Carelinks | United Kingdom

Our house church in Croydon has progressed well, with many baptisms; indeed there has been a baptism most times we meet.

We had a very special and spiritual meeting when brother Leon Shuker visited us, giving us a talk about the nature and possibilities in our life together as ecclesias or house groups. It was the fruit of a lifetime spent in Christ and in missionary work and worth listening to. We were converts old and new, with folks born in so many countries- Iran, Poland, South Africa, Latvia, Estonia as well as the UK. We felt very much the presence of the Lord Jesus amongst us, and encourage all in the London area to come and be with us.

Here’s Brother Leon's report:

“There is a profound joy in meeting brethren and sisters in Christ and breaking bread with them that can bring tears of joy to one’s heart. This is particularly true when those brethren and sisters have a variety of backgrounds and have been called of our Father in a variety of circumstances.

This was my experience when meeting brethren and sisters in Croydon, England, where I had travelled from Paris, my temporary home: Katrina, Wacek, Cardia, Debs & Jon, Hilary, Lucinda, Duncan & Cindy, Marcus & Gwladys, Sarah, April and Mojtaba. That uniting family spirit (“all one in Christ Jesus” Gal 3:28) had united a sister Lucinda, who had responded to a national advert in the Daily Mail for free Bibles and been baptized in that same home, Mojtaba a former Moslem from Iran, to a Polish family who were committed to preaching Jesus both in my adopted country of South Africa, and now their second adopted home of England.

It was a house meeting (common in the early days of preaching Christ recorded in the Epistles - Acts 2:46, Rom 16:5, Philemon 1:2). The institution of the Breaking of Bread service was because our Lord had declared “with desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer” and was matched with the disciples’ desire to prepare that feast (Matt 26:17). By contrast many of us have experienced and felt guilty of such meetings descending into ritual and formalism and as such destroy our joyful intimacy with our Lord and with His close fellowship. When it is so we need to seek our Lord’s forgiveness.

It is an ultimate paradox to have great joy in celebrating the death of one who did not deserve it – and that with others one has never met before yet are my brethren and sisters and share an intimacy that is rarely, if ever, the experience of natural families.

Together we meditated on Paul’s letter to the Romans and chapter 12, rediscovering how to dedicate ourselves to our God in our ordinary, everyday lives, and in so doing recognising that, like a finger or a toe, we are closely united members of His body. And so Paul then encourages to “take your everyday, ordinary life – your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking around life – and place it before God as an offering” (12:1). And so I returned to Paris, my exiled home for a while, having experienced a spiritual “holyday” in England. I had not thought it possible in my home country with its reputation for ungodliness. I wish I were nearer to help fan into flames the flickering light of the Gospel there. But maybe others will? I pray that this will be so.”