In 1997 our Church leadership team gathered for an away day in a local village hall.
We were in touch with newfrontiers having researched the various new Church groups and had found them to be very similar to us.
A guy in the Church with a significant prophetic gift had a picture of a fishing rod and a net.
We were challenged whether we wanted to be like a single rod that no matter how far the line went out could only catch one or two fish at a time, or if we wanted to allow ourselves to be knit in with others to form a larger net.
Last week I went away for two days Prayer and Fasting at Peterborough. That was great for many reasons, but something I found profoundly moving was seeing a room with 800 people from all over the country in prayer for our Borderlands weekend.
We are a small region of Churches on the edge of things geographically; but here was a national movement, over 240 Churches represented, getting behind our seven Churches and praying blessing upon us.
That touched me in a way that I am struggling to get my head around. In a good way!
1 comment:
That was very, very interesting about the picture of the fishing rod, given to your guy with the prophetic gift. It brought two things to my mind:
(1.) It reminded me of when I child of about 11, and two Church Army women came to our church. Our's was a very traditional C of E church, and these women were like a breath of fresh air! They taught us some lively choruses,all singing all dancing- with tambourines! One of these always stick in my mind to this day. "I will make you fishers of men!"
So- The chorus is "If you follow me! If you Follow me!I will make you fishers of men if you follow me.
So I guess Jesus is saying we've got to stick very close to him and follow in his ways in order to be good "fishermen" to reel them in his church!
It's obvious of course, and a church like yours rooted in prayer will be very aware of that.
And (2) Recently on one of my bike rides in the surrounding countryside,I was coming round a local fishing lake- Carr Mill Dam- and got stuck behind the judging of a fishing competition!
I'd no idea about this- and I was fascinated- because I thought it was just about how many fish they caught, or whether they'd caught honking great whoppers or little tiddlers..........
Oh NO! It was the WEIGHT of the net full of fish! Each net was emptied into a special weighing net- and weighed! Now someone might have a few BIG fish and a few little ones- and another might have LOADS of little fish- but they might well weigh the same!!
How this applies to a church, I'm not sure. Your man with the prophetic gift may know!
It could be that "heavyweights"; the big fish, are the mature ones with all the gifts, who also work hard for their church.
The little fish may literally be the little ones- the children, or those who are very new and have a lot of growing to do. But of course whatever the "mix", the sum total of the "weight" is the same and can win the supreme prize of bringing people of all ages and stages to Jesus!
I don't know if this is significant. You could think it's all a bit fishy!!! ;-)Everything should be weighed against Scripture, of course!!!
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