Flicking through my crisp, new Inspire course notes, I felt pretty frustrated that it would be months before I could use them.

The idea of getting a bunch of people together for food and a chat is right up my street. But life in lockdown isn’t conducive to socialising, and as someone who loves to have the kitchen table bursting with food and friends, I’m finding it tough. I just didn’t want to wait! Here we are, confined to the home, glued to our kids 24-7 for who knows how long – a challenge and privilege we perhaps will never have again – if ever there was a time for Inspire, it’s now. I need this stuff!

I decided to embrace the online world.

One great thing about inviting people to spend 90 minutes with you at the moment, is that they’re definitely not going out or too busy! It was so easy to gather some friends, and there was a real buzz as everyone flickered into view. It was a Friday night, and some had embraced that – treat snacks, a glass of wine here, a fancy hot chocolate there…

I’d done a tiny amount of prep to make this work, simply sending an email to tell my friends the few things they would need to have at their fingertips, and the link to the Kitchen Table Project video we’d be watching together (I hadn’t yet learned how to share my screen at that point – the subsequent three weeks in lockdown life have significantly increased my IT skills!).

We had such a lovely evening, and it felt so timely – the content of Inspire couldn’t be more relevant to parents in the current lockdown situation. I’ll let my guests’ feedback do the talking, but I can’t recommend it highly enough. If you haven’t tried out Inspire yet, now’s a great time to go for it!

– “It’s so nice to feel like we’re actually doing something meaningful when everything else has stopped”

– “To be honest I thought this was going to be really cringe, I was only doing it to do you as a favour, but I loved it! Thank you for coercing me into this!!  I feel like as a couple this is a conversation we just hadn’t had out loud, and I am really excited that we have started it!”

– “We’re keeping the discussion cards out on the dining room table, they’re fantastic!”

– “I could do this! There are a couple of families we don’t know really well, but this would be a nice way to get to know them.”

– “Such a lovely way to bond with you all tonight.  I’m so pleased for all the kids that we’ve done this – it’s made me realise we can and should all be praying for each other’s children, and we are all here for them all”. 

If you want to find out more about how you can run an Inspire session, check out the promo and find all the resources here for free.