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“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12: 1 – 2

When I was describing this week to Mark the other day I made use of that old metaphor of mountain tops and valleys. Monday night was a real mountain top for me, a time encounter with God and celebration. Much of the rest of the week has felt a lot more valley-like. Everyone in our house has been pretty tired, and so we’ve been trying really hard to keep patient and grace-filled with each other. The high-pollen count has not helped and for the last few days I’ve felt bunged up and grotty – as any of you who have seen me this week will attest.

I’m not telling you this to get sympathy, but rather to illustrate a point – it’s just how life is. We have really great moments, and then almost straight after them we have tough times. How do we keep consistency as disciples during both, and in the every-day moments in between? The answer is to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus! Sometimes we can get too distracted by what is going on personally, or by things not quite working out as we hope they would. This is a primary tactic of our enemy – to get us to stop looking at the one who provides for all our needs and to get us looking at ourselves so that we lose momentum.

Remember that you are tired.

Kairos Vision Team met earlier this week, as we regularly do, to pray together and discuss what God is saying to us, and how as a church we might respond to it. As we were praying I felt the holy spirit’s prompting and the phrase “Remember that you are tired” popped into my head. Our most creative solutions and faith-filled responses to challenges never happen when we’re tired or worn down do they. They come when we are rested. So lets be disciplined about going to God this summer for rest.

You cannot bear the weight of this calling.

One paragraph from my ordination service on Sunday particularly struck me:

“You cannot bear the weight of this calling in your own strength, but only by the grace and power of God. Pray therefore that your heart may daily be enlarged and your understanding of the Scriptures enlightened. Pray earnestly for the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

This isn’t just true for those of us who happen to be “professionals” is it? None of us match up to the call of God to be disciples who make disciples. All of us need to remember this, and go to the one who enlarges our hearts and enlightens our minds. I’ve been reminded a few times this week that this is a discipline that we need to practice at least once every 24 hours – that is why daily prayer is such an important habit.

Lots of us are going to be enjoying some sporting excellence this weekend! As we enjoy the Tour de France lets remind ourselves to run with perseverance the race marked out for us, and to keep our eyes fixed on Jesus.

Have a great weekend!

MSC Leaders Celebration BBQ

We will be gathering at the Carey’s house on Wednesday 16th July, 7:30pm to celebrate all that God has done this year. There will be lots of great food and we want you to be there! Please can you let Rachel know (office@kairoschurch.net) if you are coming. Thanks.

A key question in discipleship is when and how do we invest in our relationship with Jesus.

There are many different ways in which people do this including; quiet time, gathering for morning prayers, prayer and worship while driving to and from work, and many, many more.

If I’m honest one thing I do miss about having my old job was that the commute was almost an hour, and this drove me to a place where I was able to commune with God – offering up my prayers and listening to what he had to say to me for that day. I have tried since to throw myself into a more traditional approach of quiet time, however, for me this has not really worked on a consistent basis – although when it has I have definitely found the benefits of it.

Just this week the resource team have been discussing the use of time. Reflecting on how things used to be. For me, with a young child, another on the way, and two little dogs, time is one thing that I find I don’t seem to have an abundance of. But thinking about life before having a family, before marrying Jodie, seems rather a waste of time. I may have had more time on my hands to pray and read my Bible back then, but now I am more intentional about the time I do have, and it’s become much more about quality than quantity. Walking my dogs help me to talk to God about the things which are troubling me – be this in regard to work, rest or play. This time is not only an investment in keeping me fit, wearing out Wills and Harry (and in the process making Jodie happy), but also an investment in the relationship which I know should be number 1.

We are all individuals, with different demands on our time – so don’t feel like you need to measure up to others. Use the time you do have. Take the opportunities you can to draw closer to Jesus. This may look like praying while you; wash the pans, brush your teeth, peal the potatoes, walk the dog, or while doing the grocery shop. God knows the time that you can give him at this stage in your life, so be intentional about giving it. To coin a well know supermarket’s catch phrase ‘Every Little Helps’ – so give the little, and over time the little will grow, and you will too.

As well as this everyday pattern of building that relationship we also need to make time for the special events. This is something that in other areas of my life I do struggle with – For instance, I speak to Jodie every day finding out what’s going on in our lives, what God maybe saying to us, and investing in our relationship. But I could not tell you the last time that we had a date night, where we put the rest of our life to one-side and concentrated for that time on ‘just us’.

Jesus wants to do everyday life with you, but he also wants to have those special moments, where your relationship with him can become even stronger, go even deeper, and lead to MORE!

Over the past few months we have been running Alpha, which has been one way that not only those attending, but also those leading have created space for that special time. For each and everyone of us there are seasons in our lives where the intensity for this kind of relationship building comes around. When it does we need to grab it with both hands, be intentional about the how and where it can happen, and commit to it.

If you think that you, or someone from your MSC, could benefit from putting aside a certain time each week to be intentional about investing in relationship with Jesus, it could be that you seriously pray and ask God if the way to do that is through Step Up.

