Mission on Ice By Rob Ellinger

Published: June 3rd, 2008

Not all of our mission moments will be filled with revival, thundering voices from the heavens or writing in the sky.  Sometimes they will be everyday moments when we seize opportunity, rather than letting it pass by.

Every Tuesday in the Guildford Transit House we have the challenge and the opportunity to find and engage with a community outside the Boiler Room and even 24-7. Not just to get away from it all, but to be the face of Jesus to clusters of society that have never met Him before. To be intentionally missional to a bunch of strangers. We call it ‘Intentional Mission Tuesday’. (If anyone has a better name for it, I’m all ears.) I figured if I was going to put myself out there and be a kind of madcap modern day street evangelist I might as well do something I enjoy. So every week I hit the ice rink, skate for a few hours and talk about Jesus if people will let me. I’ve got some interesting stories, but one particularly sticks with me, strange as it was. If you’ve ever tried ice-skating evangelism (anyone?) you’ll know that it can be difficult to talk about Jesus at full speed, and so I invariably find myself chatting to the new skaters – the ones who spend more time falling on the ice than skating on it. Partly because I like to think that Jesus would help the ones stumbling around and partly because they want help and are going slow enough to chat. 

It was on such an occasion that I found myself chatting to Khan, a Pakistani Muslim with a penchant for falling on his backside. We struck up a conversation (punctuated by numerous stumbles) and in order to help him skate he took my hand. I have to confess it was not an incredibly comfortable experience.

Still, having got over my latent fear of holding hands with strange men, it struck me as being a potent moment; albeit one that probably nobody else noticed. Here we stood, hand in hand, the incredibly white Christian guy, skating around in circles with the Pakistani Muslim gent. At a time when the Us versus Them mentality is stronger than ever, it was a joy and a privilege to break down a few cultural barriers and share a little Jesus moment – if you’ll pardon the cheesy Christian jargon.

There was no outbreak of revival, no sudden proclamations of Jesus as Messiah and no bright lights in the sky (we were indoors). What I felt however, was Jesus in our midst – and a fresh awareness of a Jesus who transcends culture, religion and gender – a Jesus who smiles when a couple of idiots fall over on the ice a lot all for the purposes of furthering His glory.

Rob Ellinger is a man uncomfortable writing his own bio. Middle Eastern by birth, English by descent and Australian by upbringing he is from everywhere and nowhere. Whichis why he looks so confused. He is currently undertaking Transit in the UK and enjoying it a lot, finding that being stretched by God can be both exhilaratingand exhausting. As an arts graduate he enjoys performing, playing various
musical instruments and swing dancing. He also likes a good curry.

Post to: Facebook del.icio.us digg Newsvine