Contending for KingsGate
We are living through very strange times. None of us have ever experienced anything like a global pandemic before and certainly not one that has gone on for over a year. This has created massive uncertainty and shaking throughout society. Finances are shaking, jobs are shaking, relationships are shaking, education is shaking, health is shaking, society itself is shaking as all the other pressures add up. The church is not exempt from all this shaking but we do have the one who doesn’t shake to lead us through.
Doing Church is very difficult in this season. We are designed for relationship and yet cannot meet except in limited ways and even then without interacting with each other, we are designed to worship and praise our God but certainly some of the ways we were used to doing this are no longer available. We love to reach out and share God’s love with others but social distancing, masks and lockdowns make this really awkward. As Keath said last Sunday it’s hard not to be enveloped by a fog of inactivity and distraction. Is God still in control? Did he foresee all this? Has he prepared us to overcome in this situation? What does that look like? What would Jesus do in a global pandemic?
There may be many different opinions on the answers to these questions but whatever those are, I feel confident we can agree that the vision God gave us will not have changed and his empowering of us to fulfill that vision in our local communities will not have changed. His desire is still for us to bring heaven to earth by loving God, equipping people, strengthening community and transforming the world all expressed through church communities in Cobham, Ham, Kingston & Wimbledon Village.
Paul asks the Thessalonian & Colossian Christians to pray for him that he would fulfill the mission God had given him.
2 Thessalonians 3:1
Finally, dear brothers and sisters, we ask you to pray for us. Pray that the Lord’s message will spread rapidly and be honored wherever it goes, just as when it came to you.
Colossians 4:3
Pray for us, too, that God will give us many opportunities to speak about his mysterious plan concerning Christ. That is why I am here in chains. 4 Pray that I will proclaim this message as clearly as I should.
He wants prayer that God’s message would spread rapidly and that he would be able to explain that message clearly. That would be a really good starting point for us.
- Pray that we would demonstrate that message by the way we love each other.
- Pray that God would show us how to effectively reach out to our communities in the months ahead.
- Pray for more opportunities to demonstrate God’s answers to our current crisis.
- Pray that this would have a transformational impact on our communities.
Specifics for Cobham:
- Strategy and routes into how we can serve and become known in the community.
- Famlies with young children and youth to join us. This is where we need growth
- A stable venue that can act as a gathering place for the community
Specifics for Ham:
- For the Spirit to inspire love and longing for the body of Christ and the power to maintain the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.
- For our journey of discipleship to bear fruit as we build our lives around the 3 priorities of: Being with Jesus, Becoming like Jesus, and Doing what Jesus did
- For the many connections in our local community to bear gospel fruit
- For us to effectively use what is in our hands (gifting, skills and resources) for serving and sowing into our local communtiy and beyond.
Specifics for Kingston:
- For our unity and togetherness as a church
- For the success of our projects that are impacting the local community.
- For strategy to communicate the gospel through doors that have been opened.
- For people to come to know Jesus.
- For wisdom on how to best use our building in a different environment.
Specifics for Wimbledon Village:
- For us to be increasingly consumed with the love of God for Him, eachother and the lost.
- For us to be increasingly aware of the beauty of the gospel and willing to share it with everyone we come across.
- Increasingly outward focussed on the mission.
- For us to be unified behind the vision God has given us as a community.
- For God to add families and children to our community.
- For us to be able to meet in our venue shortly as we can’t under this tier.
Enjoy your time with Father today.
Lets see what he wants to say to us.
Love
Paul
