Pregnant

For over ten years I have felt a sense of frustration, a little like trying to remember a dream that had been so vivid in the night but when you wake up you can't recall it. ...

Before we started New Life I felt this deep calling from God to start "a new thing." Just as Abraham was called by God from Ur "to a place I will show you", so I too felt this strange call to do something I couldn't yet see. Margaret and I knew that it was God's direction even though we had no clear vision of what the final goal would be.

We also had the clear word from God that this "new thing" would grow to be a church of 1000 people. He didn't say how long it would take or what it would look like.

Now I'm feeling again this deep frustration of the next step in the journey is in front of my face, but I can't quite see it. It's a little like the way that women get towards the end of a pregnancy, when they feel bloated and impatient to see what the baby is like.

I've been reading Alan Hirsh's book "The Forgotten Ways" and it is an excellent, though very solid (even scholarly) read. I've found myself asking questions like:

• What would it look like to have church in a pub? At the soccer fields/ netball courts?
• How do we move from where we are to become a truly mission-centred church?
• Will New Life consist of a mega-church or twenty or so smaller churches meeting all over our town?

I think God has already done remarkable things in the lives of many people in our church. I also think that He has challenged our thinking about what it means to be the church.

We also have much further to travel in this journey!

A few weeks ago, during the Pastors' Prayer meeting that convenes at our church most weeks, a man came in to buy a computer. He left after a few minutes having bought a computer. Jokingly, i said to the other pastors, "You know we have people coming in here all the time, total strangers, who will give us money- that is favour among men!" Admittedly they do it to get a computer or a pram, but I do it to develop relationships with them. And there is an element of truth in the statement, because they really are giving us money, often a few hundred dollars at a time.

Jim Rutz coined the term "Open Church" and I think that is what we are becoming- a church that is constantly open to newcomers and total strangers. It's great to have people coming in this way. It's even better when they come to us because they need God!

So here we are in this permanent state of transition. The church was always meant to be like the Israelites in the desert- following the presence of God into new places and new experiences.

It's an exciting, if uncomfortable place to be.

Blessings

Keith