Grand plans and ordinary
living. These are the two things that
have struck me the most over the last month or so. I have had the delight of being in annual General
Church Meetings, reading reports of the many and varied different groups that
the churches have. Reading the
highlights, hearing the profound stories that go with them, and at the same
time the ordinariness of what happens week by week, almost unnoticed apart from
by those who engage.
If, we ever set out all of
these activities as a Grand Plan for any church right from the beginning, I am
sure we would have been told amongst many other comments you can imagine,
‘That’s too adventurous … That’s a bit risky, what if no one turns up … Just
who do you think would be willing to give up their time for this, or that …?’
Yet, we do. And they continue to be
valuable expressions of our discipleship, activities concerned with our mission
and ministry.
These Annual meetings offer
us an opportunity to review the year and the life of the Church. They also suddenly make us aware of the sheer
numbers of people we have contact with, and they offer us hope and excitement
for what the next year will hold. But we
don’t think of it in terms of Grand Plans, but ordinary living.
As I write, the Circuit
Leadership Team has been considering all the responses to the latest
consultation and will be bringing proposals – the fruit of our deliberations,
our prayers and our discernment. Will we
be offering a Grand Plan? Well, there is
no doubt that whatever our proposals are, there are complex issues around
limited resources, and that there is also a sense in which the church is rarely
static. We are the body of Christ, we do
not remain static, we move, we change in a world that changes faster than
perhaps some of us would like. We do so,
because the Holy Spirit who guides us is not static, but stirs us up and leads
us on. What may seem on one day to be a
Grand Plan, will become the next ordinary living and we will hear about the
movement of God among his people and be amazed.
Grand Plans and Ordinary
Living. Sometimes, we may not know the
Grand Plan, or indeed care that much, because we live out our discipleship
where we are. So when I came across this
prayer from some Iona resources it both comforted and challenged, and made me
wonder how many of Jesus followers really understood his plan as he travelled
and taught? Even in Holy Week, some had
still not quite understood. So I offer
to you this prayer, that it may speak to all the Grand Plans as well as our
ordinary living.
If we met you, Jesus Christ,
we might not think that you were on a mission.
Your talk would be of common and curious things:
salt, dough,
lost lambs, lost coins,
paying taxes, hosting a meal,
wise virgins, and foolish house-builders.
We would not know you were on a mission,
we would think you were making sense of life,
lighting up the ordinary, identifying the truth.
When next you look with compassion on the world
and need mission done in your way,
Lord, send us.
Amen.
Every Blessing
Rev Ian
Comments
Post a Comment