Apathy and Wicked

Its been a great couple of days here in London town. Sunday we attended two church services...one in the morning and one at night. The staff here really want us to see and experience the body of Christ here in the UK (particularly the Church of England) and see that it is not dead; in fact, there are many churches that are alive and thriving. The morning service was at St. James Clerkenwell which met in a very historic building. It used to be a convent and many nuns are buried beneath the building. There was a large plaque on one of the church's walls that had the names of many English people that were killed "in the fires" for their faith in the late 16th century. It was fascinating to worship in such a historical building where people for generations had raised their voices to the Lord in praise. That night, we went to the 7pm service of Holy Trinity Brompton. It is a popular church and has a more contemporary feel. There were a bunch of younger people and it was a really neat service.

St. James Clerkenwell

Holy Trinity Brompton

After the HTB service, we galavanted around London with Jude as our guide. He is on staff and has lived in London for a long time. It was so nice to see places without the huge crowds and it was a really fun time with the whole team. We ate at a Singaporian restaurant in Chinatown and I got a Malaysian noodle dish! 

Monday was the first day of on-campus ministry! We met with the London staff in the morning and discussed decoding, which was to be the focus of our time that day. Decoding is pretty much getting a feel through conversations and interactions with students of the spiritual climate on-campus and the openness to Christianity (if any) that currently exists. I was put in a team with three others and we went to the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). It was a little intimidating at first...considering LSE is one of the most prestigious universities in the world. But once we got to campus and ate lunch and began walking around, I realized that these people are just like me and my friends at Mary Washington. And because it is term time over here, most of the students were holding study guides and notecards as they walked around to do any last-minute studying for upcoming finals. I walked around with my teammate Aaron and we had multiple conversations throughout the afternoon. Today we returned to LSE and I walked around mainly with my teammate Hannah. There were (as I've found in ministry in general) encouragements and discouragements. We used an informal survey to strike up conversations with students with the prayer that these interactions would lead to a gospel presentation or an exchange of contact information for follow-up. Some conversations flowed and some were quite awkward. I had been told (by the staff) that apathy towards spiritual things is rampant on the campus and throughout London in general. I really saw that displayed yesterday and today. Over the course of both our days of ministry thus far, I've had to give to the Lord every interaction and ask Him to work even when I might not necessarily feel like people are opening up or we're getting anywhere. I've made about three contacts (conversations that result in contact info given) and hope that these students may come to our Thursday night dinner we're inviting students we meet to. 

Prayer request: Pray that I would continue to have a heart for these students and for London. I am so comfortable in the ministry I'm involved in back at school and find myself missing that while I'm over here. Its more of missing the comfortability. But God is stretching me through this because I am in a new place, a new culture, surrounded by new people...yet these people have the same need to hear about Him. So it really is the same.

P.S.-- Last night, the staff arranged for us to see Wicked at the Apollo Theatre. It was SO GOOD. I had seen it in Richmond last fall and was so excited to see it again (considering I've known all the words to the songs for some time now). The set was awesome and the singing was wonderful. It was so fun to experience the famed London theater!