Vision 2004: A growing family

This is the text of Nick's vision casting address at the Celebration meal

It is good to hear encouraging stories, isn’t it. [Review of the year 2003]. One that stood out for me: We’ve got nearly two hundred people coming regularly to our church on Sunday mornings.  We are a growing family in many ways. And so it’s good to encourage one another. And tonight is a moment to unashamedly give each other a pat on the back and say ‘well done’ for all your hard work for God’s sake  in 2003.

We don’t need to be afraid of that, just so long as we don’t forget who it is who makes our church grow in the end (1 Corinthians 3 vv.5-9). How churches grow: ‘I planted the seed…Apollos watered it…but God made it grow.’ That’s why we just sang a song of praise to God and rededication to him. Because it’s God who gives the growth.

One of the nice things about being a minister is that when things you right, I get a disproportionate amount of the credit. What sometimes people fail to recognise is what Paul emphasises here in this verse: a healthy, growing church thrives on, and relies on, teamwork. What does he say here: ‘I planted the seed…Apollos watered it….’

Healthy churches rely on teamwork. That’s why it’s only united churches that grow. So if you’ve been part of the team this year, in whatever capacity – whether you feel like you’re a big cog or small cog in the machine, thank you for playing a vital part in helping God’s church to grow. It’s been a team effort, and I feel very privileged to be your minister. Yhave my gratitude and respect.

You also have something far better to look forward to than that: V.8: ‘Each will be rewarded according to their own labour.’

For those who serve God faithfully, there is a heavenly reward waiting for you. And I don’t know about you, but that motivates me to keep going.

We’ve seen a few facts and figures tonight: here’s some more that might interest you:

They’re from the BU. They’re only available from 1998, but they back up our claim to be a church growing numerically. When you compare that to the statistic that there’s nearly 200 people (including children, of course) coming regularly to worship with us, that suggests that we should be working to see even more people being baptised and coming into membership in the coming years. That’s a challenge.

Indeed I believe it is our main challenge over the coming year. Numerical growth is one thing. But spiritual growth and gradual maturity is quite another. Jesus didn’t call us just to make converts. He called us to make disciples. We’ve been quite successful in attracting people into church: many have been converted. We’re a growing family numerically. That’s good. The challenge now is to be a family that is growing spiritually, so that each of us becomes – over time – a mature disciple of Jesus Christ, confidently serving him in our daily lives. That’s a particular theme for us in the coming year, I believe.

There are various aspects to addressing this that you’ll notice over the coming year. I want to just highlight a few:

The Building Project

This is all related to our numerical growth, of course. We badly need buildings that will adequately facilitate and accommodate the work we’re doing. One of the most encouraging things for me and the deacons over this last year has been the level of unity we’ve enjoyed over the rightness of this project. I also think we’ll learn a lot about trusting God as we do this.

We’re in the final stages of preparing the report that will go to the various planning authorities in the next couple of weeks. David always reminds us not to get our hopes up too high, but in theory it’s possible we could have the necessary permissions to proceed with the project by May or June. If that happens we’ll need to start paying people to dig holes and build things. In other words we need to be giving money to this project. And so we’ve set a date for a gift day for Sunday 29 February.

Course 2

 Look out also for Course 2, the second of our four discipleship courses which we plan to trial during Lent. This is all about getting into the habits that enable spiritual growth: prayer, Bible reading, giving and fellowship.

Course 3

 Then of course there’s Course 3, which will be our particular focus at the SHAPE church w/e away in May. More detail about that tomorrow morning. But that will focus on each of us finding a place to serve God that suits the gifts and experience he’s given us. We grow not just by learning but by doing.

Organisational changes

These are also needed to accommodate growth. As the leadership team’s report suggests, as the family grows numerically it’s a far more demanding task organising it so it thrives and stays healthy and growing well. So we’ve spent some considerable time thinking and praying about the structure of our leadership team, the diaconate. The next church meeting will be asked to vote on this (and we’ll make sure all church members have a copy before then.)

Let me give you some background to how we’ve come to this point.

q       We observed that it was all too easy to spend deacons meetings talking about finance and fabrics, when what we really desired was to be discussing our priorities as a church in terms of God’s purposes. 

q       We felt that the best way to do that would be to restructure around the 5 Purposes of the church as identified in the Purpose Driven Life book. We felt that this provided us with an authentically biblical model for what our priorities should be – and also one which the congregation are fairly familiar with.

q       We also felt that giving each deacon a particular responsibility rooted in one of these purposes would help us work towards the balance that we are looking for, not only in our meetings, but in the whole of our church life.  This structure, we hope, will help us to address some of those weaknesses over time.

q       More detail about this in due course,  The deacon named in each case is not expected to ‘do’ all this themselves. They’re more of an enabler – making sure the issues are addressed by the church.

In order to allocate people to each task we trialled the Course 3 materials as a diaconate. This highlighted our individual strengths, and we’re proposing people for areas of responsibility in the light of that process.

q       1^st purpose of the church is Worship. Focus here is our collective worship together. One deacon will ensure development of worship appropriate to the needs of all those who attend. At this stage we feel that’s a job I’m best suited to. In time perhaps someone else could take that one on.

q       2^nd purpose is fellowship. Ann will ensure that we’re all caring for one another.

q       Also under fellowship comes Finance. Gillian will continue as Treasurer.

q       3^rd purpose is Discipleship. Malcolm, with his experience in training people in the workplace, has agreed to take on this area, which includes homegroups.

q       Also under discipleship comes a deacon with particular responsibility for our work with Youth and Children. Bruce effectively already does this job.

q       4^th Purpose is Ministry: We want to appoint in time a deacon with responsibility for ensuring we all find a place to serve. This is mystery person at present, but we’re trusting God to raise someone up in time. For your prayers.

q       Also under this purpose we’ve placed fabrics and facilities, which facilitate our ministry to each other and to the community. Gordon knows the buildings better than anyone.

q       5^th Purpose is Mission. This is a big one, so we’ve divided it up. Karen has valuable gifts and experience in relation to Evangelism and outreach to the community.

q       And last but not least, we need someone to help us develop our strategy and support for all our mission beyond these villages – including World Mission. David Henry has lots of experience here.

Our next church meeting in March, which is the AGM, will be key for all of this. Beforehand church members will have more information about this, and then there’ll be the opportunity to vote on these proposals.

The big change of mindset that we’ll need to grasp, though, if we vote in these changes, is that from now on deacons will not be elected solely on their sound Christian character and leadership gifts. They will also need to be able to take responsibility for a particular area of the church’s life. So we’ll be seeking people with specific gifts in relation to these areas of the church’s life. The obvious role for any further deacon that might be appointed would be this question mark we’ve got over Ministry – ensuring people find a place to serve.

Deadline for nominations, in writing and then seconded, is Gift Day, 29 February. 

I want to finish with a picture:

An image we’ve found helpful recently as a diaconate is that being involved in a missionary church is like surfing waves.

A surfer can’t make waves. Only God makes the waves. The surfer’s task is to spot the waves God sends, and then ride them skilfully, making the most of the waves God sends.

Being involved in this church is much the same. We can’t create growth. We can’t make people become disciples of Jesus Christ. As we saw earlier, only God can do that. But in 2004, when God sends the waves of his Holy Spirit, as he is at work in the hearts and minds of people we meet, our task is to spot those waves, and work skilfully and faithfully to make the most of the waves God sends. Will you join us, as God’s fellow-workers, in that task?

Prayer: Lord, you send the waves. We want to make the most of them for your glory.