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Vision for 2010
Version 8, 21st June 2010
- On 7th March 2009, we were very clearly given this verse, with the understanding that we could think of the days as years:
- Hosea 6:2 After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will restore us, that we may live in his presence.
We can interpret this in the light of the current move of God, which started just before the beginning of 2007. The two years 2007 and 2008 were a time of new life as we learnt how to depend more and more on the leading of the Holy Spirit, especially in worship. The third year, 2009, was a time of restoration as we welcomed a significant number of new members into the church family; greatly encouraging the existing members as the newcomers connected with what God is doing. The fourth year (and beyond), is therefore a time for living (remaining, staying, etc.) in God’s presence.
On 17th December 2009, at the same moment we were given this phrase to be a mission statement for 2010: ‘Living together in the Presence of God’ and this vision:
“I saw lots of people on top of a mountain. I could see their eyes looking up to heaven and their hands raised. As they did this I saw God give each one a loaf of bread. Each loaf was different (shape/size etc) as it represented the different ways in which God speaks to His people. Each person would take their loaf and break it and share it with one another. The bread they were given and were sharing was always fresh. We need to feed each other with what God has given us. It needs to come straight from God as it is REAL food and is what we and others need. We need to live and depend on fresh revelation.”
- This vision is supported by an extraordinary number and range of passages of the Bible (please see the Appendix), so that we are confident to use this as the basis for our plans for the coming year.
God has also challenged us with Jesus’ parable of the new wine and new wineskins.
Matthew 9:16-17 “No-one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Jesus is speaking of our need to be transformed into suitable containers (both individually and corporately) for his new life that he wants to pour in us. It is not possible to patch the old ways of thinking or what the church has been; the church must be a body that has the characteristics of Jesus when he walked the earth. He is the only complete example we have of a new wineskin. We need to strip away everything in us that can get in the way of his work of transformation to make us like himself.
As individuals, we have been working on these understandings:
- Jesus is living in us and, because of this, we can have an intimate relationship with him; he wants to work in us and through us.
- We are being transformed into his likeness.
- We allow the second by welcoming the first. By faith, we take him into ourselves to know him, to love him, to let him manifest himself in us, to learn how he thinks, speaks, acts, to be with him, etc., etc.; so that we can become one with him. And we pray that the world may see his glory manifested in us.
2 Corinthians 3:18 And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
- Our experience over the last three years has led us to the conclusion that God never wants us to work by formulas, no matter how well they have worked in other times and other places. He is infinitely creative, and is always eager to give us new ways to serve him and the world. There are, however, some principles that we have discovered (and have checked carefully in the Bible):
God’s desire for us is:
- To have an intimate, loving relationship with him, that includes knowing him as Father and as Husband, but goes beyond any human-human experience to knowing Jesus living within us, transforming us into his likeness.
- To depend on continuous revelation from him, i.e. to live by faith that he will always guide us, reassure us, teach us, etc., and we never need to substitute human planning for revelation.
- To know that true revelation will always bear testing by the Bible, the leadership and the body of the church.
- Not to constrain how or when he speaks to us, not to limit what he asks us to do and not to have any ‘sacred cows’ that we are not prepared to scrap.
- Never to treat him like a machine, i.e. we must never assume because he has worked in a particular way in the past that he will repeat himself, even if the circumstances appear identical.
- To realize that worship is to be totally ‘vertical’, i.e. directed to him and by him.
- To depend on him for all our needs.
- To focus on the ‘things of God’ and not the ‘things of men’ (Matthew 16:23).
- To allow him to reveal the timescale and methods of change in our life together as the body of Christ.
