Stuart Beadle’s Reflections on the Away Day at Pilgrim Hall 2015
As we drove to Pilgrim Hall Dylan asked ‘Are we having a sleepover this year? and was a little disappointed when I said ‘not this year’ but it echoed my thoughts of ‘would there be less impact from a 1 day rather than a 2 day event. As we started with our first session addressing the question of ‘How being ourselves makes us better at sharing our Faith’ our speaker James Cater immediately engaged us with a look at aspects of Jesus’s character as seen through the gospel of Mark and the book of Acts. We considered the impact our ego’s have on our behaviour and contrasted this with the way Jesus confronted the High Priests and Pharisees. We then looked at how truly being ourselves is an aid to evangelism. In our next session we looked at How we can impact others especially noting that God intentionally built diversity into the church as referenced in the passage One body but many parts in 1 Cor 12. We then completed an insightful questionnaire analysing our different styles of interaction across 6 categories;
Direct (Peter in Acts 2 14-24)
Intellectual (Paul in Acts 17 16-24)
Testimonial ( Blind man in John 9)
Interpersonal (Levi in Luke 5 27-32)
Invitational (Samaritan woman in John 4 29)
Service (Tabitha in Acts 9 36-39)
Jamie then illustrated each style with an appropriate passage (references shown) before lunch. 
Lunch was a good opportunity to discuss the morning’s teaching and everyone had much to say after enjoying a good meal.
After lunch and a pleasant time spent outside playing games with the children we came back for session 3 ‘Being you On Your Front Line’ noting that God has placed us just where he wants us to be, it’s no accident that we are where he has placed us. Therefore we should take notice of what is going on around us, and then get to grips with it! We were urged to be simple, see evangelism as a process of building a relationship based on simple testimony as opportunity arises, I go to church, I believe in Jesus etc.
In our final session Being You – A New Creation we were encouraged from 2 Cor 5:17 to take on our new vocation, to be a witness for Jesus and to testify to what we have seen in the new strength we receive through the Holy Spirit. An interesting film clip called Paperman helped us discuss evangelism themes as a group and finally in answer to the question Where do we go from here? we considered things to Keep doing, things to Stop doing and things to Start doing.
All in all it was an enthralling day that passed in a flash and we were truly thankful for the work Jamie had put into each session, for the opportunity to meet in small groups and for the many helpful references to God’s word and other Christian writers he mentioned.
As we left to make our way home in the evening sunshine having had the final swim of the day it had certainly been a full day, packed with great teaching, good fellowship, good food and at least one happy little boy ! Praise the Lord for his goodness to us at Pilgrim Hall.
Stuart Beadle
July 2015
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