David Westlake, Missions Director Tearfund

Tearfund: a global relief and development agency. What we’re about is getting behind local churches in some of the poorest parts of the world, bring the Good News in Jesus’ name to the last, the least and the lost. We do that mostly in the developing world but also significantly here in the UK as well. The reason that I’m involved tonight and I committed Tearfund to this project is for two reasons. Firstly, that God is doing something with his church and the second is, he is doing something with Yemisi. What God’s doing with His church, we’ve heard, is that He’s bring his Church back to His kind of mission where we’re not just concerned only with our own personal piety but we’re concerned with righteousness and justice in our communities. And thank God He’s doing that.

When I read FAM and heard the vision I saw something that was putting forward great theology, really inspiring case studies and ‘how-to’s, and connecting Christians to good practice. Because we have to be the first to admit that sometimes our zeal has outpaced our wisdom. Having something which brings together a passionate love of Biblical theology and worship of our Lord and Saviour, with inspirational stories of how to impact our communities, and do it with best practice was something that we had to get behind. Second, God was doing something with Yemisi – I don’t want to embarrass her. Sometimes you meet people who you sense the Holy Spirit is on and in, and doing something with. And the only honest response is to get behind that and say: we love what God is doing with you; we love how you’re making yourself available to God. We want to cheer you on; we want to encourage you. We want to see what God is doing with your life. Not just because you’re special; because you’re representing a new breed of Christian that God is raising up that brings his heart, and his word, and his love, and his mission to some of the darkest and poorest places of the world, and equips the church to do the same.

So, we’re here saying we’re fans of Yemisi, we’re fans of what God’s doing in her life and through her, and fans of what God’s doing in his church as he raises up a new generation of Christians and a new generation of churches which brings the whole Gospel to the whole community, wonderfully. That’s why we got involved.

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