This Year
- In worship we have been learning how to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind. We also need to learn how to love our neighbour as ourselves, with Jesus as our example. From the vision described above, we see that we need to minister to each other, and to the world, using what God gives us at the point of need. In particular, to really love others, we continually need fresh revelation to guide us and to give each other ‘bread from heaven’ – the living Word. We are to be a people that are dependant on continual revelation – knowing that God will never cease to speak to us. In practical terms this means:
Leadership: On 24th July 2009, God revealed that we needed to set up a Leadership Team based on the five-fold ministries of Ephesians 4:11. This was accomplished in autumn 2009 with the unanimous support of the both the Local Ministry Team (LMT) and the Parochial Church Council (PCC). We will continue to seek God’s guidance on the outworking of this.
- Worship: As noted above, worshipping in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24), in practice, means not worrying about the needs and desires of the worshippers, and allowing the Holy Spirit to be the worship leader. We must be open to the Spirit’s prompting, which will result in continuing changes to the patterns of our worship.
- Prayer Ministry: We must not rush in, but wait for God to reveal how we should pray. We must not pray to express sympathy or to communicate something to the one being prayed for. Unless we pray in faith, guided by fresh revelation, we should hesitate to pray at all.
- Preaching and Teaching: We need to be aware that previously received teaching may need to be re-evaluated in the light of fresh revelation. We will probably need to initiate, at short notice, preaching and teaching that explore the new insights that God gives us.
- Pastoral: We need to be guided by the second greatest commandment (‘love your neighbour as yourself’) and Jesus’ commentary in the parable of the Good Samaritan. He calls us to love all those he brings to our attention. How we should love each person can seem obvious, but we should be willing to wait for revelation that we can share and which will guide our actions. Loving someone does not always mean giving them what they say they want, e.g. Jesus loved the rich young man (Mark 10:21) so much he was willing to tell him the truth, even if it hurt.
- Fellowship: The following verses, describing the first church in Jerusalem, give us a goal to aim for. They carry the sense of a group of people who enjoy getting together in a variety of ways. We need to seek for ways of fellowshipping that have the same ‘flavour’ as the first church in Jerusalem.
- Acts 2:46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Evangelist
- Outreach: These verses show us that the early church did not need to engage in any ‘evangelistic’ activities, except to send missionaries out into unreached areas. The church itself was sufficiently attractive to draw people in from the local population, as God manifested himself in it. God has clearly revealed to us that we should not engage in publicity and never seek to make an impression on anyone. We will therefore, probably not be undertaking any evangelistic initiatives, but will continue to try to explain what God is doing, for example, through the ‘Zoe’ course.
Appendix
The ‘Bread from Heaven’ vision is supported and clarified by the following Bible passages:
Genesis 22:13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”
- Abraham ministered to God using what God had just provided (the ram), and not with what he had brought (Isaac).
Exodus 16:4 Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions…. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed. 19 Then Moses said to them, “No-one is to keep any of it until morning.” 20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them.
Leviticus 24:8 The bread of the Presence is to be set out before the LORD regularly, Sabbath after Sabbath, on behalf of the Israelites, as a lasting covenant.
Isaiah 55:2-3 Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labour on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; hear me, that your soul may live.
Nehemiah 9:15 In their hunger you gave them bread from heaven and in their thirst you brought them water from the rock; you told them to go in and take possession of the land you had sworn with uplifted hand to give them.
Matthew 4:4 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Matthew 12:3 Jesus answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? 4 He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests…”
Luke 11:3 Give us each day our daily bread.
Luke 11:3(AV) Give us day by day our daily bread.
- There is a double emphasis in this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer on receiving what we need when we need it.
Luke 22:19 And Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.”
Luke 24:30 When Jesus was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened and they recognised him, and he disappeared from their sight.
- Taking, breaking and sharing of bread leads to revelation.
John 6:27 Jesus said, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.”…32 Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”…35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty…. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world… 54 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. 56 Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him.”
- John 6 shows us how important the idea of bread from heaven is – Jesus identifies it with himself.
Acts 2:46 Every day the disciples continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,
Acts 3:6 Then Peter said to the crippled man, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
- Peter had just been given what he gave to the crippled man.
1 Corinthians 12:7-8 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,…
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