sanctified

I’m currently attempting to get the Church of England to ordain me. Strangely enough, that’s not the mission impossible I want to talk about, but just a background fact! The Church Times this week reported the latest Church of England attendance statistics. Overall, church attendance is still falling, although 13 of the 42 dioceses reported increasing weekly attendance. In order to try and get this overall picture to improve all candidates for ministry now have to satisfy a criterion on “Mission and Evangelism”. Unfortunately this hasn’t really been my favourite topic of thought or discussion so I’ve had to put my thinking cap on and start to grapple with it.

Reasonably predictably, as I’ve started to think about it, God has started to speak to me about it and events are conspiring against me. This weekend I started readingMission-Shaped Church and I got a facebook event request to a prayer meeting for people who live on my estate. After the prayer meeting (which was this evening) I went to a worship night (if only my whole life were so holy) and felt God speaking about being an Isaiah 61 church. And I feel moved and like I should do something about it. I really do.

But what next? Emotion and promises without action are pointless. Jesus tells the story of a father who asks his two sons to go and work in the vineyard. The first says he won’t go, but does. The second son says he will go, but doesn’t. I feel like too often I’m the second son.

I don’t know how this is going to work out, I really don’t. But there is some kind of excitement in me somewhere that maybe my mission impossible might somehow be achievable.

This post is filed as: thoughts and musings. It was written by mrdavidberry.