Malaga Mission Trip
Mission Trip 2k19
What a week! 20 of us headed out to Malaga last month on our ID mission trip to serve the church plant. The church consists of just two families and is led by Martin Lazenby. It looks very different to church plants that I know and honestly, how I imagine them. There is such a small number of evangelical Christians in Malaga as a city, that the church can only grow through the relationships that these families form. They have modelled the plant on what Jesus taught in the early church. Although there's not loads of members, and the meetings are obviously different, they teach and hold each other accountable in mission. This is something that I particularly loved and perhaps is an element that we sometimes miss in larger churches.
Each day we received teaching from Dave Bareham, an elder from a church in Essex, who has previously visited the church in Malaga and reguarly supports them. We learnt how to disciple both our Christian and non-Christian friends while being witnesses everyday. What better way to respond in obedience to God's call of making disciples than sharing with them the love we receive from our Father.
Throughout the week we threw ourselves into a variety of outreach events and trips, beginning with a prayer walk. In small groups we went around the locale listening to what the spirit was telling us to pray into whether that be approaching someone, or pointing something out to us. I'm sure that our prayers were powerful and that God was at work.
We attended a language school on the Thursday where we had the opportunity to chat with native Spaniards to help improve their conversational English. As well as getting to know them we tried to lead the conversation towards our faith and the gospel which often came naturally when we were asked why we were there! Although I had a good time, personally it was challenging thinking through what I wanted to say and being clear about it, but who knows how God uses what we say? On our table we got the opportunity to pray with one guy before he left which was really encouraging.
I didn't know this before we arrived, but as we chatted in English they expected us to have a go at Spanish. At the start of the week I knew 3 Spanish words: hola, gracias and perdon. Enough to get by. However, by the end of that evening, about an hour and a half later, I also knew the word for green. Verde, in case you didn't know.
On Sunday the church plant met in our villa before we finalised our preparation for our own missional event. The church was running their own language café that evening, which was our big chance to put David's teaching into practice. When the time came though, half an hour in no-one had turned up. However, rather than being disappointed, this was an opportunity (and challenge) to put into action what we had been learning about all week. So, we spilt up into little teams and went out onto the streets to do evangelism. For some that might look like just chatting with people, for one group they joined in playing some music on the seafront. Just approaching people and asking them was stepping out in faith and we celebrated each success as a group. I had been praying that I would have an opportunity to share the gospel with someone using the 'three circles' tool that Dave had been teaching us, and that evening I did.
We had a lot on but we did have time to rest and take a look around the city. It was interesting visiting the Catholic Cathedral for mass and speaking with people about faith where Catholicism always played a part.
About the Author
Andrew is one of the ID’ers at The City Church this year. Last July he finished his undergraduate degree in Architecture at the University of Kent and will be studying a Masters in Urban Planning and Resilience there next year.
