Wolverhampton Mission 2023 

It was TFM’s privilege to serve 5 churches in Wolverhampton during May 2023. Three churches are in one Anglican benefice (Bushbury). The other two are independent churches (International Life Centre, and Hope City Church). The churches are approximately ten minutes driving time apart, so definitely local but not on each other’s doorstep. There was a remarkable - and we felt beautifully anointed - sense of purpose between these churches which are, coincidentally, members of the broader Wolverhampton initiative called Konnect. This is a prayer initiative for many churches that desire to see revival in Wolverhampton.
 
The Mission coincided with the Royal Coronation event and the first Monday was a bank holiday – a mixed blessing, as it turned out! TFM’s task was to provide pre-mission training and mobilize active volunteer missioner's for the week of the mission itself. TFM-ers arrived from Devon, Anglia and the South Coast and quickly gelled into three support teams. They were supplemented by folk from the partner churches for some events, all of whom had attended the earlier training event, which remains a prerequisite for active evangelism involvement in any TFM mission.
 
It was lovely for Lead Evangelist Dan Holland to be invited to speak at the morning assembly of Northwood Park Primary School. Dan was able to tell the children of his recent Kenya trip and how children there perceive their relationship with their school and the transformative effect of good basic education. Also, that Kenya schools are happy for the good news of Jesus to be shared openly.
 
In common with all TFM- supported missions the evangelism activity focused on worship, street evangelism and door to door work. The door-to-door work involved TFM’s trademark Personal Beliefs Survey which has been running for decades and is a valuable temperature gauge as to where people are at, spiritually. The questions also encourage discussion and interaction, often leading to the opportunity to give tracts and/or to pray for specific needs. In turn, this can lead to local church contact, and very occasionally to definite confessions of faith from people visited.
 
This year, and as a one-off, we used a second survey form called “Crowning the King” (see the TFM website here). This proved to be good for opening up friendly and relaxed conversation, but was not so good for really uncovering where people are at, spiritually. Naturally there is a sub-text to our ‘Crowning the King’ questionnaire which we can summarize as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords = 1 Timothy 6:15.
 

Crowning the King Survey
 

Whilst our survey questions appeared to focus on King Charles III, there was an easily recognizable sub-text, as the questions offered-up the opportunity to think about The King of Kings. The final question sought to open this up to more general discussion. In fairness, in conversation we found it difficult to make the connection between the Coronation of Charles and Jesus as King of Kings. Those who we met who were Christians found the concept easy enough to engage with but other respondents just gave their opinions and then moved on. With hindsight we might have done some additional training specifically with this material to practice opening up deeper discussion creatively, but there was insufficient time.
 
The survey seemed well received and thought-provoking, however, and certainly made for a friendly and non-stressed encounter, irrespective of peoples’ personal feelings about monarchy in the UK.

The full survey results can be seen here
 
TFM Personal Beliefs Survey
 

This survey aims to test the temperature in how people view God and life’s huge metaphysical questions (we shall explore the 5 questions on 5 separate articles over the next few months).
 
Whether Wolverhampton is ‘typical’ of the whole UK is difficult to say. We think it probably is - and the results discerned seem to match broadly the results seen over the past 20 years.
 
With both surveys and wherever possible, folk were given a copy of the survey Form to read and keep for themselves. There is useful follow-up material on the reverse of the Form so we continue to pray that some folk will have followed-up the ‘links’, which encourage visiting good sound Christian websites. It is possible, of course, that people will go on considering the survey form long after the street interview, which itself lasts for an average of five minutes. 

The full survey results can be seen here
 

Praise God indeed
 

During the Wolverhampton mission week, we were much blessed by our three partner churches which provided accommodation and fed us well. (We acknowledge with great thanks the behind the scenes work of so many). This released missioners for the main task of street evangelism. In Bushbury alone we completed 360-odd street surveys. Across the mission week some 9,000 invitations were posted through doors and handed out, inviting people to our closing (Saturday evening) act of worship and ministry, called “Something to Celebrate”. It was always a ‘big ask’ for people to give up their evenings and travel to a different part of the city, but some local visitors did turn up. The printed invitation included the website details for the three sponsoring churches, so we must pray that many people will know with certainty that the local churches care and that those printed invitations will yet yield fruit in season.
 
We praise God for the opportunity to serve our partner churches in Wolverhampton and place on record our deep appreciation for all the support and fellowship they gave to us. All the glory, of course goes to God! By His grace we may have the opportunity to return in future years. We’d love to do so!