Echoes of the Abrahamic journey

On 16 June 2013 we were officially "prayed out" of our old church to begin our new journey*. When I was struggling for the words to say my mentor, Roy, likened our journey to that of Abraham:

The LORD had said to Abram, "Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing." - (Gen 12:1-2 NIV)

We have been privileged to have been given a vision by God of what he is going to do in our little town of Witney (and as it turns out in the wider UK) and part of that obedience is to leave and start a new community of believers  so we can bless others.

Stephen revealed more details about Abram's call when delivering his sermon to the high priest:

The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Harran. 'Leave your country and your people,' God said, 'and go to the land I will show you.' - (Act 7:2-3 NIV)

Relating this back to Genesis we see that this occurred before the following:

Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there. - (Gen 11:31 NIV)

 

They began the journey but then they stopped.  Haran was on a fertile plain which was watered by the Balikh River, a major tributary of the Euphrates River and on the main trade caravan route.  It appears that Abram became very prosperous there (Gen 12:5).  It also seemed to be a centre for the worship of the moon god Sin.

This is our story - we saw amazing things when my eldest daughter and I went to India and when my wife, Jennie, went to Bethel School of Supernatural Worship.  But after seeing something of the glory of God we had become settled again into comfortable living.  To quote my daughter "It's easier to just forget all about India".  Were we worshipping the gods that everyone else worships: comfort and prosperity?  It took the chopping off of my thumb with a circular saw for God to wake us up from our slumber and thrust us forward into His purposes.

"By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going." - (Heb 11:8 NIV)

We have seen something and we started to move towards it but we don't fully understand how we'll get there and what it will look like we just are moving forward.  

"Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land. The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your offspring I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD, who had appeared to him." - (Gen 12:6-7 NIV)

It was only when Abram stepped out and travelled to Canaan that God told him that He was going to give this land to his offspring.

It was only when we reluctantly stepped out and said we'll start a new church that Clare Cadbury said to Jennie (without knowing that we had done this) that God told them that there was going to be a new church and that they were going to join it.

And so we have begun.  We're excited, we're nervous and we're certainly in a battle as we seek to take ground from Satan, but we have begun.  And we know that God will reveal His purposes as we are obedient to Him....



*It was an emotional time saying goodbye and thanking the church for the opportunities they gave us to serve them through worship, children's work, preaching and the prophetic.  It was also a chance to thank them for the love and support given through the death of two of our babies, the birth of our sixth child, my wife's continued bouts of optic neuritis and other serious illnesses and for them loving me despite my Asperger's.  When we joined the Oxfordshire Community Churches, we were broken people - out marriage was in tatters, we were both struggling with so many issues and Jennie had completely turned her back on God - so it was fantastic the Geoff and Mary Norridge were there who were instrumental in putting our marriage back together through the Marriage Course and putting our lives back together through Celebrate Recovery.

The Banquet

Jesus replied: "A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests...but they all alike began to make excuses...The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house... ordered his servant, 'Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.'" (Luke 14:16, 18, 21 NIV)

As we were setting out on this journey and we shared the vision God had given us we were encouraged by those who were excited by what we said.  However, it became clear that people were excited for us but didn't want to join us.

Don't get me wrong - they sought God about it and felt it was a clear "no" - it's just that it wasn't how I imagined it would be.  And there is the issue - God starts us on a journey, we know where we're are heading but we have all these preconceived ideas of the route we'll be travelling on.

God in His humour uses these as teaching moments - as I'm expressing these thoughts to Him it's almost like He says "do you want to know my plans for you?" and that's when this story came to mind.

If we were able to choose the people who would be part of the Body of Christ, who would we choose?  Well if you're anything like me then you'd probably go for the talented, the committed, the passionate... you know the "best".

But who does Jesus choose?

 

Extract from "Furious Love" Prod: Darren Wilson

Soon as we stop to think about it we know the answer: "For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost" (Lk 19:10).

And that's when things changed: we want now actively want those who just don't fit in the "church" mould, the broken, the rejects, the outcasts, the lonely and the unlovely because those are the ones that Jesus sought out and we are to do the same.

His body was broken for us and made whole - which is also symbolic of a broken people being the Body of Christ and being made whole.

Jennie had a traumatic dream a little while ago where she was trying to rescue babies that were drowning in a pond.  When I was praying for her the following morning I said "this actually feels like God was trying to show you something here".  His precious ones, His babies whom He loves are drowning and He is calling us to get in the water and save them (and yes, that does mean that we'll get wet in the process).

