“‘In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.” (Acts 2:17)
It was
great to be sitting in the cosy meeting space at the Ascotvale Church of Christ
a few weeks ago with about forty people from a range of western and northern
suburbs – it was an inspiring Renewal conversation. Two of the things I particularly
recall were someone saying that we need to be ready to do whatever the Holy Spirit directs! And someone else saying we ought
not be fearful because we may be an
older or a smaller church.
I was
reminded of the situation in Acts 2, where the Spirit of God fell on what were
most probably an older audience of Jerusalemites and Peter quotes the prophet
Joel at them saying: “Your old men will dream
dreams.” (2:17)
As we
think about Renewal, we need to remember that the point of re-NEW-al is that it
is about making something old new again – against all expectation!
It’s the
story of Abram and Sarai – old beyond fruitfulness they were blessed to be a
blessing to the whole world! (Gen 12).
A few
weeks ago I met with minister and their wife of a small, older congregation,
and we talked about what it might mean to close up shop. We talked about the
futility of expecting change or energy in an aging group in an unsuitable old
building.
Last
week I got a letter from the minister’s wife! (I’ve edited out names
and some detail) ...
“Why is it that the very time I feel like quitting
we have such a blessed day??!!
I may have told you that my husband and I have
been talking about taking long service leave - three months next winter - we
have never had long service leave and have been in ministry nearly 40 years so
we think its time!
But, we also know that if we take three months
off we are going to leave a big hole at our little church and it may be the end
of it all, so we have been wondering if perhaps its time to retire completely!!
Then last week one of our members- asked if we
could have a testimony time on Sunday! So today we had 'Testimony Time'. There
were about 22 of us there in total and well over half gave testimony to God's
blessing in their lives through the church here.
Have you ever heard of over half a congregation
giving testimony? Good job we are a small church!! It was really amazing!!
God is at work in incredible ways even in our
little group of ‘oldies’. Deepening their relationship with Him - restoring
relationships with siblings, an answer to prayer - teaching them about entering
His courts with praise - learning to cast their cares on Him - making the Word
real in their lives - healing and restoring - even moving people to tears of
joy for what He had been doing!
So what can we do? How can we walk away when it’s
so obvious that God is still at work? Even the after-church conversations were
about the Lord and my husband had a group of five little old ladies keenly
discussing the physical resurrection of Jesus!! That was better than talking
about the football, weather or politics!! One old
dear was even dancing with joy as she spoke to me at the end of
the service! ... one old lady told me
she had only just recently come to REAL faith! How good is that!
We need you to pray for us - for wisdom to know
and to plan for the future - strength to persevere - mental and physical
ability to keep it all together and especially to praise Him for His glorious,
generous, gracious hand upon us and our little flock. We are truly
blessed!
As you can see its hard
for us to leave even for three months
- so for the moment long service leave is on the back burner!!
This ministry is too much
fun even though we find it stretching.”
