Two Stories

On Tuesday Julian received a phone call from one of our friends at the center.
"Julian, I've decided I don't need the Bible you gave me. I'm giving the whole Christianity thing up."
We were scheduled to visit later in the day, so he said we should still come by. Turns out he and his long-term companion had an argument that morning. "I went back five years in my relationship with her," he said. "If I can go back five years in just a few minutes with her, then why should I bother with the Christian thing, because I can go back just as easily on that too."
I was feeling a bit bold that day (who knows, maybe lots of you were praying that day and the Spirit was moving). So I said "You know, I don't think you are the same as you were five years ago." He replied "You didn't know me five years ago, how can you say that?" "Well, I don't think something like this argument would have bothered you this much five years ago." He continued: "Well, it's just that I've been changing so much lately, and now here I am off the path, in the same brambles again, struggling to get out of them." I stuck my grinning face about six inches from his - "And five years ago, would you have been struggling to get out of those brambles?" "Well, no. You've got me there."
We went on to talk about how it's the very people who go straying off the path that Jesus came to seek and save. Since we were supposed to be talking about the parables of Jesus, I paraphrased the story of the shepherd who has 99 sheep in the pen and one out in the brambles. He is passionate about the one who is in the brambles, and when he finds it, he brings it back and there's a massive party in God's house.
He said he was glad we had come, and that we should come back next week to resume our regular study of the parables.

Tuesday night was the last night for Dan, one of the regular staff at the Hub. He has finished the gap-year scheme with LCM. So we took him out for a celebration afterwards. One of the guys who attends the Hub regularly was hanging around after it closed, talking to us while we closed up. We invited him to come with us. Initially I felt like it was a bit awkward. I had been looking forward to having a good laugh with Dan and felt like having this other guy with us was kind of holding us back. In the end, though, we had a really good time. He started asking us what it's like for us to pray. Then we started talking about what happens when you die (sort of brought up by the death of my grandmother a few weeks ago and the questions Andi asked afterwards). I would have loved to be a detached observer at our table - here's a guy who doesn't want to have anything to do with the church, sitting in a pub with six followers of Jesus, asking us questions about our faith. Beautiful.