One step at a time

The Connections Summer has begun. Since my last article three weeks have passed. In terms of our Sunday gathering we spent the first of these weeks in a marquee in a local park, the other two weeks in the local surf club.


It has been a time of being "emptied out" and being brought to a place of relying on God. We have had to re-evaluate what we do and re-engage with who God has made us to be. On November 2nd we had a brain-storm time together, recognising that "everything we do or have done is on the table." It is time to reboot, restart, respond to what God shows us.

In this last week a friend offered a reflection on the current state of things. It was in response to my sharing how, at the EFAC conference in September, I was asked by someone whether I was satisfied with where the church was at. In response to that question I found myself answering "No, we're too "churchy", too mainstream." The Connections heart-beat has always resonated with a desire to be accessible to those who would not find "churchy" church accessible. My friend's reflection was a suggestion that the previous season was a (necessary) journey on a siding - and the current situation was God bringing us out of that siding to set us up for the next set of tracks.

The difficulty in this is a natural inclination for us to go back up that siding of "comfortable church" and to look for and bring about "churchy" things that are not going to help - we can think up plenty of "good things" which might not be the "right things." There is always the danger of jumping into the "busyness" of what we think is mission but in the end is spiritual stress.

Rather, we have to get back to the basics of a Christian community gathered around the Word of God. We are continuing our teaching series in Corinthians which encourages us in that gutsy counter-cultural gospel life. It's all about being authentic, radical, Jesus-focussed change-agents of ourselves as well as the world.

And so plans are starting to emerge. We will make use of our summer in Somerset. Our children in the congregation are really keen - they'll be doing things in the lead up to Christmas, inviting their friends along. The marquee will come out again on Christmas Eve, we hope, for "Kid's Christmas" in the park. We're changing around how we gather so that we both serve the inward needs of the church as well as being accessible to enquirers - we can learn from the cafe-church people a bit! There are many many ideas for everything from curry nights to kite flying to sand sculpting to book groups - ideas there for a person with the vision to motivate them and carry their burden through to completion. There is stuff to do.

But in the end, the new track we are on is more than just "doing." It is about the genuineness of our faith, and the courage of our day-to-day proclamation.

Continue to pray for us. There are plenty of logistics to sort out - we would like to stay at the surf club for the summer, beyond our November bookings, and the conversations about that are ongoing. But above all pray for us to have opportunities to share the hope that God has put within us, for inspiration and boldness to speak where we not normally speak, to act as we would not normally act, and so be overwhelmed by how God decides to use us.