Relay 2...

Ok so the day has finally arrived to go off to my 2nd Relay training conference and if I'm really honest there is part of me that is kind of dreading this week. It will be great to see people and to encourage each other but I know as well that its going to be another pretty intense week. It's going to be one of those times to see grace in action as we all work to encourage each other and build one another up with the truth of the gospel. I know I often feel inadequate as a Relay Worker, struggling with being the "newbie" in Brum, but hey, it s God's grace that got everyone to Relay in the first place! I guess thats got to be what I remember when I feel everyone else is doing wonderfully and I'm seemingly struggling. Yesterday at church John Stevens reminded us that we often make the gospel much smaller than it really is, we attempt to pack it down to the smallest we can in order to make it appealable to people and completely about personal salvation. We limit it to a tract and hope that we are skilled enough to pass it on. The gospel is so much more than that though! The gospel reminds us that we look ahead to a glorious future, filled with God's glory and wonder. It is about God's Kingdom being recreated and restored and Jesus being God's King over it all. How can you possibly limit that?? Its beyond our imagination how amazing it will be. So how can any news beat that?? So I guess my aim for this week is to encourage others what a glorious hope we have in Jesus, what a wonderful kingdom we have to look forward to and its that hope which can sustain us when things are tough. I know I'm struggling but no doubt others are too so I hope I can show them grace and truth and not just seek to make myself look good this week.

"Therefore since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God!" Romans 5:1-2