Another fairly manic week, which has been great, but doesn't help me catch-up with 'stuff', which, for me, is not unrelated to that word 'maintenance'. I used to join in with polarising 'mission' and 'maintenance', until I realised, just like my car, computer, tools, maintenance, is not altogether a bad thing.
NB - an additional stress and hassle, this week, comes from, the fact, my laptop has a corrupted, hard disk partition, or something like that. It sounds painful, but worse, the programme, extracting my data, has been running, since Monday and I'm still laptop-less, which is, frankly, totally disorientating.
I'm convinced one of the conversations, which demands, more intentional, on-going dialogue, is that between the oft polarised pioneers and more established church based ministries. Two very good reasons, although there are more:
- the pioneers are yet to find all the answers.
- the established ministries have not forgotten everything, concerning mission.
Not that I needed it (honestly), but my faith in what we often describe as bog-standard Baptist Ministry, was restored this week ( well, would have been, of I'd needed it).
Whilst up in London, I stayed with my good friend, Phil Robinson, Pastor at Lewin Road, Streatham. I watched the football (Phil with Sky Sports is proof God has not finished with us yet) whilst Phil went to a prayer meeting. Later, he shared how they'd been praying for forty baptisms this year ( that's the average size of a UK Baptist Church, to put it in perspective). They'd seen 19 and had 13, in the pipeline, so I've just added my prayers for them to see their forty.
Talk to Phil and you'll realise gathered worship still plays a vital part in our life, larger churches still depend on the reality of being made up of many smaller ones ( groups) and prayer, together, and evangelism are still as relevant, as ever. So, bless you Lewin Road. BC.
NB - an additional stress and hassle, this week, comes from, the fact, my laptop has a corrupted, hard disk partition, or something like that. It sounds painful, but worse, the programme, extracting my data, has been running, since Monday and I'm still laptop-less, which is, frankly, totally disorientating.
I'm convinced one of the conversations, which demands, more intentional, on-going dialogue, is that between the oft polarised pioneers and more established church based ministries. Two very good reasons, although there are more:
- the pioneers are yet to find all the answers.
- the established ministries have not forgotten everything, concerning mission.
Not that I needed it (honestly), but my faith in what we often describe as bog-standard Baptist Ministry, was restored this week ( well, would have been, of I'd needed it).
Whilst up in London, I stayed with my good friend, Phil Robinson, Pastor at Lewin Road, Streatham. I watched the football (Phil with Sky Sports is proof God has not finished with us yet) whilst Phil went to a prayer meeting. Later, he shared how they'd been praying for forty baptisms this year ( that's the average size of a UK Baptist Church, to put it in perspective). They'd seen 19 and had 13, in the pipeline, so I've just added my prayers for them to see their forty.
Talk to Phil and you'll realise gathered worship still plays a vital part in our life, larger churches still depend on the reality of being made up of many smaller ones ( groups) and prayer, together, and evangelism are still as relevant, as ever. So, bless you Lewin Road. BC.
