Why don't you come to tea?

Yesterday, Robert and Mary came to church. Smashing to see them again, and just like yesterday since we last met.

Suddenly it hit me what a huge influence one little word or gesture can have on your life.

Around 25 years ago I was working at a department store in town (Kayes Drapers). It was my first job since leaving school, and I was struggling. Nothing was going right for me - my mum had died just before I left school, my dad married again and I went to live with my aunty. Quite a lot to happen to a 17 year old in less than 12 months.

I was chatting with my friend at work one day, telling her how I had been involved in Guiding until leaving home. She said they needed a Brownie leader near her at her daughters Brownie pack, and would I consider it. I hesitated, and she just said why don't you come for tea and we'll go to the meeting and see what happens. When we got there, there were lots of volunteers, and I thought I had got away with it. Not so. They managed to convince me that the Guides nearby would close if they didn't get a leader soon. I am sure you can guess what happened. I said I would do it. Mary helped, did Brownies too and Robert and Mary invited me to tea many times!

Now, that may seem like a little stroke of luck, but as I will explain, that is just one of those God-incidences that happens when we don't even know it. I stayed at Kirkburton Guides and Rangers for over 10 years, made many lifelong friends and from the girls we got 3 new leaders - Joanne, Alex and Juliet. Two of them went on to run the Brownies, and are still doing so. Then I had Matthew. It was quite a way to go to Kirkburton for a non-driver with a new baby, so I wandered down to St Thomas' when my neighbour said they needed help there. That mapped out another 12 or 13 Guiding years for me (and produced more Guiders, Gemma and Kelly, a Guide Guider and a Brownie Guider). Why is all this so important? Well, because I was a Guider at St Thomas', I went to church parade, and finally decided that I quite liked it there and should make the move from Golcar Methodist to St Thomas'.

Can you see where I am going? Just because of Mary and Robert inviting me to tea and taking me under their wing for a while, I came to St Thomas' and my family and I became part of this church family. Not only that, there are now at least 4 Guiding units that are still in existence because of them! Who knows what the results of that are!

Now, here's the exciting bit (well I think so anyway). Because of those girls that became leaders, many more girls have experienced Guiding. Maybe a thousand all in.

Just think what could happen if we were like Robert and Mary and each invited one person to tea, but shared with them the good news about Jesus……….how many could that be?