Homelessness - A Blessed Uncertainty

The excitement of church planting continues...

Last Thursday we were informed by the owners of our current venue that they had sold it and that the new owners wished to move in as soon as possible. This meant that we had two Sundays left - the one just been (October 12, 2008) and the one just about to happen (October 19).

While this wasn't a surprise (the building has been for sale for some time), and we have been (and are) working on procuring our next venue, the fact of the matter is that right now I cannot tell you where our congregation will gather on October 26 to share together in worship and word.

And I'm not worried. Even despite the fact that the Bishop was booked to join us on October 26 - and he is still coming - doesn't worry me. Our church does not depend on bricks and mortar - and we will still be the church no matter where we meet.

Of course we're planning and organising things. Hopefully a new venue in a local school gym will be forthcoming sometime in November, or even sooner. And we have plenty of short-term options from local sporting clubs to the local park.

And of course they'll be a bit of stress involved. Routines will be shaken. People will end up in the wrong place or something. Things won't happen quite as smoothly as they would otherwise. And they'll be more energy required to set things up and pack things up and basically get everything organised.

But in the end, this is a time and a season of change, and it's value comes from the way in which God will ground us, gather us and grow us during this time. I can see this already happening.

• It will draw us to God. It already has. After we announced what was happening this past Sunday we entered into one of the most participated-in and profound prayer times we've had as a whole congregation.
• It will draw us to God's purpose for us. We will be stripped away of some of the comforts of "church life" and will have to get back to the basics of why we're here - to reach out and to grow to be a community forming people to be and do what Christ has intended - discipling and speaking the truth where it is needed.
• It will draw us to each other. This coming Sunday is now a time of "closure" of this season and an entering into the next. We will share lunch together and people will have brought their utes and their trailers to help shift stuff away to where we are storing it. It is quite appropriate that in our sermon series from 1st Corinthians we will have just reached 1st Corinthians 3 with it's emphasis on unity and mutual solidarity in Christ.
• It will strengthen our faith. The truth is that we are always dependent on God's grace to survive as Christians and as a church. This truth is now obvious. We are dependent on God in the seeking of our next venue - we need his creativity, his discernment, and his grace to go before us to pave the way through authorising committees and the finalisation of hire agreements and the like. If doors close we have to trust that God has closed them. And when the doors open he will have given us the gift of never being able to say that "we did it" but that God out of his love for us has blessed us with all things.

So we are homeless, we enter into a transition, a season of uncertainty - and it is a blessed thing.

Please pray for us. Please pray for those opening doors - that are next long-term venue will not be too far away. Please pray for us to be wise and discerning. And above all, please pray that God will have his way with us and we will learn what we need to learn during this time so that this congregation of God's people may bring glory to his name alone.