In Myers Briggs terms I am an Introverted Intuitive, that means that personal vision is really important to me. So I like the KJV translation of Proverbs 29:18 “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It is vision that gets me up in the morning, energises and recharges me.
“You see things as they are and ask ‘Why’? But I dream things that never were, and ask ‘Why Not’?” George Bernard Shaw
“Unless you see it before you see it, you will never see it”
Reflecting back on the past months before my sabbatical it wasn’t the workload or the plethora of Christmas services that I found the most draining and that led me to a point of exhaustion at the end of 2011, but a lack of vision. As a result one of my prayers over the past few months has been for God to reignite and restore my vision of what he is calling me to be and to do.
Reflecting back on the past months before my sabbatical it wasn’t the workload or the plethora of Christmas services that I found the most draining and that led me to a point of exhaustion at the end of 2011, but a lack of vision. As a result one of my prayers over the past few months has been for God to reignite and restore my vision of what he is calling me to be and to do.
What has happened isn’t a new vision but a reaffirmation of an old vision. God has taken me back nine years to just before I came to St Paul’s. In those weeks before my interview God gave me a personal vision that I believed was also to be a vision for the church he would call me to lead.
It is summed up as this:
A Church For The Unchurched and A Church For Children
That statement is simple and yet immensely profound. It is a statement that I have found myself returning to again and again in the past weeks. What does it mean to be ‘A Church For The Unchurched and A Church For Children?’ I’ll be unpacking that in my next few posts.
What has God called you to be and to do? You might like to share with others by commenting, I’d certainly be interested in hearing, and if you have no idea how about asking God and then listening to what he has to say?
I’m 100% sure at this stage but I’m being me at the moment having lots of fun and asking “out of the box question or ideas” maybe that is my gift?
I have attended St. Paul’s Church for almost 29 years – but not the St. Paul’s in Sarisbury Green- rather the St. Paul’s in Wooburn Green. I will be moving to Sarisbury Green this autumn and am looking forward to finding out what the St. Paul’s in Sarisbury Green is like. Following Sandy Matheson’s messages is giving me some introduction to what may be my new church, and I appreciate that. Jesus gave. Paul a vision which the saint acted upon as he planted God’s churches. It is promising to me that Sandy Matheson has a God-given vision which he acts upon. I look forward to finding out more about St. Paul’s once I move from Buckinghamshire to Hampshire.
Who wants to be ‘churched’?!
The children are the future!
Inviting people on board a boat is far from being ‘churched’! It is more than just neutral ground.
I have for many years prayed to Jesus to direct me, to do His will, in a way that I would recognise. I have waited for a ‘ephiphany. As time has passed, I have realised that all of us are called to serve Him in different ways, and in ways we might not recognise as part of a vision. If we strive to be better human beings than we are, and do our best to love our families and friends, and to set a good example of what it is like to be a practising Christian, then perhaps this is God’s plan for us.
I think that sometimes we can expect too much of ourselves, and we are serving God without knowing it.
Val