Whilst on the beach this summer, the tide was coming in at an angle to the shore, and after being in the water for sometime, you would look up to realise, that more often than not, you had drifted away from where you entered the water - sometimes quite significantly. Whilst happily chatting, playing, swimming or whatever, you would suddenly wake up to the fact that you had drifted quite some distance away without realising. It's all to easy to drift away in many areas of life - often without realising it. In Hebrews chapter 2 verse 1, we read -
"We must pay more careful attention therefore, to what we have heard, so we do not drift away".
The writer was writing to christians from a Jewish background who he thought were in danger of drifting away from their new-found faith, and drifting back into their old beliefs and ways. So after spelling out the superiority of Jesus Christ, he goes on to encourage them to persevere - see Hebrews 10:19-25.
Sometimes we need to Wake Up! to the fact that we are drifting away from God's best for us, both as individuals and as churches. In the New Testament the church of Sardis was a case in point. - just listen to the voice of the risen Lord Jesus in John's vision in the book of Revelation -
Rev:3:2-3 - "Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God. Remember therefore, what you have received and heard; obey it, and repent. But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to you."
Sometimes too, we need to Wake Up! to the new possibilities, the new opportunities, the old opportunities we've previously overlooked - that God wants us to see and grasp and begin to move into- real people doing real things for him - working with Him for his kingdom.
On various Sunday mornings in the coming months we will be looking at this theme of 'waking up' to what God might want us to see and do in lots of areas of our everyday lives - home, school, office, family, factory, leisure centre, garden, golf course, Campbell Hall - the lot.
Past and current encouragements - Challenges ahead
An encouraging meeting reflecting a year which ‘again saw modest and sustained growth in many of our activities, but significant growth in Youth, Children’s and Schools’ work’
Finance - Our net deficit was £814, but considering that we purchased a fair amount of equipment during the year, plus congregational giving increased slightly on 2003 despite a number of our larger contributors moving away, it was on the whole a good result.
Youth & Children’s Work
Spy, Sequel, Sorted and Junior Church are constantly adjusting to better serve the youngsters with the gospel, and another new development is scheduled to start this September. - The Crypt Coffeebar - an after school coffee bar for high school youth meeting in the Sorted Room - initially 1 night/week, but hoping to expand to 2 then 3 evenings/week.
Buildings
After discussions with the Diocesan Advisory Committee, we are in the process of applying for 2 ‘faculties’. 1 to build a permanent disabled ramp (hopefully soon) and another 1 dealing with re-ordering the rear of church and replacing some of the pews with chairs. This will probably be a longer process, but we will keep everyone updated and involved.
Men’s Work, & Alpha - Low key (level 1) events for men are already in the pipeline, together with a (level 2) event in autumn, plus we are starting Alpha again in September. Look out too for “DADS CAN - See & Know too”, starting with a trial session on Saturday 18th June.
Current Encouragements - The Diocesan Mission Support Fund will give us £4000 a year for three years to help with Cyd’s salary and the running of the Crypt Coffeebar, plus £6000 to provide a second light teamer to help with the men’s work.
Current Challenge - to fund all our maintenance & new developments.
We are currently forecasting deficits for the next few years even with the Diocesan money ( currently manageable deficits but still deficits ) Maybe God is encouraging us with the Diocesan money, but asking us to consider doing more ourselves?
At the Annual Meeting we were reminded again of the importance of seeing the places where we spent most of our time ( work, home, gym, swimming pool, school etc.) as the primary place where our faith should ‘show’ and make a difference to the way we act and speak. It is in these places that Jesus wants to use us to minister too and reach those around us - our place of ministry and mission. To this end if you go ‘out’ to work why not consider forming a ‘band’ with other christians in your workplace, even just one or two others. Please take one of the booklets at the back of church which explain how you could go about this, plus the benefits it could bring. - Better still why not take a few and give them to other christians where you work, for them to consider too.
Humans in touch with God ! ‘People like us’
Stopped reading the Bible?, or just taking it reluctantly in regular doses, choking it down like medicine, because someone told you that it would be good for you - though you don’t really find it to be so.
“The open secret of many ‘Bible-believing’ churches is that only a small percentage of their members study the Bible with the degree of interest, intelligence or joy that they bring to reading their favourite newspaper or magazine. I believe this is primarily because they do not know and are not taught how to understand the experience of biblical characters in terms of their own experience.” ( Dallas Willard )
In Acts 14 we read about Paul & Barnabas being used to miraculously heal a man crippled from birth at a place called Lystra. The immediate reaction of the people is to treat them as superhuman - “gods in human form”- This scene portrays a common human response to people who are living in such a close relationship with God that manifestations of his presence stand out in their lives. We immediately think, ‘they just aren’t human! - certainly not normal and ordinary like us’. ‘Their experience of God is not like ours - they must be special in some way - our experience of God could never be like theirs.’
If we read the Bible as if the people in it didn’t struggle as we do, it becomes simply a book of doctrine - abstract truth about God, and we can easily end up searching endlessly without encountering God or hearing his voice for ourselves.
We can however, study the Bible with the assumption that the experiences recorded there are basically the same as ours would have been if we had been there. The Bible characters felt very much as we would have if we had experienced those things. They were real people who hurt and laughed as we do. Unless this comes home to us, the experiences recorded in the Bible will remain unreal to us. Perhaps we too need to hear Paul’s words to the Lystrians :-
“We too are only men, human like you”
Over the coming weeks we will be spending some time looking at - ‘People like us”