At a very exciting prayer meeting last night at the Community Church, hearing about various things which are going on in the town - the expansion of the Lords Larder, a new Pregnancy advice service, new opening in schools for youth ministry etc. Lots to be thankful for.
It was great to get prayed for too. Inspired by the previous speaker (after a day at an 'Archdeaconry Retreat' with clergy on average 20 years older than me, it was great to see a proper young church leader), who'd quoted a couple of bible passages, I spoke about Luke 10 and the way it had played a part in us coming to Yeovil. Jesus speaks about staying in the places where you get a welcome, and it's been interesting to find several places where there's not been just polite tolerance of the church, but genuine welcome. The local school (Preston Primary) was one of those this morning. Jesus says that what will happen - go in my name and look for people who welcome you (the 'person of peace'), and lo and behold it happens.
The church is in the role of host as well as guest. It's so like God that one of the smallest and more elderly congregations in the town (St. Peters) will soon be hosting the Urban Warriors youth cafe. Understandably, there's a bit of the 'what have we let ourselves in for' mixed in with the faith, but those who host missionaries get blessed too - peace rests upon them (Luke 10) and we may find out that we were hosting Jesus in person (Matthew 25)
One other thing I'm currently wrestling with: how do you deal with problems? Do you pray and let God deal with them, or come up with a plan for tackling them yourself? As a pragmatist I tend towards option 2, but am I wasting a lot of energy, and being faithless? I guess Jethro is my patron saint: Moses has a problem (overwhelmed with demand for his adjudication in disputes) and Jethro comes up with an organisational solution (delegate).
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