Seven years in

On the first weekend in September it will be seven years since Grace Church was planted.  Over those seven years we've known ups and downs, joys and sorrows, but through it all can testify to the grace and goodness of God.  It has in many ways been the hardest seven years that I have ever known.  I had no grey hairs 7 years ago, and certainly more hair and fewer wrinkle!  If I had known then what we would face together as a church family I probably would have run a mile.  But my recent sabbatical has given me time to stop and think about some of the things I would do differently, some of the lessons we have learned and re-learned and relearned because God is a patient teacher.  I'm not sure these'll be of any use to anyone else but they have helped me as I think about them, here's some of them with more to follow:

1. God is great and gracious
I know that goes without saying.  But looking back I am amazed at where we are.  We began in one area and then moved to another.  We started with one leadership team and God has graciously brought us another as others have moved on or stood down.  We have grown and shrunk and grown and shrunk but we are still hear.  Above all God has time and again led the church to be patient and gracious with my leadership with all its flaws and failings.  And despite our imperfections and failings God has led people to new life in him and many others to hear the gospel.

2. Local context is key
Before and as we started out I visited many planters and many church plants as well as reading many books.  It was helpful up to a point but I was slow in recognising those limitations.  When we read of a great model we tend to want to put it into practice.  Here is the problem with most of the literature on Church planting: it is either American or if it is from the UK it tends to be focused on University cities.  That isn't to say there's nothing we can learn from these but rather that we need to work hard at differentiating between the principles that are transferable and the other things that are not.  There are very few churches planted into a context like ours - most of our young people will leave and go to university and not come back.  We will not have many young twenties, people in our community aren't asking questions that young twenties ask.  We will not have the man power that a student/young twenties church has and that is God's will for us because he has called us to this context.  Our growth will be slow not spectacular, our funding will likely have to be part external for a long time.

That context needs to colour the lessons we learn.  I've found it helpful to think carefully about our area in the following ways:
County - we are ministering in Yorkshire and that means we need to be a church that is for people from Yorkshire with all their God given uniqueness!  Yorkshire is a unique county with a unique people and history, that must be reflected in the way we do church and share the gospel.  City churches are more cosmopolitan than we will be, with people from across the country in more of a melting pot than our local area will be.  We need to be a Yorkshire church for Yorkshire people in everything we do.

Town - What is unique about our town?  What does it celebrate?  What does it do well?  What are its aspirations?  What is its history?  How does it feel about church?  What barriers are there to hearing the gospel and following Jesus?  Answering these questions has been immensely helpful and insightful.  It has also helped me to love where God has put me.

Community - We minister in a community, it is a smallish community with a unique history even within Doncaster.  That history is important to understand in order to connect with people.  For us where we are the days of the area being an RAF base still has huge influence.  It influences where people live and how those areas are thought of.  It influences many of those who live here who have some past connection with the forces.  Involvement in the community has been key for us, listening to peoples stories, building friendships, defeating defeater beliefs one at a time over years, serving people without strings, committing for the long haul, and loving the community not bad mouthing it have all been important lessons we have learnt.

3. Love tenaciously
To be tenacious is to cling tightly to something, to refuse to let go of it, to steadfastly resolve not to give up.  Peter writes this: "Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins".  We are a broken people and we make mistakes, we sin and others bear the consequences, others are broken and they sin and we bear the consequences.  In that context ministry tales place, in that context a tenacious love is essential.  A love that doesn't cut and run at the first, second, third, fourth or seventy seventh sign of trouble or sin.  Love that forgives and welcomes.  Love that keeps building relationships even with those who initially want nothing to do with the gospel.  Love that humbly enables us to recognise and repent of our mistakes and to receive forgiveness for them.  Love that motivates us to visit, to rebuke, to challenge, to comfort, to rejoice, to mourn, to act.

There are times we have got this right as a church and times we have got it wrong.  There are times I have got this right and others when I have gotten it wrong.  But tenacious love doesn't allow itself to be shunted aside by past failure.  It doesn't say I got it wrong then so I can never do it again.  Tenacious love doesn't allow us to say I was hurt then so I'm not doing this now, or I'm not loving them now because of the past.  What enables us to love tenaciously?  Because that is how we have been loved:

"In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death –
even death on a cross!"

Phil 2v5-8