Flash forward several years: my wife and I are commuting to a church plant in Morecambe (a place I formerly loathed as I saw the worst it had to offer as a bin man in the area, battering my way up and down filthy back alleys, but now Christ has worked a deep and real love into my soul for the place and the people who call it home). I was coming back from a leaders meeting and felt a real sense of pressure, or 'burden' in Christianese, to pray for more detail about the vision God had given me all those years ago. I prayed a long time, deep into the morning hours, and felt a strong sense of direction in a more specific way than I ever had before.
I went after work to share with my good friend and pastor, Richard Scholes, what I felt God had put in my heart and mind: a shared house where people, disconnected from family or from dysfunctional and destructive family backgrounds, could come and be a part of our family and the wider church family. Richard was not home, but his wife was, so I described this renewed vision to her. No sooner had I finished my speechifying than Richard walks in.
He had just come from a meeting with a young man of our church who desperately wanted help to move on from destructive cycles. He had asked if it were possible for him to move in with any church family that might take him. Richard mused "woulden't it be great if there were a place like that, a family home where people could move in and be discipled in a family context?"
I nearly fell of my chair at this confirmation from God that I was not mad (okay, not just mad. Okay, not isolated in my madness).
If God tells you something, share it with others. Many people will try to put you off, but I do believe that when it is His will, He will encourage, nurture and provide for His Kingdom growth.
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