This is a photo of Tony Smeaton. For many years now Tony, with the help of others (his wife included), has been running various activities at the Recycled Teenagers Club in Britwell, Slough.

So, for example, every Wednesday Tony and his team run a lunch club for 60, 70, perhaps even 80+ senior citizens who live locally. Incredible! In fact, recently Tony told me that he is pretty much at the club at some point during most days of the week. Tony does all of this work on a voluntary basis.

As a small community group, we have now met in a small room at the Recycled Teenagers Club on 4 occasions since Easter, i.e. every other Sunday afternoon since the 15th April.

On all 4 occasions Tony has voluntarily given up part of his Sunday afternoon to come, open up, attend to and lock up the centre for us. Last Sunday, however, we met at the Recycled Teenagers Club for the last time (at least for now), because from Sunday 10th June we will be meeting at Central Hall in Cippenham, Slough.

One of the things I have mentioned on this blog before is our desire to create a culture where we honour and bless other people. So on Sunday we gave Tony a small gift, i.e a £20 gift voucher from B & Q, as a way of saying thanks to him for giving up his time to help us out over the last couple of months.

This morning, when I took this photo, Tony told me that he’d been quite choked up by our small gesture towards him on Sunday and that it was the first time that anyone had really done something like this as a way of saying thanks to him for all the work he does (voluntarily) for people in the community.

So this post is in honour of him. I give you my new friend Tony Smeaton.

It’s even got a catchy tune … or at least I thought so!

While I was there, I took part on Sunday morning in the Rigas Maratons. This event consists of a 5km race, a 10km race, a half marathon and a full marathon. I competed in the 10km race, i.e. 6.25 miles, along with Matthew Medd who now lives in Riga and is involved in planting a church there. (Matthew was in the first youth group I led when I lived in Caversham.) Before the race, I decided to try to run for a time of between 45 and 50mins. My official race time in the end was 46mins 16secs … so I am a happy boy, though now a little disappointed that I didn’t finish in under 45mins. (At one point, over the last 2 or 3km I thought I might.) Matthew was also a happy boy. He, unlike me, ran just for fun and finished in a time of 53mins 46secs … 0.5sec ahead of Inese, one of the girls involved in the church plant, who also took part in the 10km race.

On Sunday afternoon, after the race, I went along to the church plant’s Sunday meeting, which was without doubt one of the best Sunday meetings I have been to in a long while. The ‘service’ lasted 4 hours and consisted of a picnic in the park during which I shared for about 15mins from a passage in Matthew’s gospel. The welcome team, (i.e. Louisa – the girl in the green t-shirt with the white spots in the picture below), spent the first part of the ‘service’ chatting to anyone sitting nearby, and conveniently leaving her toys behind as a way of enticing others to come over to where we were all sitting.  When I asked if they did tea and coffee after the ‘service’, I was told that as a church plant, they are multi-site, which later I discovered meant that we all went back to Janis and Daina’s flat for tea, coffee and a short time of prayer.

What impressed me most about this small group of people was that they all seemed genuinely pleased to meet me and grateful that I had taken the time to come across from England to spend some time with them. One of the things that really impressed me about Matthew was the number of people in Riga that he already knows or has some level of contact with. (Matthew has only been living in Riga for just under a year, yet on all 3 of the days I was with him we bumped into or simply crossed paths with different people that he knows as we walked around different parts of the city. This happened on at least 5 occasions over the 3 days … not bad considering that Riga is a city with a population of over a million people.)

So, all in all, I have returned feeling very blessed to have had the opportunity to spend time in Riga and time in particular with this small, faithful, church plant. In fact, the only downside from the weekend was that (apparently) I did a deal with Inese to return to Riga next year and run in the half marathon!

Ruth and I are so proud of how our children have coped with our move and so encouraged by how they’ve settled into life here over the last 8 months or so. The other week, for example, Ketsia even told me (out of the blue) that she thought she was doing better at her new school than she would have done if she’d remained at her old school!

It’s also been great to see them begin to play a part in what we believe God has called us to here. In Ruth, Ketsia and Lois I have the best nucleus of a church planting team that I could ever ask for. Here are 3 highlights from the last few weeks as far as Ketsia and Lois are concerned:

• Before we met as a small group three weekends ago, Lois asked if we could sing ‘Everyone needs compassion’. So I encouraged her just to go for it during our time together if an appropriate moment arose. And she did! During our time of worship she launched into and started singing ‘Everyone needs compassion’ all by herself. (This is the first time she has brought a contribution in any sort of context like this.)

• On the same occasion, whilst we were praying for someone in the group, Ketsia (out of the blue) read a verse from a song that she felt fitted with the situation in question … and it did! (Again, this is the first time she has brought a contribution in this sort of context.)

• Two weekends ago, as we came back from spending the morning at Grace Church Caversham and afternoon with friends, Ketsia (out of the blue) shared a picture with me that she felt God had given her during the morning service as someone had prayed something along the lines of picking up the reins. In the picture Ketsia saw us as a family like horses being driven along through the snow in a forest by God who was in a sleigh behind and that as we were going along through this forest other horses came and ran alongside us at different points along the way. (We are now praying for strong horses to come and join us.)

So our story (to date at least) is that church planting is a really useful tool for discipling your children. And as Bill Hybels has said, “The most important small group we will ever lead is the one we sit at the dinner table with every day.”

When we met for the first time about a month ago I posed the question … What do you think is important when it comes to church?

