Memorial or Thanksgiving Service for Michael Toogood

Much of the day last Saturday was spent in Covent Garden, at the Swiss Church, where Andrew Murray and others had organised a memorial for Michael Toogood who planted the church there in Soho (as Immanuel Community Church, Soho; it is now Hope West End, after combining with the Covent Garden church). The day was arranged so that in the morning we talked about Michael together for an hour and then after packed lunch there was an afternoon service where Eric Holdstock said a little more about Michael and I preached. The sermon can be read here on another blog of mine. The acoustics is the church left something to be desired and it was sad that not more people were present. It was  good time, nevertheless.

Looking for Love

I got round to reading Looking for Love the story of Debbie Smith (as told to Grace King) last night. It is just a 40 page little book and if you want a copy you can get one here - from the Hope, West End church. It is gratifying to see it in print as I was involved from early on in the London Inreach Project that led to the formation of Hope West End and I guess my basic hope was that people like Debbie would hear the gospel and be saved. If only there had been more. There is nothing inevitable about Debbie's conversion - indeed it looks highly unlikely all the way to the end and yet God has saved her. Hopefully the book will be a means of stimulating interest in the unconverted an encouragement to the converted. This is now a second biographical piece from the Project's history. Michael Toogood's striking biography Mission to Soho is available here. (Retitled less subtly I notice). I read Debbie's book on a day when several websites were carrying news of someone also involved in the project at one point with a very different story. How sobering.