All Quiet on the Aussie Front...

You all might've noticed that StreetWar has gone rather quiet recently. That's my fault. But I pass a little of the blame to God (shades of Adam, eh?), because He's turned my life upside down recently. You might know, if you're darn good at remembering these things, that I had a miscarriage a couple of years ago. After that... nothing. No sign that my (or hubby's!) reproductive system was working the way you'd expect. Hmmmmmm. But I wasn't too worried, because God told me "Not this year". OK. So we got to my second birthday after the miscarriage, which also happened to be the date that the miscarried pregnancy would've been due (make sense?). I wasn't really looking forward to it - I'm not one for remembering sad anniversaries, but that one's hard to miss! The morning after, I got a positive pregnancy test. A few hours later, bleeding - and an early miscarriage. Oh, man! I did a fair bit of praying, because I had NO idea what on earth it was all about. Seemed strange - not cruel, just weird. I spent a lot of time asking God what He was doing - and whether He'd mind explaining. Four weeks after the latest miscarriage, I was walking past the local Chinese shop and wanted to barf. Huh? You guessed it - pregnant again. And still pregnant (9 weeks today!). So I'm sick half the time, tired almost all the time, and still managed to land a new job. Where they know I'm pregnant, and offered me a 4 days/wk job at slightly higher pay than I'm getting at the moment. Bonus! God's care or what??

Anyway, all that is explanation of why I've been slack on StreetWar. Here's what's been happening in my little neck of the woods - a prayer-in-the-park has been started up. Our mate who sells the Big Issue has turned up twice more at church - once because he really needed to talk, once after the service to see if he could sell any magazines. I'm stoked that the people at church, while struggling with how to relate to him, have really made a big effort to say hello and make him feel welcome. It can be tough when you're chucked out of your comfort zone and don't know how to react to someone. The prayer tent? Still in its concept stage. Sigh.

The Open Air

If anything is more needed than "getting the world out of the church," it is "getting the church out into the world." Too long we have been content to carry on our services under the illusion that people are supposed to come to us.

Jesus came "to seek and save the lost." And as the father send Him into the world, so He sends us. Our orders are to go - to go out into the highways and market places of life - tog go into the devil's own territory and to press there the claims of Christ. We are not called to hold the fort, but to storm the heights.

The open-air meeting is one way of taking the offensive. Yet in most places today the thrill and fruitfulness of this method needs to be rediscovered by the church.

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These are the words from an old Salvation Army pamphlet I just recently came across. A book on you guessed it: "Rediscovering the Open Air Meeting" It might be originally from 1953, but it has so much relevance for us today. And it goes so well with what I preached on this past Sunday.

My last open air included a free BBQ, an 'emo' rock band, and timed to happen just as high school was getting out. Looking forward to doing many more in the year to come.

Peter
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