Emma Miles writes
Love Westhill began as a community outreach 3 and a half years ago. During lockdown a faith community started to form on the back of the relationships we had made. Our main worship gathering takes place on a Sunday lunchtime around a dinner table.
We are a gathering of approximately 30 adults and children and we have become a family! We serve together, pray together, and we are attempting to journey through the highs and the lows of life together in an aim to create home around the person of Jesus.
Being family, like with all families, is not always easy. We have to be willing to receive challenge and we also have to be quick to extend mercy. We are learning a new way of life by creating a culture on the ways and the words of Jesus, and this takes time. We have to be willing to learn from our mistakes and failures by turning to Jesus once again, the one who is full of grace and truth!
There have been times on the journey where we have felt like a pile of ashes but suddenly beauty emerges from the ashes and we realise that even in the darkness and the silence God has still been busy forming us, shaping us and teaching us.
Several months ago, we started breaking bread to mark the beginning of our meal on a Sunday lunch time. This has been really significant for us and together with other markers it has helped to create a familiar structure welcomed by all. ‘It’s just what we do around here’!
Some of the beauty we have witnessed recently, I will now share:
The participation of breaking bread is met with an excitement from people of all ages (our youngest and most vocal child recognises this as a quiet time where we express thanks for one another).
Some children have brought their friends in to the meal and have taken it upon themselves to tell their friends what we are about to do.
We are involving our children in praying and the laying on of hands and rejoice with them when their prayers are answered. One child has witnessed several prayers answered and has an increased expectation that God answers prayer.
We have given permission to one another to challenge each other head on, in love, and we believe the trust we have built has allowed this permission to be granted and the challenge to be welcomed.
We have an increased desire for sitting at the feet of Jesus, doing some honest heart inventory and being willing to be open enough to show our workings out to one another as a source of encouragement.
This last week, whilst sharing on the Great Commission and setting a challenge on all 3 instructions set out by Jesus to his disciples…. the challenge on baptism was ‘who is ready to be baptised’?
The beauty that emerged from last Sunday is that 5 people responded. 4 baptisms and one recommitment. One of these people was asked 2 years ago but did not feel ready. She now knows this is the right time.
This is the first time Love Westhill, in its own space, surrounded by the whole family, will witness, and celebrate the baptism of some of their own. We are so thankful for this significant move, for each other, and for Jesus. We know that God is by no means finished with Westhill, the estate where most of us grew up. He is still transferring people from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the son who he loves, and he is still giving beauty for ashes.