A Rescue Station? 

Over the last few years, as we have opened the Bible together God has continually challenged in many ways.  One challenge that has come through time and again is that of God’s upside-down values—especially the way that God reaches out with grace and kindness to people who don’t seem very valuable in our world.

I believe that God is continually calling us to be a ‘rescue station’ - a place, a community of people,  that God can use for that work of helping the lost and broken.

These are easy words to say, but I think we already know very well that the reality is much tougher than the words!  Actually living as a rescue station means we are all volunteers in a demanding job.  It takes time, and willingness to ‘man-the-station’.

It also means the hard work of being disciples is central—you can’t run a rescue station if you are unfit and unhealthy.  It is all about growing spiritually fitter and stronger—through seeking God.  The disciplines of prayer and praise, of meeting together, and of studying the Bible are key to having the strength we need.

What is  a rescue station?

All Saints people have a history of working for God’s justice—we have a unique privilege in having the Night Shelter here, and in running Loaves and Fishes.  At base, a rescue station is a place where people find help.  The most significant help of all is found in Jesus, and there can be no greater form of rescue than the life Jesus gives.  He is God’s rescue mission in flesh—any church that serves Him must be a rescue station, a place of outreach and searching the coastline for those who are drowning.  That means having things happening here that help us ‘rescue the perishing’