Foot binding and the body of Christ

For over 1,000 years women, from the age of five, in China broke their toes and bound their feet to prevent their natural growth and obtain the "perfect" three inch length.  It was a sign of prestige, beauty and wealth*.

 

Reading about this and looking at the photos of their feet makes me physically sick - that someone would take something beautifully designed by God and distort it into a grotesque thing just because it conforms to an image they want to convey.

So what on earth has this got to do with the body of Christ?

 

"But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be." (1Cr 12:18 NIV)

We all know that the people of God make up the body of Christ each with their function and that we need all of them to function rightly.

But just like the foot binding, what we do is impose an external "structure" on the body and fit people into that mould.  For example, suppose we have a gap in the children's work and we see someone who is not currently serving - well we say, you're not doing anything come and fill this gap.  Job done.  Church is working well as all our slots are filled.  Or alternatively, someone asks if they can serve in the youth group as they feel they have a calling there.  Sorry, we reply, we've got everyone we need - all our slots are filled.  Have you considered serving in this area where we have gaps instead?

Maybe I'm naive, but it says that God has ordained purposes for each member and has a certain place that He wants them to be.  So shouldn't we start with praying and asking God to show us how each person is created and purposed and then encourage, train and release them to be who Christ has made them to be?

So when one of the co-leaders asked "What role do you have for us?" I responded "How has God made you?  What passions do you have?  What makes you come alive?".  

Father, keep me from imposing my structure on your body.  Let me be someone who releases people to be all you have created them to be.  In Jesus name.

*As only wealthy families could afford to have the women of the house not at work.

In the beginning...

We're so far out of our comfort zone as God has called us to start a new church*.  But what does the word "church" mean?


The origin of the word “church” in English comes from (the Old English word "cirice" which comes from the German word "kirche" which comes from) the Greek word “kuriakon” which literally means “house of God”.  It is a purely religious word that had the meaning of “temple” or “chapel”.

The actual Greek word which we translate as "church" is “ekklesia”, which literally is Ek = out of, klesia = call, ie “called out” ones.   In secular Greek thought this referred to a gathering of citizens called out from their homes into some public place.  In the Greek version of the Old Testament (the Septuagint) it was used to translate the "congregation" or "assembly" of God's people for some purpose .  Hence it was used in the New Testament to similarly refer to a people called out/gathered/assembled for a purpose. 

Hence we are calling our "church" the gathering - so people don't say "I'm going to church" (meaning the building) but "I'm going to the gathering" (meaning the group of believers).



*I guess many people will ask "how do you know God has asked you to do this?".  It's a very good question.  It started off with frustration, a dissatisfaction that there must be more, which in our case started after I went to India and was involved in praying for hundreds of people and seeing healing and demons cast out and my wife went to Bethel School of Worship and experienced signs and wonders and a face-to-face encounter with God.  We just couldn't "do" church any more.  A serious accident with a circular saw meant that we were forced to take a break from our (many) church activities and we used this time to seek God.  He gave us a vision of what His purposes were for our town of Witney and in the UK as a whole.  During our time of rest we visited a number of churches in our town and see what He was up to, but it was made (very) clear that none of these were where we were supposed to be (despite offers!)  A number of prophetic words were spoken over us talking of leadership and being on the brink of something new.  We were excited and related this back to our pastor - but it just became clear that none of these prophetic words were going to be fulfilled and there was a deep unsettledness in our spirit.  The comfortable (and cheaper - since our church subsidises our children's schooling) thing to do would have been to stay - but we couldn't go back to how things were - we'd tasted so much more that we'd die if we weren't going after God all out.  So we choose to leave and felt the peace of God over this decision.  It became clear that the only option to pursue what we were called to was to start a new church - but "who are we?" was the question we asked - we're just ordinary people - nothing special - why would God call us to do this?  Maybe we were mad.  Maybe we and those who had given prophetic words had misheard.  The following day we were talking with a parent and she relayed that during her prayer time that morning God had told her that there was going to be a new church starting and they were to join it.  It was the confirmation that we were on the right track - but I'd be lying if I said that we don't regularly have doubts and have to come back to God and check that we've heard right and He patiently reminds us and gives us God-encounters which confirm that we're going the right way.