Summer Blog

One of the greatest things about church planting is the constant change that goes on. Just as the team begins to form lasting friendships and start to understand one another, new people get added in and we begin again. The team is growing and we now have several Spanish speakers amongst us including our first regular visitor who was born and grew up in Madrid! This is an answer to prayer that we know you have shared with us and so thank you for praying with us for this woman of peace. With this encouragement we turn our thoughts to our coming plans for the summer and autumn term and ask you to continue to pray for us.

The summer months

The summer months are long and hot in Madrid. It’s not unusual for the children to go away on camps for a couple of weeks until the parents finish work in August, then Madrid empties and all the inhabitants return to their parents or grandparents homes out in the countryside where it is cooler and quieter. So for the team it can be a quiet time, however, there are people who stay and so we are organising picnics in the parks and other social events to make new friends and keep in touch with others. These months are important so that when the autumn term comes we have people who we can invite to come to an alpha or foundation course.

The autumn Term

In September we will be doing varied and exciting outreach events in different areas of Madrid where we have or hope to plant impact groups. These will lead to invitations to a supper night and later an alpha course. We´re praying that we might see some of our friends and contacts starting to respond to the gospel this coming term as well as starting at least one other Impact Group, maybe in the center of the city.

Serving

We are looking at more ways that our individual impact groups can serve the community around us with already established projects or starting a project that some friends of ours called ‘serve the city’ (see www.servethecity.es/) can help us with by resourcing and giving advice. We have many ideas ranging from starting a job club, helping in a volunteer capacity at a local toddler group for vulnerable mums, starting a prayer meeting in our local school, starting a homework club for children who are failing and other activities that have come out of doing the questionnaires last term. Please pray for us as we network in our neighbourhoods to start these projects off.

We will also be restarting our regular intercambio evening in September.

Prayer Requests

·                     Please pray for new team members to settle in and for us all as we work together in unity.

·                     Pray for our summer months as Madrileños and team members disappear, that the work does not stop.

·                     Pray as we approach the autumn term and begin our outreach events and choosing ways to serve this city.

·                     For more men and women of peace.