How is my life in the world?
Alan is an Inspire Missioner and Methodist Minster in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. He sent us this testimony of the remarkable way that God is weaving together opportunities for mission in the neighbourhood. As he says in his introduction (click the button below to watch), “God is doing a new thing… you don’t know where God will take us if we’d only open up a door for something different.”
Alan writes:
“In April 2021, I received an email from a young lady called Emma, who is not a member of my church in Lisburn. Her email was about the amount of school uniforms (10k) that went to the dump each year. Emma then asked me if I would be interested in starting up some form of uniform club in the church, because of the impact of Covid19 and parents losing their jobs, and if I wouldn’t, would I know someone who would?
I rang Emma two weeks later and asked her to elaborate more about the uniform club, I then met with her again with my society steward and the more Emma spoke, the more enthusiastic I became. We bought the idea to the church council and they supported it 100%.
The School Uniform Bank was officially opened in our church on 23rd June 2021 by the Mayor of Lisburn & Castlereagh and the response and generosity from the local community has been amazing. It is also supported by 18 other churches & schools in Lisburn. We have a Facebook page (The SUB Lisburn). One day I happened to be scrolling through the Facebook page, and because I am an Admin, the stats (people that visited the page, 43,881) were displayed for the month of September and I was amazed. The SUB as 6 volunteers and they do not belong to my church, but they open up faithfully each week.
Not only do we have a Uniform Bank, but also a Hygiene Bank and a Baby Bank, The girls listen to some of the situations that people find themselves in and if they are able to help they will. People have been leaving small donations for the uniforms and we have we able to give a gift of £1,000 to a charity called Ten Foundations. We are also in a position to help a local shop owner to support their customers with fuel and heating.
At the moment we are considering taking on a pop-up shop in a local Shopping Mall because the need for this outreach is greater than we ever imagined.”
Click the button below to connect with the SUB and hear Alan introducing the SUB to his church.
