You might have noticed that during July we're running a whole bunch of different events from football to boardgames, crochet to a cèilidh.
It could leave you wondering if City on a Hill have just turned into a social club or event organising machine!
There is a very clear purpose to these events: Connection.
We hope and pray that these will present dozens and dozens of opportunities for our friends and family to make positive connections with our church whanau. We hope to overlap our worlds (church friends and non-church friends coming together) rather than keep them siloed and separate.
Dave Jensen, the mission pastor of a large evangelical and missionally effective church in Australia says this,
'The more non-Christian people connect with Christians and Christianity, the more likely they are to either want to look into what Christians believe, or respond positively to an invitation. Doing so also allows non-Christian people to feel comfortable asking questions and builds plausibility around the claims of the Bible.'
The aim of all these events isn't to have people finish by asking 'what must I do to be saved?!?' The aim is for connections to be established and relationships developed so that when we speak about Jesus in the future our guests are more likely to respond positively. They are now more familiar with a few church people and have had a positive experience with them so the gospel might seem that much more plausible or invitation less intimidating.
Our deep desire is for as many people as possible to come to know Jesus as their Lord and saviour.
In John's Gospel, when many of his followers were turning away from Jesus, Peter is able to see clearly that Jesus is the only hope. He says in John 6,
“Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and to know that you are the Holy One of God.”
We passionately want our friends and families to realise the same thing, that Jesus alone has the words of eternal life. And these connection events are one step towards that goal.
Grace and peace,
Andrew
eNews - 16th June 2023