So, this is my first post on my FYM England 2006-2007 blog.

Some of you may be new to blogs and I found an interesting statement describing blogs by British author Mil Millington:

“They’re like online diaries or something – nerds talking to themselves in public.”

Hopefully you all don’t consider me to be a nerd and what I post will be more than just me talking to myself in public. I hope to give you all an accurate picture of what God is doing in Salford, England as well as what he is doing in my life.

I love to read and often find that other’s words are much more fitting for trying to describe things than my own. As you keep up with my blog you’ll find that I often use what I consider to be great statements to help paint a picture of what I am experiencing, thinking, feeling, and trying to accomplish.

Ministry in England is unlike anything I have ever experienced and far more difficult that anything I could have prepared for. Author Rob Bell describes the challenge we are being faced with in Salford, England as “loving without an agenda.” When one studies the life of Christ, I believe this is the approach to ministry he models and that Rob Bell tries to help bring us back to. Here in England we are trying to be the church described in Acts 2. Notice I said be the church, not the type of church we want to go to or the type of church we want people to attend. Bridget Willard says:

Church isn’t where you meet. – Church isn’t a building. – Church is what you do. – Church is who you are. – Church is the human outworking of the person of Jesus Christ. – Let’s not go to Church, let’s be the Church.

That is our goal as the FYM 2006-2007 team in England. We are here to be the church; to be the hands and feet of Christ, an outpouring of his love, which is a love without an agenda.

Live and Love, Life and God!

Chad Mustain

FYM England