I’m a mum with three children (7,6 and 3) and, like most mums I know, I’m bogged down with the minutiae of life and suffering from constant tiredness. Since having children, my prayer life and quiet times have been whittled down to a minimum, so the thought of evangelism wasn’t high on my agenda: getting though each day without a trip to the doctors or to A&E was! However, this all changed eight months ago when a new friend (not a Christian) of mine began to get interested (or maybe just concerned) about what the Christian School our children attended was teaching them about Jesus. She openly admitted that she was pretty ignorant and didn’t have the answers when her son asked her questions about God and Jesus. I knew this friend of mine would be unlikely to be able to make it to church on a Sunday or to an evening event due to the usual stuff that we are all plagued by – family commitments and husbands working long hours. I began to have a vision to run a Christianity Explored Course
Inviting people was one of the biggest challenges, but I was amazed at the responses and the conversations that were opened up. Don’t get me wrong: lots of people were not interested at all. Between us we must have personally invited well over 50 mums (about a quarter of the school), and out of that we had 20 positive responses from mums who wanted to come along, though on average at each meeting we had 14 mums. Some mums wanted to do the course, but couldn’t make it on the arranged day, so we’ve also done the course one-to-one with them instead, adapting the material as we’ve gone along. Whilst running the course, we were clearly being attacked by the Opposition: we had terrible weather, ice, fog, traffic jams, neighbouring houses crashed into, sick children and even a power cut just before we were about to show the DVD! However, God is more powerful and graciously overruled.
During the course it was amazing to see the lives of the mums being transformed right in front of our eyes. It was fantastic seeing the expression on a couple of mums’ faces when they understood for the first time what Grace was and that they could receive it! Towards the end of the course, we saw signs of New Life and a real hunger for the gospel, which is now beginning to bear fruit in them. The course also served to unite and encourage the Christian mums who came along, giving us all a greater sense of purpose and God’s purposes for us in our situations. All the mums are now signed up to do the follow-up Discipleship Explored course and we are planning to run another Christianity Explored next year.
As parents of school aged children, we inadvertently share our lives with fellow mums whilst dropping the children off, at the school gate etc. Let us not miss this opportunity to get alongside them, build relationships with them and tell them the great news of Jesus. As Paul would say, ‘Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God, but our lives as well’ (1 Thess 2:8). Be bold and go for it: what have you got to lose? Nothing – but someone might gain their life!
If you would like to do something similar, then I would be happy to share any advice I can: contact me through the web contact button-
Jo Edmond, an ordinary mum, Dorset.
