Day one of mission and like Jack Kerouac, Thelma&Louise, or the family from Little Miss Sunshine before us – we were trying to ‘find ourselves’ with a classic roadtrip.
We followed the road 300km North to the country music capital of Australia (note: that’s a genre, not a contradiction in terms).
When we finally arrived at St Peter’s our separate cars of self-discovery reconvened to join Rod Chiswel and his ministry apprentices to take stock and to pray. The road had not lead us to ourselves, but instead to the many gospel opportunities in South Tamworth! And being the Sabbath (while other mission teams had not even begun to work), we had a quick turn around into Saturday night church.
A guy called Peter told me that the Saturday service was an initiative from a decade ago. The 10:15am service was at capacity and to enable manageable community they planted a new service within their church. A sort of breakaway-group in the name of greater fellowship and better welcoming.
Sam preached what was undeniably the best sermon of the mission so far. Encouraging us from John 17 to preach the glorious gospel of Christ crucified this week. As we shared dinner and heard people’s stories, we got a sense of the good work the Lord has been doing here and an anticipation of the week in store for us
And at the close of day 1 we could echo Kerouac’s sentiment of “nothing behind me, everything ahead of me”. But as night set in, the words that really resonated in our hearts were “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!”