It’s time for a celebration and as a church we have so many reasons to celebrate. Not only are we celebrating the church’s 5th birthday but we are also celebrating the end of our 21 days of fasting and praying. If there is anything that we have learnt during this season, it is that when we get serious with God, God gets serious with us. If we want to see an open heaven, we need to be praying for that. If we want to know our bible,then we have to read our bible! As we have been intentional with our thoughts and actions over the past 3 weeks, we have heard of so many breakthroughs in various parts of people’slives.
This is the story of the breakthroughs of Light and Life
It started about 7 years ago when, following the principles of John Wesley, some of the members of the Free Methodists in Garstang felt a calling to do something in Thornton. We didn’t know what it was but we knew we had to do something. And so what started as a small children’s ministry, reading story’s and playing games, had by October 2016 turned into our firstSunday meeting at the Young People’s Centre. By January 2017, we decided it was worth taking the risk and so started having regular Sunday meetings. The next 3 years would prove to be difficult in terms of numbers, mind-sets, visions and so forth and although we were not necessarily seeing the fruits of our work in terms of numbers, we were absolutelyseeing the fruits by seeing what God was doing in our hearts and lives. Our life paths were formed during that season and we grew as a team and as a church.
In Jan 2019 we started meeting in the Thornton Little Theatre. Our average attendance was 35 and at that point there were more people in the band then in the congregation! But we knew that this was our calling and God has always provided for us so we would have no doubt. By January 2020 we had seen blessing after blessing and our average attendance went up to 100 people per meeting. This was confirmation that we were walking in line with Jesus. Then Covid hit and we went through a really tough time, trying hard to keep that momentum but struggling with the connection that worshiping online made so difficult. Again during this season of difficulty, God was stirring in our leadership, drawing more people into our team. We were reminded again that God doesn’t see the same stumbling blocks that we see and He was still drawing people closer. It was during this season that we felt that we could become our own church society and it is with joy and privilege that we can say we have this very week been accepted and given our charity status. We have come so far. Sometimes we over estimate our own abilities and what we can achieve in a year. But we under estimate what God can do and when we look at where He has brought us fromand what He has for us going forward we certainly realise that it is His will, not ours!
As a church, we have three key principles that we need to follow. And they are all based on these 5 words:
Listen, advance, yes, thank you
1. When God speaks, we listen.
We have a job to do, Gods job is to speak but it’s our job to listen. We need ears to listen and hearts to receive. The Lord Almighty gave this message to Zechariah in 4:6
Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,'
So we need to be in tune with His spirit which essentially means we need to be listening for His spirit. Some of the bestbible heroes became heroes because they listened. Moses listened to a voice in a burning bush. In the story of Eli and Samuel, it is Eli’s realisation that Samuel was indeed hearing God speaking to him that made Samuel stop and listen. This is difficult for us because we live in a time when we are trained to be doers but in doing so we forget to listen first. If it’s been a while since you felt God speak to you then you need to read His word and listen to what He is trying to say. Right there is where you will find every principle that you need to succeed. And although God is cable of doing big things that will make everyone listen, when He speaks to us, He chooses to whisper. He whispers because He is close. And if we don’t get it right the first time, we are told not to give up. God will give us a second chance because he is the God of grace, the God of mercy, the God of second chances.
2. The Gospel message will advance.
The hard truth is that the Gospel will advance whether you are with it or not. We think that the Gospel is on retreat with attendance in most churches in England being less than 65 people a meeting. But in fact there are 2.6 billion practicing Christians which means that Christianity is increasing and that the Gospel is advancing. But just as Esther was not the main character in her book, we are also not the main character in our book of life. That is because, just like in Esther’s story, the main character of our life should always be God. Esther is asked to step out in faith even though she feels uncomfortable doing so. The truth was that if Esther chose not to do it, there would have been someone else who could have done God’s work. But we should know that God has specially put certain people in our paths because He believes that we have the key thing that will allow them to hear the message and if we don’t want to share the Gospel message, then the biggest disappointment will not be that the message will not be passed on but rather that you won’t get the privilege to work with God in advancing that gospel, someone else will get the job that you were raised to do. And if we are able to step out in faith, it does not mean that you will be saved but it might be that you will save someone else’s, if only we are able to partner them with Gods gospel. We should at every opportunity attempt to gossip about the gospel. We should never take for granted the importance of salvation.
3. We always need to say yes and thank you
It is because of our obedience to listening to the message all those years ago that we are can celebrate our church turning 5 years old. The first time we say yes on our Christian walk is when we first invite Jesus into our hearts. But we are also, as Christians expected to say thank you. We may work very hard and receive many blessings but we should always keep in perspective where those blessings have come from. When Jesus healed the 10 lepers, He was aware that only 1 person came back to thank Him for being healed. It is important to thank God for all of our blessings, especially in the hard times when we feel like everything is stacked against us. This is why every Sunday in worship, we will sing songs of praise and know that everything we have, is thanks to him
Prov 11: 24 tells us that
When the righteous prosper, the city rejoices;
when the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy.
This sums up our story and the hope is that it will continue to sum up our hearts and values and stories. Listen to thatwhisper. When we listen to that voice we know how we can partner with the gospel so that it will advance in every generation and we can live life to the fullest. So that we can be fulfilled.