At the end of the morning meeting in Hastings, a woman came up to me and said: “I’ve just got to tell you what happened to my daughter.” She then told a story about how as a teenager, her daughter had wandered away from God and away from church. “But then she read your books, and everything changed. She not only got on fire for God, but she had such a passion to see her friends know Jesus. For example, she wrote the names of each of her friends and then stuck them on different bits of the walls of her bedroom and she’d walk round her bedroom praying for each of her friends.

“But what was fascinating was when her friends came over, they were like asking her: ‘why have you got my name stuck on my wall?’ and she’s say: ‘it’s because I am praying for you.’

“But that’s not the best bit,” she said to me.

“What is?” I asked.

“The fact that six years on she’s still on fire! Since she read your books, she’s never looked back. That’s six years now.”

Anyway I won’t say too much more as I think I need permission from her to share the whole story. Suffice to say that I am looking forward to meeting this young woman when I preach in Chichester later this month.

And I was so grateful for this encouraging feedback from her mum in Hastings.

I am a huge believer in encouragement. When I was a sports journalist, the most respected football coach in England was Terry Venables, and he said something about footballers that I believe is true of all of us. He said that: “the thing that motivates players more than anything else is encouragement.”

I really enjoyed doing my “6 reasons why people become Christians” talk which was designed to encourage the believers at King’s Church, Hastings, and a massive well done to them on a brilliant conversion of their huge building. They’ve put in a new wall to create a wonderful new meeting area.

Who can you encourage today?

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