What A Great Reason To Blog

"If I can somehow draw your attention each week to the hill called Calvary and remind you of the Savior’s substitutionary sacrifice on the cross for our sins, if I can draw your attention away from yourself and direct your affections to him, then this blog will have served your soul and made some small difference for the glory of God. I pray it does."

CJ Mahaney introduces his blog.

A Heart For A City

There's no questioning the commitment of groupings like Newfrontiers to church planting. At the recent Prayer & Fasting gathering of pastors and staff from the UK churches, the vision to see hundreds more churches planted was blatant. Here is a vision not only to see people saved, but to see something significant built. Churches which will plant more churches, release more leaders and ultimately build communities which point to eternity.

The flip side of that is that we parachute what are sometimes quite large groups into towns and cities and expect a church to grow. The prompting to take this action might be strategic (e.g. "that is a significant city - we need a large church there") or circumstantial ("I have a job opportunity in this town which could release me to start a church"). It is not always the case that we plant churches out of compassion for the city. We should probably discover more of that aspect.

On Sunday Chris Kilby spoke at Life Church Southampton from Nehemiah - we looked at how God moved Nehemiah from compassion for his father's people to prayer for the situation. It was a sense of devastating loss for his people that motivated Nehemiah to prayer, and ultimately, action.

It is one thing to start a church with a vague awareness of the issues in a city; or with an eye on a wider apostolic strategy; or with a heart to see a significant church built; or even with a heart to see lost people saved. But there is a unique dynamic about having a heart for the city you're called to, and this (for those who have been parachuted in to start a church) comes only with time. Even for myself, having practically grown up in Southampton, and having had my heart stirred for it even as an 18-year-old, there has been a process of heart-warming I have had to go through in relation to building Life Church. This sense of compassion for a broken city coupled with a deep-seated conviction that a church can restore it will be a powerful combination as it grows.

Where Has All My Time Gone?

Back when I was a student I resented people suggesting I had loads of free time. I was on a very intensive course and gave the rest of my time to church thank you very much. Now I look back and wonder where I used to find the time for this blog!

I suspect it will correct itself one day. Either that, or I will simply get used to a new pattern. My favourite times of blogging were the odd months when I would manage to do it every day. Every night between 10 and 11pm I would write a post for the following day, edit it over breakfast and then publish at 8:30am. I enjoyed that.

Now it's different and all I have time to tell you is that today we had our last ever Sunday morning at Solent University (to a loud cheer from the church this morning!) and next week we will be in the magnificent Harbour Lights Picture House. I'm just about to go out to a gathering of our Life Group leaders where we'll be discussing multiplication of our five groups. It's all extremely exciting!

This week off to Newfrontiers' Prayer & Fasting in Peterborough which is always super-uplifting and very tiring. We've invited the whole church to join us in fasting and praying throughout those two days in response to Chris's excellent sermon this morning on Nehemiah - encouraging us to move from compassion to prayer in our concern for the city.

That's all!