Mission Response

I volunteer at the Glasgow City Mission one night a week. It's a drop-in center for the homeless, disaffected, down-and-out people who have either chosen that lifestyle or are the result of years of abuse and neglect. Well, it's not only them, there's a good mix of people from asylum seekers to retirees/pensioners who are lonely to the mentally ill.

Every night after serving food, there's a time for a short Bible message. I volunteer to do it about once a month. It's hard sometimes to convey the gospel in a way that's appropriate for that audience. Most of the people have left by the time the message comes around, so it can be as little as five to twenty people who hear.

Last week I wanted to speak on becoming free from the enslavement to sin. It's something that our church has been talking about a lot, especially at the retreat. We've been believing that God can free us from our past hurts and sins, if we are willing to forgive and repent. Also, in the spirit of our church services, I wanted to directly invite people to come forward if they wanted prayer. I asked Ewan, the project manager if it was okay first.

When I spoke, it went much better than I had expected. I felt confident that I was saying the right thing. I asked people if they ever felt trapped doing something they knew was wrong and didn't want to do but could not stop doing it. The message was that God could free them from those things, but they first needed to let Him free them from the guilt of sin. Only with sin dealt with could His mercy work on the enslavement issues.

At the end, I asked for anyone to come forward who wanted freedom, who wanted prayer for these things. Surprisingly, four people came up. Ewan started praying for them at the table. One wanted to repent from sin. Another wanted prayer to be free from his drug addiction. One was an Iranian asylum seeker who, apparently, received Christ that night! It's hard for me to tell because His English is poor, but I'm willing to believe. It's pretty cool.

For years we've been praying for an awakening to happen in Glasgow. Just in the last few months, God's been restoring our church team and church, there has been repentance in the Christian Union meetings on campus, and now this. I know this is a limited sample, but is it too early to say that it seems like something is happening?