It’s now almost a year since Karl Relton wrote to the Trustees to explain how the experience of lockdown at the Countess Free Church in Ely had led him and his wife Karen to explore a different way of being church. As you may remember this led to them taking a step of faith and moving to a housing estate in Leicestershire to begin a more incarnational ministry. Karl was in touch recently with an update on how they have been getting on.

News Update from Karl

Life here on the new estate has been at a radically different pace compared to classic 'church ministry', but not necessarily any less intense. We settled in quickly joining community activities and volunteering to get to know people. At the same time, we were prayer walking the estate asking God to lead us to people who were spiritually open.

In October this led us to invite round a young couple from Asia who had some experience of the Christian faith from childhood and were open to exploring more spiritually. We also befriended another young couple from Asia and have had great conversations while our friendship develops. To help with this I have been recording stories Jesus told as YouTube Short videos, which they love watching. Click here for link to Lubbe Stories

In November, on a very wet Remembrance Sunday morning, we met another guy of similar Asian heritage. He was very open and agreed to do discovery Bible studies with me, making comparisons with Eastern religions. Earlier this year he asked Jesus into his life, and I am now discipling him and he is learning to be a witness to others - praise God!!

There are other stories to tell ... but you can pick up that God has led us mainly to people from or originally from India. That’s the beauty of this way of working - we would never have guessed or planned that. I should say that Leicester is very multi-cultural, and the new estate reflects the ethnic mix including high number of Indian heritage. We are loving that, as are our taste-buds!

We’ve also been encouraging other local Christians to pray for their neighbours, and I produced a mini-blog: Myths of Personal Evangelism to help with this. Click here for link to Myths of Evangelism 

With blessings

Karl and Karen