Skip to main content

Grand Plans & Ordinary Living

Image
By


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

Popular posts from this blog

Circuit Talents Challenge

By
"For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master's money ..." Matthew 25:14-30 Why don't you take up the Circuit Talents Challenge by taking a £5 note and making it grow for the Circuit? More details ...
Post a Comment
Read more

For such times as these! - A good news story from Windhill!

By
For such times as these! (Esther 14:14) On June 1st James Stannet (from e:merge , a Christian Youth organisation) began his youth work for Christchurch LEP in Windhill. He says, "Well! June has been a really busy but very productive month. On Wednesday, in the park, numbers are climbing week by week, now averaging 25. Good partnerships have been made with local organisations. this has been a blessing: enabling us to deliver varied sport activities and build good relationships.' 'The Hope Revolution, youth event, based at Christchurch LEP was a massive hit. A BIG Thank you is expressed to the Church for the support, encouragement and prayers. 200 people attended the Fun Day. Despite the rainy weather, 100 young people took part in local projects: two house clear-ups, school garden project (Windhill Primary) and running the Fun Day. 10 Christian Organisations working together resulting in several families requesting Christian children's activities.' ...
Post a Comment
Read more

The wind among the trees

By
I sat among the trees once. And a wind was blowing. Quite a strong wind; I could hear it in the trees –   rushing, rushing. A lovely sound, soothing to my ears. I stopped what I was writing and began to listen. I remembered that Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was like   the wind. You could hear it; see its effect. But you couldn’t see the wind itself. You couldn’t see   where it was coming from, nor going to. And I wondered, “Are you showing me something about your Spirit, Lord?” So I sat, and I listened, and I watched. They were big, old trees where I sat. Tall they were, in an ancient wood, well-branched,  shapely. Beech, grey bark against the clear blue of the sky. And leaves: they were leaves that knew the wind;   leaves that let the wind know them. They looked, like beach leaves look in a wind: full of life –   and with a certain beauty all their own. I watched the great crowns of those great trees. I watched the branches sway and the ...
Post a Comment
Read more