Step Up is a great way to be discipled and to disciple others, and what’s great is that it’s for anyone – nobody is too old. This year there have been small group leader, MSC leaders, people in key ministry areas from other churches, alongside people who are starting to ask God what he may be calling them to, journeying together and asking “what is God saying and how am I going to respond?”

If you are considering putting this kind of time aside to develop your relationship with God and think Step Up could be the place to do so, then you maybe interested to know that from September we are hoping to run an evening session as well as the already established morning session. If you want to know more, then visit the website www.step-up-team.org or contact me (admin@step-up-team.org).

Blessings

Dan Hetherington

“You make known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” Psalm 16 : 11

Living as followers of Jesus, and as leaders of Mission Shaped Communities, can lead us to make to have to make difficult choices. I don’t just mean we have to decide to do things that are hard, I mean that quite often it is just tricky to discern what the way forward should be, what route of action we should take, and yet we must decide.

This is an important thing to remember about discipleship: we can choose. We have the option of saying yes, no, maybe and a host of other responses to one another, to opportunity, to God. God may reveal to us, as the writer of Psalm 16 claims, the path of life, but we have to choose to walk down it.

You can choose whether to come along to an MSC evening or not. You can choose whether to take a day of rest or whether to plough through to burn-out. You can choose whether to make some space for another member of your community. You can choose.

In some cases there is a clear-cut right or wrong decision. In others there may not be. Responding to the opportunity in front of you or the request for helpers may be the right thing to do or it may not be. So when it gets complicated, how do you choose?

The learning circle, which lead us to practice repentance and belief, is a valuable tool here. As we move through the stages of observe, reflect, discuss, plan, account and act, we get to prayerfully listen and consider what the Lord is saying and to choose our response. Some of these stages can happen on our own others require the involvement of friends. Too often we don’t use this tool, we just react out of impulse to the opportunities in front of us and we then kid our selves that we had to do something because “I just didn’t have a choice.”

As a resource base team we had to put this into practice recently. We’ve been planning for a while to hold a “Simply Summer” event in July in the same mould as the excellent “Simply Easter” and “Simply Christmas” gatherings that took place earlier in the year. As we sat down to plan this event, however, it began to become clear that there wasn’t a clear vision for it. The more we observed, reflected and discussed, the more we realised that we could do something good, but that maybe this time we shouldn’t. Maybe this time we should choose to create a bit of space in July and come back to a Summer event next year. In the end we chose to cancel the event.

What are the choices that you, and the people in your community, are making right now? How are you responding to opportunities like the Tour de France and the World Cup? How are you reacting to the challenges that our communities face or just to the challenges of coming along to huddle, to gatherings and to training events? Let’s learn to be people who can discern the path of life before us, and who choose to walk on it.

This morning in our Communities Gathering Helen read to us from a children’s storybook version of the account of the Holy Spirit’s coming at Pentecost (by the way you can find out more about that Story Book Bible here). As we listened to a new re-telling of that old story I was struck by just how quickly the action of the Holy Spirit led those disciples into mission.

Acts 2 tells us that on the day of Pentecost, possibly only a few hours after the disciples were huddled together in an upper room, there were three thousand new followers of Jesus. As I’ve been reflecting on that story throughout today I have felt reminded that there is an inseparable link between God’s Holy Spirit and God’s mission. Jesus (quoting Isaiah) said “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.” He also promised his disciples that they would receive power from the Holy Spirit to be his witnesses all across the world.

It is the Holy Spirit who sends us as missionaries, it is the Holy Spirit who challenges us to bring good news to the poor and it is the Holy Spirit who equips us to follow that call.

I spent this weekend with a bunch of students and student leaders from around the country; they were coming together to do a learning community process, like the one we did a few weeks back, exploring how they could launch missional communities in their universities to reach many students. It was a really exciting couple of days, and a real privilege to be there helping them make plans. There again I was struck by our utter reliance on the Holy Spirit, it’s the Spirit who sends us and the Spirit who empowers us. Let’s remember that.

As we approach the summer, I can see loads of simple exciting opportunities for mission. The days are longer and warmer and people are just a bit happier and more open to conversation. There’s also the Tour de France and the World Cup, great chances for us to do social things with our MSCs and build relationships with potential people of peace. A few of us are involved in the rest of the Alpha course, we have the Simply Summer event in July, and I’m sure there are other things that God is planning and we just have no idea about yet. Let’s think, pray and act on some of these opportunities as communities! I want to encourage us to allow the Holy Spirit to challenge us, to let the Spirit send us as missionaries and to expect the Spirit to equip us!

There’s an old prayer I encountered a few years ago; I quite often find myself repeating it to myself and then waiting to allow God to work in me:

“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people and kindle in us the fire of your love.”

May that be our experience this summer, may the Spirit fill us, may the Spirit make us fiery and may the Spirit show us how to love.

Have a great week, Ben.