changing seasons

It's not often I'm asked to speak to other ministers.

I'm actually quite glad about that. Mainly because I don't really feel I have that much to say. Well, not that much that they don't already know.

But I had the chance today. A fairly small group (less than 10), most of whom I think were in their first five years of ministry. Everything in front of them.

I suppose that's why I'd got the invitation - as someone who's now got a fair old bit behind him! My one main big credential is maybe this: I'm a survivor. Still there. And still enjoying the challenge.

The topic I'd been given was entitled - Cultivating change in the church.

I said my role model was basically Abraham. He went out, the Scriptures say, not knowing where he was going. I feel that's a pretty good description of where I'm mostly at. And probably a lousy credential for speaking to folk like these!

But it's true. I don't know where I'm going. Only that I'm wanting to follow the Lord. And he (thankfully) does know where he's going.

I don't do blueprints. Mainly because I don't have any.

So all I did was try and tell them all what happens when you go out in that way, not knowing where you're going. Well, not what happens. More what's happened here with with me. So far.

I've tried to stand a little back, reflect upon it all and see the sort of pattern that there's been to what the Lord's been doing all these years. He's the one that changes things. That's the only way it happens.

He makes things grow. That's what one of the early followers of Jesus once wrote. And I believe it absolutely. Only God makes things grow.

But there is a certain pattern and I find it quite exciting when I see the way he works the whole thing forward bit by bit.

I'm struck, for instance, by the way that, donkeys years ago, Moses said at the end of his lengthy sermon that it should be repeated every seven years.

I mean, it was a good sermon and all. It must have been powerful stuff to listen to the first time round. But repeat it every seven years? The guy must have thought it was good!

But then I got to thinking that maybe there's a sort of 'cycle' in a congregation's life which means you come back round and kind of start it all again each seven years or so. With a 'new' congregation. Seven years on. Seven years older. Seven years more mature.

A congregation that's been slowly shaped and changed by that sustained exposure to God's truth for seven solid years.

And it seemed to me that that's what's happened here. Which means I'm almost through my third new congregation in this place!

I don't know if they found the time that helpful. I hope so, of course, but it's not always easy to say. It seemed a bit like simply stating the obvious.

But at least the very challenge of reflecting on the changes there have been ensured it was of help to me, if no one else! Even if I'm no further on in terms of knowing where I'm going.

I don't expect to know, though. That's the point. The essence of the calling that we have entails our always going out not knowing where we're going.

Always.

I read a book the other day which prompted me to think along those lines again. Through Painted Deserts, by Donald Miller. The story of a trip he took from Texas, long ago. Just going out, leaving: and not really knowing where exactly he was going.

And this is what he says at the start - "The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way. ... I want to repeat one word for you: Leave"

I wonder if I'm changing seasons now myself. From summer into autumn. The leaves as rich in colour as they'll ever be, but soon they'll all be falling.

It was down to earth with a bump at night, anyway! A meeting of 'the Presbytery'. A stack of fellow ministers and elders from across the town. It's duty alone which sees me there. I wonder if the matters being discussed required we all be there. I mean, over a hundred folk.

I sometimes think that life's too short to use so many 'people hours' like that.