God’s Work God’s Way!

In the light of the Covid-19 pandemic and the enforced shut-down of public meetings at that time, many churches are looking again at how we should be about God’s work.  One key thing is emerging – from now on, God’s work needs to be done God’s way! 

What is his work?   From Scripture, we’re left in no doubt of that.  The work of the church is to make disciples – people who follow Jesus.  Or, even more accurately, our work is to make disciple-making disciples: that is, people who are not only themselves growing in their faith but helping others to do the same.  This is the business of the church – we have no other purpose but to make disciples.  It is a spiritual work given to us by Jesus.

How is this work done?  Well, God’s work is done God’s way!  God has not left us in the dark as to how the church goes about the business of making disciples. How we do God’s work can be summarized under three ‘P’s.  These summarize God’s strategy for church growth.

 First of all, there’s Prayer.  There’s a lot of activity in church life, but little prayer.  One of the key privileges which God has given the church in the work of making disciples is to pray.  That will continue to be a key feature of our ministry over the year ahead as we discover the joy of joining with God in growing his church, through prayer.  Let’s encourage one another to learn to pray again. 

Secondly, there’s ‘Proclamation’ – the teaching of God’s Word.  This is not restricted to those who have teaching roles on Sundays, but is something, like prayer, everyone can do – e.g., reading the Bible or Christian stories with children, or sending a ‘thinking of you’ or sympathy card with a Bible verse on it; or being part of the Zoom fellowship, where there’s discussion; or mentioning to your neighbour about what you learnt at church last week… Let’s learn to hear God’s Word again and to share it prayerfully with others.

Thirdly, there’s ‘People’.  Our aim is to grow a loving, serving, caring, faithful, prayerful community of people who want to know God more; see his Kingdom extended; love others; and be salt and light in the wider community.  

This is how God grows his church.  This is the strategy he uses. He doesn’t give us a ‘magic wand’ to set everything right, rather he leads us to prayer, proclamation and being a genuine community of people, who want to honour his Name by living his way – trusting in Christ as their Saviour and Lord.

If you’re reading this article, it is probably because you are a Lambeg and Hilden parishioner.  But here’s the challenge for you.  Do you want to be someone growing in faith and helping others do the same?  You have a part to play.  Are you willing?  Do you want to?  Let’s encourage one another to be followers of Jesus.