I had the privilege of marrying lovely people recently. I was struck during the service by some of
the consistent themes that flowed through the service. I welcomed people to ‘worship the God from
whom all love derives’. When I was
introducing the wedding, I said ‘all who trust their lives to one another are
relying on the power of love and faithfulness of God, so we shall ask God to
send his blessing on …. and …. that their new life together may be filled with
joy, may bring them ever closer to one another, and may make them ever more
open to God, whose love gives meaning to theirs’. I then prayed and included these words ‘and
since we know without you nothing is strong, nothing is holy, we pray that as
they now make their vows, you will sustain them and surround them’. I prayed before the giving and receiving of
rings ‘by your grace, help them to be faithful to each other in unbroken love’. I finished the vow part of the service with a
traditional blessing ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his
face to shine upon you and be gracious to you:
The Lord lift his countenance before you, and give you peace. Amen.’
I went on to preach a sermon on being God chasers! Chasing after Gods presence so that they can
be so filled with His love it will overflow to the families, friends and communities
they live and serve. There was a
consistent theme and that was if their marriage was going to be good and
unbroken they needed to come humbly to God and not just rely on any human
promise or effort.
At the beginning of the missional listening project I am
having a constant battle of control. You
see I have more ideas before breakfast than most people have in a week. I think I know how to be successful! I have had two fruitful ministries in the
churches I have served, congregations have grown, people have come to faith and
both churches have been left loving God and people more than when I
started. I know what to do now
surely! I know what sort of church I
want to create, I know how to draw a crowd, I know what to do here in rural
Dorset because of the things that have worked elsewhere. I come with gifts and talents, a bucket load
of sermons, leadership techniques, ways to create vision and solutions to
problems. Let’s get on with it! But, just like a marriage, nothing will be
fruitful here because of human endeavour, only if God blesses. In fact, all the historic success I may have
known has come from God despite my best efforts to get in the way! I truly believe that God is in control, and
he will lead us to the people to serve, will show us how to open the bible with
them and then create an indigenous church from this, but why do I have so much
difficulty humbling myself to living this out?
One of the questions I keep getting asked by Christians is ‘what would
success look like to you in 5 years’ and ‘what would failure look like?’ Deep
down I am thinking ‘when we have a church in the village of 50 members
including 50% converts and loads of children running around, and seeing other
villages buying into acoustic84 so we can begin to have congregations in there.
And I would love to see Alpha’s running, cell groups that are both intentional
and fun, people meeting in 3 and 4’s to do the hard one anothering
together’! That’s what’s deep down,
that’s what I have done before, that’s what’s been successful, that’s what I
wanted to say. But instead I simply answer,
‘if I am loving God more and others more in 5 years it would have been a
success’! It would have been an even
better statement if I believed it to my very being.
Too often I come to God with full hands. I come to listen, to pray, to serve with all the solutions and all the answers. I wonder how different life would be if we came to Him with empty hands?
Too often I come to God with full hands. I come to listen, to pray, to serve with all the solutions and all the answers. I wonder how different life would be if we came to Him with empty hands?
Recently I went to the southern counties Baptist annual
meeting where we called the Reverend Colin Norris to the position of Senior
regional minister. When giving a brief
response to the calling he said humbly ‘I come with empty hands’. Now I know Colin a little (he was my
predecessor at my previous church) and he has tonnes of gifts, but unlike me, I
think Colin believes to his very being, that he comes with empty hands. He signposted us to the wonderful scene at
the end of the gospel of John where the boat was in the right place, the
fishermen were in the right place, and Jesus said, ‘have you caught
anything’? The disciples said simply
‘no, or ‘we have empty (nets) hands’!
They needed to state this so that Jesus could then direct them to try
the other side to which they did and the result was a wonderful catch. We as a family know we are in the right place
but we come with empty hands waiting for Jesus to direct us and trusting that
if we can find the courage to follow Him, our ministry will be fruitful here in
rural Dorset. Now we just need to
believe this to our very being. When
people ask us, what can we pray for you I simply say this; ‘please pray that I
will follow Jesus’ lead rather than go ahead and then ask for blessing, please
pray that I will decrease so He can increase, please pray that Jesus will be
Lord of our lives, please pray that we come to this project knowing we are
called but with empty hands’. Do please
pray for us! We need it! With your prayers and our aspiration perhaps
we can truly make Jesus lord of our lives.
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