jigsaw pieces

Following Jesus is sort of frustrating fun.

A lot of the time it feels like it does when you're working away at a jigsaw.

So many bits and so much the same. And you try this one here and that one there and none of them fit and you can soon start to feel like jacking the whole thing in. Frustrating some of the time.

You kind of know that it does all fit together. But you're blowed if you can make it work!

There are times when it's quite like that in the jigsaw of life that's basically following Jesus.

We know that he's been speaking with us here. Calling us out and on into something new.

And for long enough we've been working away, trying to get the picture. Fitting the bits together.

And finding the whole thing's dreadfully slow and seemingly unproductive.

Like I say, you know that the whole thing does all fit together. There's a picture all right. But you're just not getting it yet!

And then there are days when you seem to get on a roll and you start to see how the picture is shaping up and the pieces all start to suddenly fall into place!

Today was one of those days. Well, I mean, these last few days have all been a bit like that I guess. But today not least.

I don't just mean the sort of 'middle' bits of the jigsaw taking shape.

Like my being at the school in the morning again and beginning to see more and more how this little bit of the jigsaw's taking shape.

Like the midweek, lunchtime service which has started up again. Our theme for the next few weeks is geared to the older folk. A reminder to them - and indeed to us all - that we never go past our sell-by-date in the service of Jesus Christ. Another little bit that's taking shape.

But it's more, I think, the 'outside' bits of the jigsaw that are starting to come together. Starting to give the whole thing now the basic shape it needs.

I was meeting again with one of my fellow leaders here. Early afternoon - in fact, quite a bit of the afternoon!

There's a lot to discuss! Not least because in recent days we've taken that basic step of changing how the pattern of our leadership is structured and comprised.

We resolved a year or so ago to make our over-riding aim the call that Jesus gave, to go and make disciples. No big deal there, since that's pretty basic, I guess!

And along with that we also resolved that the way we did our 'ministry' should be very much an essentially 'gifts-based' approach.

Again, you'll maybe think that's no big deal. And in a way it's not. It's how it's always meant to be, of course. But often not the way it actually is. And so, it's been in fact a pretty major step.

With a load of implications down the line. It's those that we've been working on. And as we chatted through these different issues once again, it felt like further progress was being made. Like we're actually slowly getting there!

We've a big sort of notice-board up in one of the halls. So one of the tasks that I've set myself is to change the way that's used to set out, in a simple, graphic way, just what it is we seek to be about.

I did some work on that again as well this afternoon. It's a slow-paced task, an 'under-construction' bit of work, that'll take me a week or two. Kind of working at it bit by bit. And, like another jigsaw on the wall, slotting in the pieces so that people get the picture.

It's a sort of visual reproduction, a large-scale, on-the-wall and there-for-all-to-see, reflection of the process that together we've been going through. The changes that are slowly being made. The sort of church we sense we're meant to be.

Like I say, the whole thing's under construction. And a lot of the time it feels pretty much like we're out on a building site. With the dirt and the dust and the debris there always is.

There are those, I suspect, who feel a church should not be like this at all. Those who always like it nice and tidy and who find it quite disturbing when there's wholesale alteration going on.

But it never seemed to bother the Lord all that much. He seemed happy enough to see the dust fly in the temple there was in his day! Why should it be any different here?!