but who appreciates the help Jesus gave people and would like to do the same. My friend and I are now doing an exploring Christianity with him and his friend, which has involved trips on their Harleys to biker's pubs in the New Forest and sitting there talking about Jesus and Money, Sex and Power! Since we spent time getting to know our biker friend he has brought numerous volunteers to the café and most weeks we are being introduced to some new biker with skull embossed leathers or a pierced, dreadlocked young man or woman with exotic names! Ex prisoners and working girls have also asked to help and it is brilliant! They want to join in with us as we feed and befriend people even though they have no church connection or interest as yet. But when they are there and overhearing the prayers at the start or observing the kindness and hard work of the teams they are being touched by God. These are the disciples God is giving us - they're just not quite yet saved but they are on their way!

My husband's small group began cooking for the café on a monthly basis, something which has revolutionized them! When we went to our neighbours, who own a local restaurant, to ask if they had a good pudding recipe which would go a long way, they offered to come along too. They now come along with Clive and his team every month they can.

When as a church we recently did a 2-week mission on a local estate, the people who were touched and saved were not those we visited door to door or those who streets we cleaned or whose gardens we cleared, they were those who joined our teams. A health visitor who helped us run a healthy lunch, a young dysfunctional lad who used it as work experience, and his teacher when she saw the impact on him, and a young offender who joined the garden teams.

Sunday Adelaja, a Nigerian pastoring the largest European church, encourages us to envision our people to transform nations saying:

'When Christians make church the focal point of their lives and ministry, they burn each other like an over-salted dish and blind each other like a room full of spotlights.'

I think there is truth in his saying, and we must see our people scattered about and influencing cities and nations if we are to see God's Kingdom and Body grow. On an individual note a scripture is living with me at this time from Zechariah 8:

In those days ten people from nations and languages around the world will clutch at the hem of one believer's robe. And they will say 'please let us walk with you, for we have heard God is with you.'

I think this is what God is saying about discipleship home and abroad. Of course God has also added the nations to us here in Southampton, since it became a designated city for refugees in 2000 and since doors were opened to the Polish and others, so as we give ourselves to the poor and disadvantaged particularly, the as-yet-unsaved will come with us and find him as they see God and his people at work!