Sep 14 2009
Pastor’s Notes
Good Day to all of you. As I write this (on Friday morning) we are awaiting the arrival of our furniture from South Africa on Saturday morning. It will be a delight to have our old familiar things around us again. Thank you to everyone who has loaned us bedding, heaters, curtains etc.
We are continuing our sermon series on Vision Creation today with the last in the series of three sermons at Merredin and the first at Mukinbudin and Southern Cross. To summarise – we see that Vision usually begins with Holy Discontent. The adjective is important – something which is unsatisfactory to God must stir up inside of us and lead us into action. And then we must be certain that the Vision is from God – it must relate to something for which we are prepared to give our life as Jesus gave His life for the sake of our salvation and the declaration of His Kingdom. But we must beware the Shadow Vision. It is just so easy for us to substitute shadows for reality. The Shadow Vision emerges when the glory for the Real Mission is no longer for God but for men. As you will hear, the Enemy doesn’t need to turn us 180 degrees around, just a little off course. And he uses weapons which he has always used – our selfish pride and the woundedness of our sinful nature. So we set out to do something for God – our Real Vision. But we want to parade our effort and claim the glory – our Shadow Vision. (Remember Satan’s words in Genesis 3 – “Eat the fruit, then you will be like God.”) Or when we are not rewarded or praised for our effort, or are perhaps rightly challenged or criticized about our attitude, then we become bitter and blaming. (In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve were quick to blame each other when the Lord challenged them.) A Vision becomes dark and unworthy of light when it is our “self” which drives us rather than the glory of the Almighty. You only see it in the inside attitude of our heart (we often don’t even recognize it ourselves) and in the outcome (which is always less than God’s potential – for example, Solomon built a magnificent Temple to the glory of God, but he lost the kingdom.
All this is leading us towards a Strategic Planning Day for the Parish which we will be holding on Saturday October 17th. (The Variety Concert has been postponed). We need a really good number of our members to be there to make it work best. We are going to be examining the Twelve Keys which make churches really effective. It is an amazing program developed over several years and thousands of congregations. The outcome is that we will begin to identify our existing strong keys and use them to strengthen the other weaker keys. I have used this program in over 30 congregations in South Africa with positive results. It was this program which helped my previous congregation grow in its effectiveness as a bearer of the Good News about Jesus. Please start praying about it and make sure that you have the date booked in your diary – you will not want to miss being part of this.
A reminder that on Thursday September 24th Jane Cook, Ministry Liaison and Human Resources Co-ordinator in the Synod Office and Emma Humphries who is a representative from our insurers AON will be at Merredin UCA from 8.30am to 11.30am to conduct a workshop on the OSH Survey conducted amongst the UCA churches a few months ago. From what I understand they will be dealing with the three aspects of the Safe Church concept – Called to Care (all those at the risk of harm, injury and abuse), Privacy Policy in the UCA and Risk Management. All are welcome and we still need someone to co-ordinate tea for about 60 people from the Great Eastern Region. Please contact me if you would like to help.
Matthew Smith and I will be away at the Synod Meeting of the UCA Western Australia in Perth next weekend. Thank you to Kevin Tengvall who have stepped forward into all the preaching slots, including the inaugural service at Berringa Lodge. Please include the Synod meeting and the preparation for it in your prayers.
The inclusion of two families on our prayer list for prayers last week was exceptionally well received. I called the families on Tuesday evening and we were able to speak openly and at length about their prayer needs. These were included in the Wednesday Prayer Meeting. This week we are praying for Joe and Gloria Banks and Kinsley Barber (Bruce Rock). We just want to ask our great God to bless them.
Shalom
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