My Grandma is one of my heroes. She’s heading into her late eighties with a deep love for Jesus, the marginalised, the nations and the next generation. She doesn’t venture far out of the house these days, but travels all over the globe in prayer instead.
Because Gran lost her husband, Grandad Bruce, to cancer when he was only a couple of years older than I am now, she has lived the majority of her life as a single person. She has relied on the church to help her raise her four young children and have them all at summer camps together, and good friends to be her companions on holidays and trips she’d otherwise have taken alone. Her most frequent travel companion was a woman called Gwen, also single, and for fifty years April and Gwen would adventure together where they could. It’s just more fun to share the story with somebody, split the costs, eat together, look out for one another. It’s nice to have a plus one.
Thanks to travelling on the road a fair bit for work, to visit churches and to preach, I decided (with the help of a mentor’s advice) to get into the habit, where possible, of always taking a plus one. This is for lots of reasons. There are just golden discipleship opportunities you can have with someone over a long journey in a car or on a train that you just don’t get sat in a coffee shop. It’s an ideal mentoring opportunity for a younger leader, especially if you are coaching them in preaching and can get them to learn on the job with you. (Ask them about what they notice in the context you’re speaking in, ask them to pray about the response of the room, even ask them for feedback on your talk!)
