London City Mission

I just finished reading Streets Paved with Gold: The Story of the London City Mission by Irene Howat and John Nicholls. I had never heard of the London City Mission before seeing this book in the book store. I hope to write a book review of this book sometime soon but in the meantime, there are a couple of quotes that are too good not to share.

The London City Mission was founded in 1835 to bring the gospel to the poorest neighborhoods of London. They used city missionaries who walked through the neighborhoods every day, knocking on doors and sharing the gospel. Their strategy is: "the same person, going to the same people, regularly, to become their friend, for Jesus' sake." This strategy could be useful for any church's evangelism program. I pray that all churches would train their members to be friends for Jesus' sake.

The London City Mission (LCM) was a little slow using women as city missionaries. But this doesn't mean that women didn't have an important role in conjunction with their work. In 1861, LCM debated whether to employ women alongside men. They finally decided not to; one fear was that people would see LCM as a woman's work and the male recruits would stop joining. They did recognize that women did have a valuable role to play. They quoted in their magazine, "When the heart of a woman has been won to the love of Christ, it is her happiness, her delight, to be employed in works of mercy." Of course, this joy is in men's hearts, too, I hope.

There is much more from this book that could be quoted. I hope to post a review soon.

Bert