Through a strangers eyes...

Last night I was privliadge enough to see church through a strangers eyes.
Because I had been up in the church office doing things that evening, I was at the church hall early (yes before 6:30 is when it is early) and so I saw a couple standing on their own outside.
Let me be clear - going up to people I don't know at church is not something that I find easy. At all! My natural tendencies are to get a bit shy when it comes to strangers - but the Lord compelled me to go to them and see if they were new... they were.
Actually they had turned up to see a friend playing in the band (Pappy). Paul and Katie are in the land of Oz on exchange from Austria and so their understanding of church is based on what they have seen of the catholic church in their homeland. They had never been to church in their adults lives though - so last night was an eye-opener for them.
It was also one of those (rare) nights that we were having communion so I was able to explain to them what it symbolised in terms of Jesus body and blood for us. And as we were finishing off the second talk on the book of Ruth, I spent most of the sermon explaining to them the meaning of words such as "sinner", "Israel", "holy", and "redeemer". We flicked through the bible together and I showed them how the end of the book of Ruth gives us the start of the genealogy of Christ which they were somewhat amazed by.
I think they really enjoyed it! They kept on asking questions and at the end we had a great chance to talk about what they had expected church to be like and how they understood we could come to God.
Please pray for them!
And please make sure that you're looking out for people that you don't know at church - experience tells me that we have to get over ourselves and our nervousness and just say 'hello'!