Announcing the Kingdom is a practice which helps us form the habit of noticing the presence and work of God in our world, then talking about it to others. This is not just in church but those we meet throughout the week – those who don’t share our faith, or may not even know we have one.
‘Announcing the Kingdom’ has three steps
- Firstly, we look out for God in the world, noticing situations where God’s presence has been evident or where God has worked in a certain way. We may be encouraged by someone’s attitude or behaviour. We may be inspired by something we’ve seen, heard or experienced.
- Secondly, we stop to name that work or presence: taking time to tell someone what we’ve noticed. It may involve encouraging them with something like: ‘I see God at work in you’, ‘you’ve shown me something of God today’, ‘your kindness felt like a blessing from God to me’; or it may involve drawing their attention to something beautiful: ‘this sunset reminds me of God’s faithfulness’.
- Thirdly, next time we’re with our church or worshipping community, we talk about announcing the kingdom, telling the encouraging stories but also telling the stories of the times when we haven’t felt able to do it, or when it hasn’t turned out quite as we’d have liked.
In your church
If you choose to introduce the practice of ‘Announcing the Kingdom’, here are some things to bear in mind:
- Take time to explain how it works, and maybe even encourage people to practice by turning into pairs and sharing one way in which they’ve noticed the presence or work of God in their own lives.
(See ‘Changing Lives Conversations’ for more info on this.)
- Let people know that you’re going to invite them to share stories at the next service.
- Set aside time in the service the following week, and ask a few brave people to tell a story of when they’ve announced the kingdom in the past week. It doesn’t matter whether they think it went well. The church celebrates together even when the outcome wasn’t what was hoped for.
- Continue to practice ‘Announcing the Kingdom’ regularly, to help people grow in confidence in their conversations outside the church.