Sometimes PR is easy...Some wish to live within the sound of church or chapel bell;
I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.
C.T. Studd
It cost a fair chunk of our budget - but when this slogan was worn by about 80 recovering addicts at an event with about 10,000 Christians - it was one of the high points of my summer.
I could have sold a load of the T shirts - but it would have killed the message. (something cynical about naked money-grubbing commercialism in the church springs to mind....)
I was giving out postcards - this is what they said:
CT Studd, founder of WEC International, knew that he risked his life and his reputation when he sailed for Africa in 1913. But he believed that it was a risk worth taking. Studd worked within a yard of hell; workers joined him knowing they may not return home alive. Studd was buried in the Congo where he worked.
To follow in the spirit of WEC's founder is a continual challenge. WEC's Betel ministry, in UK and elsewhere, still epitomises that same radical, passionate, vision.
Begun in Spain, Betel is a community that demonstrates the reality of God's activity in the lives of people on the margins of society. Within a yard of hell are those whose lives have been destroyed by addiction, they live on the streets of cities in the UK, and across the world. Betel runs a rescue shop right there. The lives of Betel members demonstrate vividly the love and power of God in places some would be tempted to call ‘God-forsaken’ - they are not.
Betel communities demonstrate the power of God over addiction. They are a church which knows the cost, but pays it anyway. Many are rescued every year.
WEC International continues to reach out to the last, the least, and the lost. It is WEC's intention to demonstrate the life-giving power of God and see churches started all over the world - wherever there is no church.
Job done...
I could have sold a load of the T shirts - but it would have killed the message. (something cynical about naked money-grubbing commercialism in the church springs to mind....)
I was giving out postcards - this is what they said:
CT Studd, founder of WEC International, knew that he risked his life and his reputation when he sailed for Africa in 1913. But he believed that it was a risk worth taking. Studd worked within a yard of hell; workers joined him knowing they may not return home alive. Studd was buried in the Congo where he worked.
To follow in the spirit of WEC's founder is a continual challenge. WEC's Betel ministry, in UK and elsewhere, still epitomises that same radical, passionate, vision.
Begun in Spain, Betel is a community that demonstrates the reality of God's activity in the lives of people on the margins of society. Within a yard of hell are those whose lives have been destroyed by addiction, they live on the streets of cities in the UK, and across the world. Betel runs a rescue shop right there. The lives of Betel members demonstrate vividly the love and power of God in places some would be tempted to call ‘God-forsaken’ - they are not.
Betel communities demonstrate the power of God over addiction. They are a church which knows the cost, but pays it anyway. Many are rescued every year.
WEC International continues to reach out to the last, the least, and the lost. It is WEC's intention to demonstrate the life-giving power of God and see churches started all over the world - wherever there is no church.
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