Paul and Stella King carry a vision for their city, especially one suburb with a bad reputation. The Kings recently ran what they call ‘Tribe Time’, gathering networks of people from the harvest.
It all started with them deciding to start things off by doing a Discovery Bible Study in their living room. On one occasion, Paul felt led to go and pray in one of the roughest parts of Middlesborough. Paul tells the story of how he ended up sharing Jesus with the local mayor who is now reading the Bible and wanting to come and check out their next gathering.
“I met one local woman (now a good friend of mine) who wrote a letter to the mayor. She invited him to come and sit down and talk about some of the issues in the community. She asked me to join this meeting to give her some confidence. This was a massive privilege. On the back of this, the mayor walked the streets of the community with me a few times. It was funny because we were praying for God to send us a fellow worker to walk around the estate with me. So God sends the mayor!”
Paul ended up giving the mayor a Bible with a short message, highlighting a couple of scriptures and a word of encouragement to seek Jesus. Initially Paul never heard back from him. A few months later, Paul came across a social media post where the mayor mentioned Paul and some others by name. He wrote how thankful he was to those like Paul who have helped him in his faith and engaging with the Bible again.
Reflecting on their current community, Paul says, “God has brought some of these people to us”. But we have met others through simply being obedient to God’s lead.
Who knows who God will connect us with from the harvest as we spend time waiting on him for direction and then, go!