An Unlocking Inspired Story

One of the Activate Team was visiting Aberdeen last week and was delighted to hear this story shared from the platform of Deeside Christian Fellowship Church by Dawn Mitchell.

 

 

 

How can I, as a busy mum, use my sphere of influence to tell people about Jesus?

Last week my pastor said, “it is supremely important to remember our mission – to affect the culture of the people we are around”. Jesus said ‘Go and make disciples of all nations”…… that means us! You and Me!

My heart is in evangelising on the doorstep (and by that I don’t mean knocking on doors). For me, it is more about using every opportunity to share with those around me about my faith in as gentle a way as I can.

Sometimes you don’t need words and it is simple acts of kindness, being there for someone who needs a good listening ear, cooking a meal or showing grace and helping out in any way I can. You are probably all thinking…. Oh we have heard all about this before.

But the difference for me is that when I really pray intentionally for God to give me opportunities to talk to people about Him, then look out…. That is exactly what He does….. Why wouldn’t he open up windows of opportunities? After all we are called to build His kingdom, so if we need help doing that… then God is the best person to ask.

I feel really blessed that God gives me many bite sized Kingdom moments in my week…. If I’m going somewhere, meeting friends for coffee/lunch, going to the hairdressers, or even anyone at all that I am helping, then I first pray (intentionally) – “God, if you want me to talk about you today, then please open up the conversation and give me the right words that you want me to use.” I’ve even talked to my window cleaner, painters and decorators and invited them to church events. It just keeps getting easier!

Sometimes, I get opportunities when I haven’t prayed and they are the ones that surprise me the most. I usually help out in school once a week and I had swapped my day for helping and ended up in the class with a mum I didn’t know. She was really keen to find out why I had joined her. I told her I needed to keep my Friday morning clear as I was running a course in my home, now as I said, I hadn’t prayed about this one so I wasn’t expecting her to come back at me asking questions. “What kind of course do you run?”, she asked. “Oh”, said I, “it’s an Alpha course”. “What’s an Alpha course?” she asked again?” By this time we were out of the class so we could talk more. I told her that Alpha was basically about exploring questions of life, like ‘Who is Jesus?’ and ‘How does God guide us?’ She asked me, “Do you know about things like that?” .Not sure whether or not to feel insulted, I said, “well, I like to think I do”. When we had finished for the afternoon we walked out of school together and she continued to ask me questions. We ended up talking for over an hour in the car park and I shared my testimony with her and we both ended up in tears. We parted ways and I felt really strange, I wasn’t sure what had just happened but I just prayed that God would be close to her and she would come back to me at some point in the future.

I haven’t always been this confident about doing this (in fact I would have been the last person to talk about my faith publicly) but the reason that I am much braver now I want to share with you in a minute. I call it my ‘Megabyte Kingdom moment’!

The Alpha Course is a real passion of mine and I have completed 7 Alpha courses in my home on Friday mornings all with ladies who are in my sphere of influence. I’ve done the Youth Alpha with my daughter and her friends on a Friday night and I’m hoping to take the course into the local academy and run it at lunchtimes. Alpha is such an easy resource to use. But this wasn’t just something that I woke up one morning and thought, oh I think I’ll run some alpha courses in my home! No, not me. This was a huge God prompting!!

After finishing the first Alpha course in my home I was quite pleased with myself at being obedient to God and I suppose I thought that I had ticked that box, but God had other plans.

The summer holidays were over, schools back in and I was taking time out to reflect and pray. My coffee, my notebook and Bible in hand, I headed up to my favourite place to be with God at the patio doors in my bedroom overlooking the garden.   I will say that I was a bit distracted as the house was a mess and my favourite place was covered with boxes and boxes as we’d been clearing out. As I began to close my eyes I noticed a book peeping out at me. “Unlocking the Door” by the Activate team.

I wasn’t exactly sure where it had came from but I started flicking through the first few pages as the title had grabbed me instantly. It talked all about witnessing to those around, inviting people into your home and perhaps running an Alpha course from your home.

I thought, been there done that and continued to read on. But it kept coming up about doorstep evangelism, running courses in your home and that was when I really felt God was trying to get me to listen to him.

So I started talking away to Him, “okay God, I’m not sure if this is you trying to tell me something or not, but you know what I’m like and I need things to be crystal clear or I need you to speak up just a bit louder and let me know what it is you want from me.”   So I decided to be really quiet and listen, I want you to let me know if you want me to run another Alpha course in my home?

I closed my eyes, quietened my heart and just meditated on God. Seven minutes of quiet were disturbed as my mobile phone vibrated with a text. I picked up my phone and read the message, it said,

“Hi Dawn, just wondering, are you going to be running another Alpha course in your home? If so, I really want to do it.”

I just started to laugh and I felt God was laughing with me, saying, “is that loud enough for you”?

And He wasn’t finished! One hour later I was in the playground at lunch time picking up my daughter and the mum from the classroom with all the questions, came over to me and tapped me on the shoulder “Dawn, you know that God course you talked to me about a few months ago,are you going to be doing another one”?      “Well, I am now!”

My week just continued like that, I never had to ask anyone to come on the course. And by the Friday God had 7 ladies ready and waiting. All I had to do was set the date!

So, I really want to encourage you, if I can do this, anyone can! Pray intentional prayers, pray for opportunities and put your whole trust in God and He will give us all kingdom moments.   We need to have faith in God’s sovereign power.