I’m sure the following list is not exhaustive, but below is a summary of what different people shared:

• A church, which is a loving, caring community.
• A church, which teaches the grace of God.
• A church, which is active in taking the good news out into the community.
• A church, which helps those in need, e.g. those who don’t have any family.
• A church where there are lots of young people.
• A church where the people have shared values.
• A church, which helps to grow and deepen your faith.
• A church, which is here for the lost.
• A church where those involved are encouraged to use their gifts.
• A place where people act and train as a team and where they teach and encourage each other.
• A church where there a good cross-section of people from different backgrounds.
• A church where God’s not boring!
• A church where people are free to worship.
• A church where there is no pretence.

All of the above seems good to me! So we have started to bat some of this around as we think about what this might look like / mean for us in practice.

Perhaps God has a part for you to play in helping to turn some of these dreams into reality. Perhaps it might even be good for you to come along some Sunday and begin to explore whether this is the case.

If so, we will be meeting again from 4:30pm at the Recycled Teenagers Club on Long Furlong Drive, Slough on Sunday 27th May and thereafter at Central Hall, just off Bower Way, in Cippenham, Slough on Sunday 10th June, Sunday 24th June and Sunday 8th July. (From the 10th June, we’ll be serving drinks from 4:15pm as opposed to 4:30pm.)

“It seems to me that the great difference between practical theism and practical atheism is the church of the living God. Jesus is alive, and we can’t keep that a secret. It is not okay to think,’When they get to know us, they’ll realize that Jesus is alive’. It has to be front and centre in our worship, our smiles, our greetings, our interaction, our preaching — in everything we do, Jesus is alive. Church is not an evangelical golf club. It is the church of the living God, and we need to indicate that. We don’t want to give the impression that Jesus died and went to heaven in 1950. He’s still alive and doing things today. A church that decides it has ‘arrived’ is a breath away from dying. Pride comes before a fall. We need practical theism, a resurrection theology, the power of the Spirit through the Word of God.”

[No Other Gospel by Josh Moody]

I am praying that my life and the life of my family will be such that whatever takes shape around us here in Slough never becomes an evangelical golf club.

One of the things I have also been thinking about in connection with this is how Jesus went about making disciples. From the gospels it is clear that Jesus called his disciples to be with and start to follow him before any of them had really grasped who he was, why he had come and what it really meant to be one of his followers.

Whilst reflecting on all of this, I stumbled across the following:

“In Jesus’ simple command to ‘make disciples’, he has invited every one of his followers to share the life of Christ with others in a sacrificial, intentional, global effort to multiply the gospel of Christ through others. He never intended to limit this invitation to the most effective communicators, the most brilliant organizers, or the most talented leaders and artists — all the allegedly right people that you and I are prone to exalt in the church. Instead, the Spirit of God has empowered every follower of Christ to accomplish the purpose of God for the glory of God in the world. This includes the so-called wrong people: those who are least effective, least brilliant, or least talented in the church. Building the right church, then, is dependent on using all the wrong people.”

[Radical Together (p.57) by David Platt]

So no matter where you are at as a follower of Jesus you are just the right person to be involved in the process of disciple making and/or church planting. You are just the right person because Jesus loves to use all the wrong people … those who others ‘write off’ or those who might even write themselves off.

Yesterday, I read the story of the demonised man found at the start of Mark 5. One of the really fascinating things about this story is that after Jesus has healed the man and set him free, the man begs Jesus to go with him (see Mark 5:18), but Jesus does not let him (see Mark 5:19). Perhaps you might think that this man would have benefitted from some intensive follow-up (or ‘discipleship’) with Jesus. Yet, this is not how Jesus sees it. Jesus simply encourages him to get involved in the process of making disciples straightaway (see Mark 5:19), which is exactly what the man then does (see Mark 5:20). It’s interesting, therefore, that the next time Jesus came to this region (see Mark 7:31 onwards) at least 4,000 people came to listen. This man’s story, it would seem, had quite a big impact.

Perhaps you are like him … one of the so-called wrong people. Or perhaps you are someone who automatically discounts yourself at the very thought of the possibility of being involved in church planting.

If so, perhaps you are just the type of person that Jesus wants to use to help build the right type of church here in Slough.

“See the strength of the love of Jesus! If you are but saved, He does not begrudge His blood and life for you. Your salvation makes amends for all His sufferings. This He accounts His greatest joy—a joy more than equivalent to all the pains He endured for you. He has full satisfaction for all the sorrows you have caused Him.”

[The Sufferings of Christ, and their Consequent Joys and Blessings by Samuel Davies]

I will be running with a young man called Matthew. Matthew was in the first youth group I led when I lived in Caversham. He is now involved in planting a church in Riga, which incidentally as a city is twinned with Slough.

To date, part of my preparations for this event has involved investing in a new pair of trainers. One of the things I have benefited from in doing so is the significant difference in the level of comfort I have experienced when running in my new trainers compared with running in my old pair. In fact, I now feel I am running with much more of a spring in my step! (Unfortunately, my new trainers have done nothing to help with improving my times.)

Another reason I have had much more of a spring in my step over the last couple of weeks is because we have just delivered in the region of 8,000 leaflets around Cippenham, another part of Slough, as part of our preparations for our next Christianity Explored course which starts this coming Monday night.

If you are a Christian, reading this, perhaps you could pray for the course. If you’re not, or you’re not sure, perhaps you (if you are local) or someone you know might like to come along. You can find out more about the course by clicking here.

You can find out more about the course, as well as a link with a map of the location of the venue by clicking here.