Reflections on My Trip to England

Monday I arrived back home after spending 2 ½ wonderful weeks in beautiful England. There is so much I learned on this trip – about myself, about the SDA church in this part of the world, about my God. This post is about those lessons.

It was my privilege to teach at the Advance Centre of Evangelism (ACE) - a newly formed 4 month evangelism training school modeled after 

ARISE and AFCOE. The students are mostly from England but there were some from India, Sweden, and Holland as well. For two weeks I taught them 5-7 hours a day on principles of friendship evangelism, conversational evangelism, generating Bible study interests, giving Bible studies, and gaining decisions. They 

were a joy to teach because they had a real desire to learn and share Jesus with others. 

I also enjoyed going with them on some of their outreaches. They love doing singing evangelism in the town square and city centre where their singing of scripture songs and the great hymns draws crowds, softens hearts, and opens opportunities for them to talk with people and then sign them up for Bible studies. 

They also are involved in different health events. One day they visited the city of Stafford and helped the church with a health day doing blood pressures, head massages, and street surveys to sign up individuals for a correspondence health course.

One Sabbath afternoon the church asked us to visit a contact of the church and bring a bowl of fruit. The person had moved and we were about to leave when one of students suggested we knock on the door of the apartment next door and sing to them and give them the fruit. I must admit I wondered how that would go, but the students were so insistent that we try that we did. When Trudy came to the door and was greeted by a dozen smiling young people, I think she was at first stunned. We sang to her some Scripture songs and then handed the fruit and a book with a Bible request card. She said that God must have sent us and she asked where we attended church and the time of our services. The next Sabbath she came to Sabbath School and church and wants the students to keep in touch with her!

For the most part, England has become a vastly secular country. Little remains of its rich Protestant heritage. While there I saw an Anglican church converted into a Chinese restaurant, another turned into a bar, and another up for sale. Polls from last year show that only 40% claim a religious affiliation and only 7% are practicing. In the North England Conference where I was, the population is 30 million, but of these there only about 8000 Adventists. However, I was really encouraged that the conference has recently become more active in training lay people to give Bible studies and hold evangelistic meetings. I attended LETS, a lay-training weekend, and was encouraged to see members coming for training. The ACE school has been following up on 70+ Bible study interests from a mailing and their community outreach. That tells me that there are still people in this society who are searching for God.

This leads me to the greatest lesson I learned on this trip and a personal confession. When I was first invited to England, I was really excited about the opportunity, but as the time approached, I became increasingly nervous. As a child I was a quite shy and reserved, but as an adult I thought I had overcome much of that. But when I left for this trip I felt like a vulnerable child all over again. I realized just how fearful I still am of meeting new people and working in environments foreign to me. Shortly after arriving, I faced a huge personal crisis. My fears were so great that I was terribly plagued with self-doubts thinking that I had made a mistake in coming -- even made a mistake being in the profession I am. Who was I teach others to go out and win others for Christ, when my own fears were crippling me at that moment? I have never felt so depressed and discouraged. It was an absolutely awful feeling! I've always sought to be authentic and I felt like the worst fake! I was angry with myself for being a coward and yet I couldn't seem to change how I felt. I kept asking God why He didn't create me with a more outgoing, extroverted personality.

That next morning I told God I didn't have the strength to teach when I was questioning my abilities and calling to ministry. When I opened my Bible to find strength, He led me to promise after promise that He was the one that had sent me to England, that He would do for me what He did for fearful Moses (I will send you, I will most certainly be with you, I will be with your mouth, I will teach you what you shall do - Ex. 3:10-12; 4:10-12, 15), and that if I had a willing mind it would be accepted according to what I had and not according to what I did not have (2 Cor. 8:12). I determined I would not let go of God if He would not let go of me.

It was on the two Sabbaths that I realized why I had come to England and why I had gone through this Jacob's wrestling experience. The first Sabbath I preached at the smaller of the Derby churches. Sabbath morning when I got up the Lord impressed me I was not to preach the sermon I had planned and I quickly went to work to write a new sermon. I don't like writing sermons last minute so I knew God had a message for these people and He would impress me what to say. The result was a message I called "The Missionary Spirit" focused on two quotations:

“The spirit of Christ is a missionary spirit. The very first impulse of the renewed heart is to bring others also to the Saviour.” GC 70
“Every true disciple is born into the kingdom of God as a missionary.” MH 102

I started with the story of C.T. Studd and the Cambridge Seven - seven bright, handsome, and popular university students who as friends felt compelled to leave England to bring the gospel to China. Their love for Christ compelled them to leave everything. Before sailing for China in 1885, they spent a year traveling throughout England speaking to other students encouraging them to go share Christ. 

I brought out that in Scripture whenever a person has a personal encounter with Christ there develops in his heart a missionary spirit to share Christ with others (woman at the well, demoniac, converted Saul). This is because the spirit of Christ is one of seeking to save the lost. Your debt of love and gratitude to God makes you a debtor to them. As Christians we only take two things to heaven - our characters and converts - and the godly character is formed as we work to win converts.

As I was preaching this sermon, I felt this deep sense of conviction and boldness come over and I began to plead with these members who were so afraid of doing evangelism in this secular city. I told them that if they don't have a missionary spirit they don't have much in common with God! But then I left them with some hope. I told them that maybe they are afraid. And at that moment I felt God tap me on the shoulder and say, "Staci, share with them your experience this week." As I did, I became quite emotional and began to cry which is not usual for me, but I realized just how close I had come to giving up in despair because of my own fears. I shared with them the promise God had given me that just as He was with the trembling Moses being sent to deliver God's people from Egypt, so He would be with us as He sends us into the world to win lost people. The response was amazing. Members who had approached me the night before after my sermon with excuses why they didn't need to give Bible studies, were now repenting and telling me that with God's help they would go. I knew at that moment why I had been through this faith-testing experience!

The second Sabbath was a similar experience. I preached in the larger church in Derby and my sermon was entitled "A Famine in the Land." I looked at three of the famines recorded in the Bible and how lives were spared only when they received and obeyed the Word of the Lord. Then I talked about the spiritual famine in Great Britain and the fact that God is calling us to take the Word of God to these starving ones and yet how our fears cripple us. Jesus asks us to only bring Him our meager resources that seem totally insignificant compared to the challenge so He can multiply them to feed the multitudes. That afternoon most of the congregation returned for a training session I did on how to be the salt of the earth.

Following this presentation, one of the elders came up to me with tears in his eyes. "You are an answer to my prayer." He then told me that the day before he had had told God that his shyness was preventing him from witnessing and that he felt convicted but that he was terribly afraid. He asked God if he would send someone who could understand how he felt and help him to know what to do. "I had no idea God would answer my prayer so soon," he told me, "and send someone from America to help me." At that moment, once again I felt tears come to my eyes. Now I knew why God had chosen not to create me with the extroverted personality I had wanted, because there are many like Tony who I can completely relate to, whose shyness is keeping them from sharing, and who need to hear my story of how God helps those who are weak yet willing.

I left England with many memories but by far the greatest was that of how God works through our infirmities rather than removing them. This passage has become so much more meaningful:

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. And He said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness." Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Corinthians 12:8-11.

To see my three photo albums of my trip follow these links. 

Teaching at ACE - http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151733&l=a389f&id=513825636
England Countryside - http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151738&l=fc092&id=513825636
Chatsworth House - http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151686&l=60c0c&id=513825636