God loves Battersea, and everyone on the Winstanley must have known it this Summer!  When we first started talking about GLB back in March, July seemed a long time away.  But as we prayed and planned, before we knew it we were breaking into smaller teams and working out how to serve our estate for a week.

In true St P’s style, the week revolved around food…  We started and ended with 2 grand BBQs and it was amazing to see so many people from the area all mixing together and having a laugh.  The kids went crazy for the bouncy castles and the sun made a welcome appearance – proof that God really does love Battersea!  A few activities ran all week like kids club, evangelism, social action, photography project, parents café, youth sports and evening café.  You’d never have thought so many different activities could have been run out of the same building!  It was amazing to see people step up to the plate.  Hidden talents that we never knew existed, from barn dancers to brilliant manicurists, all reside within our very own church.

One of the highlights for me was parading through the estate at the end of the week with all the children, singing songs they’d learned and showing off the ‘river’ they’d been making.  In street after street people hung out of their windows and waved as we went by and it was so good to hear the estate ring with the sounds of children just having fun. 

Another highlight was seeing a child show their mum the prayer fish they’d written.  The child asked his mum if she ever prayed for him.  So far as I know, the mum wasn’t a church goer (certainly not at St P’s) and deadly serious, she crouched down and said to him “I pray for you every single day”.

Fun and games in the mornings gave way to rather different activities in the evenings and on the Tuesday night St P’s was packed to the rafters with young people ready for a rap concert.  Following up on two weeks of sports on York Gardens with Athletes in Action, there was loads on offer for young people throughout GLB.  The guys were out there playing football with them every day and I’m reliably informed they didn’t do too badly themselves!  I’m not sure the same could be said for the church members taking part in the estate family sports day on the last Saturday…

The aftermath of GLB has stayed with us for a long time – and I don’t just mean with the special ‘high-vis t-shirts’ we wore.  Whether it was the beautiful picture frames which were hanging up in church, laughing at pictures of the Barn Dance, rejoicing over “Church Got Funky” or just continuing to be in the space that had been created on York Gardens, God moved and we moved with Him.  Life group on Tuesday mornings has seen new Mums join, and we now have people attending Alpha because we met them during GLB.  It was an exhausting but exhilarating week and I think most of us finished thinking “Bring on GLB 2012!”.