After a year of Leadership Course lectures and huddles, I felt ready to embrace hosting a house church and we started last Sunday. In my local church huddle and home group we’ve been talking about mission, and I felt challenged to start sharing my faith more in a natural way. But where to start?

Well, today I started! I’ve been making fabric masks for the Hataitai community over the last year, leaving them out in a box and posting on Facebook for people to message for the address if they needed any. Over 100 people have taken up the offer, and lots have said nice things... and I started thinking about how to connect what I offer with my faith.

So today I posted again on Hataitai’s Facebook page, saying I had more masks and that I do it because I’m a follower of Jesus and this is my way of reaching out to the local community.

I felt SO BRAVE! And then went for a walk to stop myself checking for hate mail or people commenting about bad experiences with the church. But when I got home, after an hour the post had multiple likes, and four people had messaged me wanting to come and collect masks. No hate mail so far!

And now I realise I wasn’t being brave at all. Jesus is enough. God’s grace is enough. And on my own I can never do enough. It’s a small start, but I know people recognise authenticity — and so now my task is to keep being honest about my faith, keeping it as natural, real and authentic as I can.

Corrina Lines, Hataitai-Kilbirnie Parish

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