Monday, November 24, 2008

Synchronicity

I do a little lay preaching in our church. We are having a week of prayer to herald in the start of the Advent (Christmas) Season next week, and I was part of the team doing the special services for both ends of the week.

Part of what we were talking about is watching out for where God might be breaking into our lives - sometimes it's actions by other people towards us; sometimes it's being called to do things for others; sometimes it's a miraculous confluence of events; or just a plain miracle that can't be explained.

I've been praying about the younger people (or lack thereof) in my church. Not because I need young people necessarily (although it would be nice), but that any community that is almost missing a generation is not healthy (it would be lovely if we were doing more baptisms than funerals, for example - I often joke about turning off the light when I'm done).

Today I met a young Mum who's new to town who wants to be involved in things. And the addition of just one family to our church might be the catalyst necessary for big things to happen. I'm excited.

I'm also excited that our breakfast meeting for our Local Hospital Pastoral Care Team was really positive. We're only a small team, and it takes a while to get known throughout the government machine that is called a hospital. Again, the catalyst caused by the right person with the right knowledge, skills and contacts at the right time can do marvellous things.

So my Advent theme is "Watch this space..."

And the chance that I want to leave all this interesting church stuff to do my boring work stuff?

... Approximately None!

5 comments:

Givinya De Elba said...

Approximately No chance I too wish to leave interesting stuff and do my work reports.

Long dark hair, blue eyes said...

Well I don't know if it will help but my church put up a sign out the front saying "young families welcome". It sounds so dumb but it actually worked. We had several young families started coming. I guess sometimes if you have been thinking about going anyway something like that can be the prompt you need.

Also - in other news - we had the new UC moderator preach yesterday, He is really good.

Hippomanic Jen said...

Well, at least "Young families welcome" would be better than "Money will buy a dog, but it's love that makes it wag its tail" - which was last week's offering. Seriously Cringe-worthy.

I like Crazy Sister's alternative which went something along the lines of "Welcome - Struggle in late with kids in pyjamas"

Femina said...

I heard of one church that said "we welcome smokers" (and actually DID) and discovered a whole demographic previously ostracised by other churches. As for "money will buy a dog" etc, there is no squirm big enough for that.

Long dark hair, blue eyes said...

Hiya - saw this

http://www.streamingfaith.com/community/editorials/editorial.aspx?EditorialId=1411&bhcp=1

and thought you might be interested. It is an interesting idea.