All this week I’ve been collecting stats and information for specific grants regarding our Matthew 25 project and some medical mission needs. I’m also spending quite a lot of time on an adaptive change team I want to get started here at our church. Why?

Well I’ve given the fellowship a time line for the next five years which includes me moving on in the near future. Our church is 131 years old, I’m not getting any younger, and I want to make sure they have an opportunity to struggle with changing culture, staff requirements, decreased giving, and most of all where God seems to be leading our fellowship in regards to service. But I also really want them to celebrate the blessings of the past and at the same time rejoice in the possibilities before my pilgrimage takes me to other opportunities of ministry.

Plus…in the middle of all this planning and thinking are some really exciting opportunities for global missions with our partners in Myanmar and Thailand. I don’t want the fellowship to miss any of this because if they do…I know God will bless the work somehow…but perhaps without us. I’ve always kept in mind a statement made by Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “The church’s task is not simply to bind the wounds of the victim beneath the wheel, but also to put a spoke in the wheel itself.”

Point? We have not been called to sit, vegetate and then go to heaven. We are citizens of the Kingdom of God now! We are to bring the Good News today! Get on the path today!

Dear Father, use us to heal not only broken people but broken systems of thought. Please keep us from doing things just because that’s the “way they have always been done.” Provide us with the skills, and the resources and the wisdom and foresight to bring change in this our time. May our lives disturb injustice powered by your grace. Save us by the power of your cross. Amen.

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