Mission in a Welsh village: How friendship and fiction opened a door to faith
I am a mother of four, currently living in a village in Wales.
Previously, we lived as a family in South West London for 17 years. During my time there, I had set up a book club for women - for believers to invite non-Christian friends to.
The idea had always been for it to be a gentle witness to unbelieving friends as we discussed secular books from a Christian perspective. The hope was it would lead to another bridge to the gospel - perhaps an evangelistic course or an invite to a church event. It was also fun, and good to be in touch with our literary culture, helping us think about the relevance of the gospel to all of life.
We moved back to Wales shortly before the lockdown years, and during that time I ran a short term book club online with two friends - one a believer and one an unbeliever. All the while I couldn't wait to start a real one in our new village.
The opportunity came at Easter time in 2023. I posted an advert on our village WhatsApp and around nine women signed up and we have been meeting monthly (apart from school holidays) one evening, once a month, ever since. I was delighted by the enthusiastic response; women readily offered their homes to host the club so now we rotate and take it in turns to organise the library book loans. It has been a wonderful way to build friendships in the village and it gave us a focus to get together, especially as the village pub that used to be the centre of the village had long closed.
"I prayed and waited."
My intention had always been to set it up and after a good while of building relationships, and praying for the women, to offer the opportunity to run an evangelistic course at my home. So after around 18 months I invited them to explore Christianity on a short three-week Hope Explored course across three evenings. I prayed and waited.
Just before I was about to give the course material back to the church, a friend from the group got in touch expressing interest in the group. Two other women, who were on the fringe of church life, also wanted to join.
We have now finished the course and have started reading John’s Gospel together each week. It is wonderful to have such an opportunity in my own home, and it is a joy to see their keenness to hear more from God’s Word.
There are also other natural opportunities to drop gospel seeds into conversations as a group of us women in the village walk the dogs together several times a week.
Wherever God has placed us is our "mission field" and there is valuable, kingdom work to do but we must invest in relationships and prayer. As Ephesians 2v10 says, "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
The article comes as the latest in a series in partnership with Evangelicals Now.
This author has chosen to remain anonymous.