Merredin Uniting Church

May God bless you as we gather in worship today.

I had sad news this week that a very special person in my life (from my previous congregation) died last Sunday evening at the age of 96 years. Bunty Smith was a spinster and most generous benefactor. Amongst other significant gifts she gave to the congregation the beautiful Manse in which we lived for most of our ministry in Howick. It was a very difficult day for me when I got the news, more than I thought possible. I never knew my grandmothers – both died before I was born, but my Granddad told me many stories about Granny Gilbert, and my brother and I would often spent weekends with my Aunt Mary at Modderriver near Kimberley and she too told me the stories of her sister, my Granny Nightingale. And they showed me pictures and both had a remarkable likeness to Bunty – large, happy, content, at peace, filled with grace. When I first went to visit Douglas (Bunty’s late brother) and Bunty it was like entering another era and there was for me a real sense of déjà vu. There on the verandah with the heavy creeper keeping us cool we had tea and crumpets. I cannot adequately describe the way I seemed to be transported to a home and granny I never knew. Through the years at Upper Umgeni, this sense of Bunty as my granny never left me. I did not dare tell her that but I think that she knew. I would visit as her minister but she was the one asking questions about my work, our children, my well-being – just like I always imagined my grannies would have done. Among all the many hard things that there were in leaving Howick, I think that my last visit to Bunty was the hardest. Her only relative, a distant cousin was there and she graciously left us on our own. I was brimming with emotion at the farewell but Bunty was Granny once again, encouraging me and blessing me on my way – “You have done a good work here,” she said, “and you must do a good work there.” And she hugged me and kissed me on my lips, something she had never done before.  Bunty never married and never had any children; and who is to understand God’s purpose in that, but for a while she was my Gran and I am blessed because of that. We will meet again in the resurrection and it will be a privilege to stand beside her before the Throne of the Almighty. The hardest part about death for all of us is the parting from loved ones but we can take comfort in our Saviour from whom we have the victory of the resurrection and the certainty of our meeting again.

I trust that you are continuing to reflect on the Strategic Planning Day on October 24^th. Ideally we need a significant number of the congregation to be there and all of the key leaders as we consider the twelve keys which are essential for an effective church. I have listed these in the last two newsletters so I will not do that again but let me share with you how the planning will work.

First, based on several critical criteria we will determine the likely future direction of our congregation if we should do nothing. Second, we examine the Mission Potential of the Parish. My experience has been that this works out to between 10 and 20 percent of the population. From that we will decide how many people we actually want to reach. Crucial to this decision is the number of people whom we are prepared to serve in mission – these are defined as individuals (not specific people!) in the community who are not really connected to the Parish but whom we will choose to minister to in terms of their human hopes and hurts.

Then we turn to the Twelve Keys of an Effective Church to examine our own effectiveness in each of them. Afterwards we will choose just a few of those to work on in the next few years in an attempt to improve our effectiveness in reaching the people to whom we choose to minister. And finally we will throw some tentative ideas into the pot. The Council/Elders will then be tasked with taking those ideas and developing a framework for their implementation in conjunction with relevant interest groups ie musicians, Sunday School, Ladies Guild etc.

An effective church delivers effective missional outreach, shepherding of its families and friends through life’s pilgrimage, creates primary groups of sharing and caring, structures corporate and prayerful worship, and encourages a thoughtful, streamlined organizational structure – all with the intention of developing the congregation’s mission in the world, growth in grace, and understanding of everyday life in the light of the Christian faith. Decisive to the genuine effectiveness of any congregation is its capacity to share substantive mission in the world.

A church which is most effective in missional outreach has identified very specific human hopes and hurts in their community and they focus their leadership and resources to meet the objectives which they have determined eg Wesley: “the world is my parish” – his focus was on world evangelism. So too Billy Graham. Hillsongs and the Vineyard movement have drawn people to God through worship songs. Holy Trinity Brompton have used community meals and simple teaching through the Alpha Course and Marriage Course to connect to people. Willowcreek have focused on service excellence and volunteerism to “turn people far from God into committed followers of Jesus”.

Mission is not about members, mission is about a group of people living beyond their preoccupation with themselves. And large churches are not necessarily great churches; great churches are those who have learned the art of serving people and accepting “unacceptable people”. In the eyes of God all people are important – children, grannies, “black sheep”, executives, you and I. God has shown us amazing grace in the incarnation of the Lord Jesus Christ – He showed loving care towards the sinners, tax-collectors and prostitutes; the lepers, the insane and the rejected Samaritans. For the “holy” people like the Pharisees, He did not have much time or patience for they were pre-occupied with their own importance.

May our focus always be on God’s Mission rather than on ourselves.

Blessings for this week. Shalom.

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