Mission Day at St Paul’s Peterborough

Team member Chris Watts reports on this excellent outreach day.

Reverend Ron Watkinson and his wife, Val welcomed us to St Paul’s parish church which is in the ‘New England’ district of Peterborough. This is a down town area with many Muslims and Polish residents. The TFM team comprised Dan Holland, George Martin, Robert Parker, Keith Lewis, David Abimiku, Mathew Cheer, David Pickavance and myself. We had teas, coffees and cakes and then there was the morning Eucharist. To be honest, my first thought when I heard this was happening was that it would reduce valuable time on the streets. The service used the familiar liturgy but after an introduction from Dan then Mathew and the two Davids gave testimonies and George followed this with an appeal. Six or seven responded and this included some men who have been through difficulties e.g., homelessness or addiction. Ron said three people attended that he hadn’t seen before. The service was followed by an extended time of prayer and two people were given bibles. So much for me thinking we ought to have been out on the streets!

The church then supplied a lunch of soup and rolls before pairs went out door-to-door visiting for two hours. Five from St Paul’s went partnered with a TFMer and a pair of TFMers went together leaving me to chat and share my testimony with the three guys who had just made commitments.

Though in one case there was a mix up regarding visiting some sheltered housing, all had good conversations on the doors. On several occasions people didn’t want to do the questionnaire but wanted to discuss things. On a previous mission at St Paul’s Dan visited a shop with a Muslim owner and was shooed away due to a misunderstanding. Subsequently Dan went back, apologised, clarified the situation and left on good terms. Robert and Keith had three very good conversations.
We encouraged Ron to invite us back and left before the rush hour, knowing the Lord had been working and blessing.