I don’t honestly know how St John’s Church in Walmley came across me, but they got in touch and invited me to come and speak at their church weekend away – their first church weekend for almost two decades! When I got there and was introduced to the team the vicar Aide Evans and I realised that we had in fact met years and years ago and after a chat we eventually worked out that we had been in the Boys Brigade together! He recalled that I had once tried to teach him how to play the bugle! I don’t remember that at all, but I did remember being in the youth with him at Westside Church in South London and that was the last time I saw him until this weekend!
I was asked if I could adapt the material on evangelism-training I had delivered at the last Word Alive Conference, for a church setting. And that was really interesting because doing that in a church-setting went really, really well – the folks from Walmley were really engaged, involved and enjoyed the sessions and that is obviously a joy when you are the speaker. Each of the four sessions over the three days lasted 75 minutes, so that gave me plenty of time to open up the topics, and then for discussion and Q&A too. Everytime we opened it up for discussion, the volume went the roof in the room, such was the enthusiasm and energy they brought to every session.
The Q&A was interesting too – and one of the highlights for me was the teenager who brought a huge list of questions to work through. We did the first few in the meeting, but there were so many more I was invited to sit with her family at the next meal so that we could continue working through her list! One unique question in there was ‘Do you think there is a problem with big-gig culture, like Taylor Swift etc. Doesn’t it smack of idolatry? Should Christian go?’ What an insightful question about youth culture from that age group, I thought! So it was really encouraging to meet a teenager who was really, really through-through in her faith and seeking to faithfully contextualise it in her own culture.
Walmsley itself is a suburb of Birmingham really, out to the North East of the city towards Sutton Coldfield. The weekend I spent with them wasn’t there though, it was in Staffordshire, at a beautiful Christian conference centre called Cloverley Hall – which is in a lovely Victorian mansion. With the lovely environment and the enthusiasm of the congregation, it was just a joyous weekend.
