Four12 news image for 'For The Love of The Swiss' about Switzerland outreach

For the Love of the Swiss

While jetting off in faith to Central Europe in June 2016, and stretching my leave, finances and family beyond capacity, I had very little idea as to what to expect. With His divine provision and a pocketful of prophecy to back me up, all I did know was that He wanted to do something significant in and through me.

I had felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to go to Switzerland about a year and a half prior to this. Not seeing the immediate opportunity, I had committed in my heart to go at soon as it arose. Unsurprisingly then, this would happen less than a week after booking pricey plane tickets to lead a completely different outreach that would be kicking off just after the proposed Swiss one. As a self-employed professional (no work, no pay) with a newborn baby and no money in the bank, I knew that the possibility of attending two outreaches across three weeks in a five-week period was ludicrous. I resigned myself to the fact that the Switzerland Four12 visit would not be happening this time. Lamenting to my wife, it was her Spirit-led raised eyebrow and her knowing, ‘Are you sure you can’t go?’ that got my mind spinning, and a few weeks later I was confirmed and booked for the small team of guys making their way across the Alps.

God had flown me across continents to come and build friendships with people who are now deeply loved family members.

Touching down in Zurich, I had little to no idea of how God would be using me during this time, but with the thousands of Rands in finances donated, and my mother-in-law caring for my family while I was gone, I knew that God had gone out of His way to make the trip possible. The question in my mind was why God had gone to all this trouble to make sure that I was here in Switzerland.

Our ideas of what is valuable in the kingdom can often be quite grand. God, it seems, values more subtle yet powerful things that we often take for granted. 1 Corinthians 13 reminds us that if we can speak in the tongues of angels and move mountains in faith, but don’t have love (for the saints), then we have nothing.

Switzerland stood out from other outreaches in the quality of time we spent with the saints there. Without programmes or agendas, God seemed to be setting us up to knit hearts and grow in sincere reciprocal love for every individual in the church (being less than 15 adults). From the outset, there was a sense of God building relationship above anything else. God had flown me across continents to come and build friendships with people who are now deeply loved family members. Of course, this love is the foundation for the other work He wants to do. Gifts, teachings and even deliverance flowed from the secure foundation of brotherly affection. The simple act of loving on new friends became a critical relational rooting in the Four12 movement for All for Jesus Church, from which God is going to grow His Kingdom.

Gifts, teachings and even deliverance flowed from the secure foundation of brotherly affection.

In reflecting on the time a few days later, God highlighted the following Scripture to me:

‘Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.’ (1 Peter 1:22)

I left Switzerland holding a renewed reverence and appreciation for the love that God calls us to have for the church, and the seriousness with which God takes our devotion to each other (even across the oceans).

 

Robin Scott is an elder at New Life Church in East London. He is married to Kirsten and the father of three children. Robin runs a Clinical Psychology practice and is a people-lover.

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