"But other seed fell on good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold”
- Matthew 13:8
As we come to the end of April, I want to reflect on God’s goodness to us as a church over the last couple of months and make an observation as to what we’re seeing happening in the life our our church. In March we gathered to pray on several occasions, particularly asking God for increased salvation and revival in Bristol. It’s been so encouraging to hear stories of people sharing the gospel with their friends and neighbours, meeting visitors on Sundays, and welcoming guests on Alpha.
We also held gift days towards our vision of resourcing and supporting churches we have relationships with. In order to do this we have set out to release more of Andy Cottingham’s time as well as being generous with our time and resources. I’m delighted to say that we’ve raised £70,000 towards this new adventure, and we are so grateful to God and all those who gave so generously!
In April much of our attention was on Easter. We had Easter Egg Hunts on all three sites with approximately 400 bags given away with books on the true meaning of Easter and invitations to church. Our Good Friday service was a beautiful time together and then Easter Sunday we had 4 baptisms and a number of people either hearing or responding to the gospel for the first time. We had 450 people at our three sites on Easter Sunday!
What is particularly encouraging to me is that there has been a number of “good news” stories in the media recently about churches growing and people turning to faith (check out the Bible Socieity’s work called “The Quiet Revival”) and we are seeing the evidence of that in our own church. We have seen a spike in young men giving their lives to Jesus (as the report suggests is happening nationwide), and an increase in people rocking up to church on Sundays without any prior experience.
These are remarkable days we are living in, and the soil appears to be fertile for the gospel in a way that we haven’t seen before. Let me encourage you to keep praying for seed to fall on good soil, to keep sharing the gospel with those around you, and to keep inviting your friends to see for themselves the transforming power of Jesus.