I help lead a mid-week church group and recently we’ve been keen to increase our missional agenda. The word missional gets everywhere and feels like one of those buzz words. The fact is, the people in the group aren’t the type that are going to pray for people on the streets. They aren’t that type. As a leader, I don’t want to go on and on about being missional every time we get together. I want it to be a natural part of what we do and what we’re about.

Increasingly, I want our group to have a culture that thinks and talks missionally without the leaders having to mention it from the front all the time.

Whenever we get together we always spend 10 minutes praying for our non-Christian friends. We do this in pairs, using some of the time to share where our non-Christian friends are at and the rest of the time praying. Before this prayer time, we share any encouragements about people or situations that we have been praying for - where there have been answers to prayer or opportunities we’ve had we’ve to share our faith.

"with our Carol Service happening soon, we’ve used this prayer time to pray over the Carol Service invitations for the people we’re wanting to bring along"

This encourages us that prayer works and it increases our faith as we’re about to pray. The idea is that this sharing and praying time for our non-Christian friends becomes a natural part of the evening. With our Carol Service happening soon, we’ve used this prayer time to pray over the Carol Service invitations for the people we’re wanting to bring along.

With Christmas coming along soon, we’re looking to make the most out of the festive opportunities around us. This weekend a team of us are off to help clean and decorate a drop in centre for a local charity. It’s part of our termly outreach and we also make up presents for the charity to give out at Christmas.

Another thing that we’re going to do is to give out invitations for our Carol Service with a box of chocolates to all the neighbours of the church. We’ve done this for a number of years and it’s always appreciated. We also go Carol Singing in a local old people’s home, singing some carols and spending time with the residents. We involve these activities into our normal calendar of meeting together so we don’t have too many extra activities, as December is a busy time.

It’s also a great time to have neighbours and friends round for mulled wine and mince pies. This can be done easily and informally throughout the festive period. Some people have the parties earlier in the month and have invitations for our church Carol Service available so they can invite people along. Other people put on the party before or after the Carol Service, so they all go to the Carol Service together in a big group. I’m excited that there are lots of opportunities to share our faith with others in a natural and genuine way.

I’ll let you know how we get on.