Driving Change......

Our Church has spent most of this last year slowly preparing itself for change.

I've not been going there for that long but I'm reliably informed that the vision from the leadership hasn't really changed over the years, but the an understanding of how to acheive our shared goal is emerging from the experiences of other congregations, the wisdom of other leaders and inspiration from God.

In the quest to seek out a way of expressing the vision of the church as simply as possible there is an inevitable search for a pithy phrase that leads to some simplification, however the result expresses very basically what our church exists to do: Win Worcester and The World.  

So if the end point where we want to be is clear (that is Worcester and the wider world brought to faith and repentence in Jesus and living according to God's plan) how do we get to that end point? 

In the journey ahead we have to look at the mode of transport. There are many, many models of church that outline how a congregation is structured, when, where and how they meet and what they do when they are together. 'Church' is only effective when it is a vehicle for acheiving its vision, and when we are looking at vehicles we have to do a reality check and examine the components and check for roadworthiness. 

I say reality check because sometimes we let our heart rule our head when it comes to choosing a vehicle. If we use the analogy of cars we wouldn't choose a two door sports car with a drop top to take a family of five on a two week winter holiday to Scotland. Space, luggage, fuel consumption are just a few factors that would make it an unwise choice. By the same consideration, if we had a choice we wouldn't want to try and park a long wheel base Landrover in the Asda car park.  

In looking at the options for our vehicle to acheive God's vision, sometimes we overlook big important things and pay undue attention to what can be minor details. It might seem important to us to have the right colour and make sure a car has air conditioing when in fact ensuring the brakes work and the engine runs smoothly should be our priority. While we may want a comfortable ride in church our need is for a vehicle that can safely get us to our planned destination across the terrain and obstacles that we know we might encounter.

So if we are building a bespoke vehicle, a model of church to win Worcester and the world, what features would we be looking for in church? What things do we need, not to make for a comfortable congregation, but to make us effective warriors for Christ???