Jonny with his goddaughter
We have 3 fantastic FP interns serving us in the church this year: Rachel, Becki and Jonny.
Here’s Jonny’s latest report on what he’s been doing, including his prayer life, connecting with other churches in our Regions Beyond family and FP training sessions. Enjoy!
Hey fam (slang for family - you’ll get used to it).
Firstly, whoever’s reading this - I’d love to get to know you. If you read any of this and at all think “this guy seems okay/fun/interesting”, please come chat to me at any time.
Not going to lie, being a church FP intern is literally amazing. I kinda thought it would be good and challenging but honestly it’s been 3 incredible months. It’s been tough and stretching at times but really I think that’s what I need (that doesn’t mean I’ll say yes to every job you throw at me!). The biggest thing I’ve learnt this year is that God loves me too much to leave me as I am. He is absolutely set on moulding me to be more like Jesus. And that can be and has been painful over the last year but let’s be honest would we have it any other way than His way?
I’m now going to go through a few areas in FP that have been particularly wonderful.
Praying
I read in a book recently that to pray is to change. Prayer is God’s central avenue to change our hearts and mould us to be more like Christ.
I’ve been more devoted to prayer in these 3 months than any other time period in my life and it’s really been a journey. I’m very okay with sitting down and saying a prayer for a couple minutes and then getting on with my day but I feel if I am to make prayer a life thing rather than a momentary thing then I think I should put some time into it.
So I’ve been spending some good time just sitting with God and mostly just listening (I think at its very core prayer is mostly just listening). It felt quite slow at first but recently I’ve just felt a deeper sense of God’s presence and a real hunger inside me for ore. I’ll keep pursuing this and get back to you on how it’s going in a subsequent report...
Regions Beyond Hub
This was great. It was interesting being in a large group of people where I felt everyone knew everyone and I didn’t know anyone but I got into a lot of good conversations with leaders about their lives and how their leadership call came into fruition. It was also good to share some of my heart and my calling with leaders who don’t know me and allow them to speak into my life.
Bedford Training
Bedford has been a blessing. It’s great in general as a week retreat from the weekly life of an FPer but the teaching and friendships there are just really edifying and build me up so much. I feel there I have found an amazing group of friends that I could see staying in contact with and supporting each other in our lives even after this year.
It’s also been really fun to learn some theology which I’d never heard of before (I’m not going to tell you about it as an incentive for you to come talk to me hehehe).
Something I genuinely didn’t expect this year was the amount of love from you guys as my church family. It’s been wonderful to make new and deeper friendships with people in the church and to receive a lot of love and support. Thanks!