Missional-Life

Today I spent the afternoon doing some vision and planning for the future of Nene Family Church

Reason 1: The glory of God

Reason 2: The church is God’s plan

Reason 3: To play your part in transforming a city and a nation

Reason 4: To see the tide turned

Reason 5: God’s slipstream

Reason 6: The rainbow-like family of God

Reason 7: A city for families

Reason 8: A city connected to the rest of the world

Reason 9: The hope of Peterborough

Reason 10: Love the city

Reason 11: A ‘train station’ to the region and nations

Reason: 12: Coffee beans by the truckload

Reason 13: It’s God who gives the increase

Reason 14: Demonstrations of the Kingdom

Reason 15: A city with a great theatre

Reason 16: A great adventure awaits…

Reason 17: A gateway to the city

Reason 18: A Gateway to the Region

Reason 19: A Gateway to the Nations

Reason 20: It’s all about Jesus

We’ve just finished a week of prayer at Nene Family Church. On Thursday last week I came across this quote…

‘You see things as they are and ask ‘Why?’  I dream the things that never were and ask ‘Why not?’” George Bernard Shaw

This is very provoking when you apply it to the church! I want to always live as a ‘George Bernard Shaw-type’ dreamer who is looking beyond the established status quo to the glorious possibilities that God has for His church!

God has always had the ends of the earth in his heart. It is a too small a thing to just be concerned about Peterborough or even Peterborough and the surrounding area. God has called us to play our part in seeing the nations transformed by the planting of glorious gospel-centred churches across the nations!

Come and join the adventure as we look to get caught up in apostolically led church planting mission into other nations!

I believe that God is not only calling Nene Family Church to be a city transforming community, but also to be like a ‘train station’ [1], constantly sending people out into the surrounding region. This train station mentality means that we are looking to create a mobile and flexible community that is willing to be led by the Holy Spirit into new Missional contexts!

Come and join the adventure as we look to peer over the walls of the city into the surrounding towns and villages and see what God might have for us there!

When Keith Hazell was with us as a church last October he shared a prophetic word with the Elders, which we believe is going to be hugely significant for the coming season. Keith saw Nene Family Church as a gateway church, but specifically as a gateway that had three doors in it. These doors led to the city, the region and the nations. Keith also felt that the door to the city had in the past been largely shut to the church, but now was the time for us to push it open.

Come and join the adventure we look to see transformation in the whole city!

Life is great at the moment!!! As a church we’re in the middle of a prayer week. It’s been really exciting seeing and hearing people praying big prayers for the future of Nene Family Church. Please do email me if you would like me to send you the prayer diary so you can join us as a church in this week of prayer.

Yesterday a good guy from our church led us in communion. He opened up the communion by applying John Piper’s worship quote to communion. He said… “our times spent round the communion table should be times of gravity and gladness”. Gravity and the magnitude of what Christ both gave up and accomplished for us. Gladness at the wonderful inheritance that is now our due to his sacrificial death for us. What a fitting description!

Here is an article I wrote for ‘the loop’, the bi-monthly magazine of King’s Community Church (Norwich).

Have you ever felt a sense of disappointment as the credits start to roll on an epic adventure film that you’ve been watching? For an agonisingly short period of time everything within you has been captivated by a great adventure! Suddenly a lifeless story has ‘got under your skin’ and moved not only your imagination but also your desires and longings. However, by the time you’ve unloaded the DVD, scooped the stray popcorn off the carpet and removed the empty beer bottles, you’ve managed to persuade yourself that those adventurous feelings are just childish dreams with no place in our modern and sophisticated world. Or are they?

I believe that God has invited you and me to join Him on this great and thrilling adventure! In many ways the book of Acts is the start of God’s great adventure of creating for himself a glorious church! Not the sedate, cautious, inward looking church that is so often portrayed in the media, but rather one that is: a city set on a hill (Matt 5:14); a glorious mountain of the Lord where all the nations shall flow to it (Is 2:1-2) ; a mission focused church; a city and region transforming church! Or as Charles W. Colson states “The church is not incidental to the great cosmic struggle for the hearts and souls of modern men and women.  It is the instrument God has chosen for that battle – a battle we are called to by virtue of being members of His body.” (‘The Body’, 1992).

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, in the middle of December 2009, whilst most other people where madly getting ready for Christmas, my family and I were moving from Attleborough where we had been planting Christ Community Church (www.christcommunitychurch.co.uk). We were relocating to Peterborough to enable me to lead the team at Nene Family Church (www.nenefamilychurchchurch.org.uk). We are praying that many other people will also hear the call to join this great adventure in Peterborough!

Peterborough is a great city! There are approximately 180,000 people from a wonderfully rich and diverse ethnic and cultural background. It is a growing and developing city and an ideal place to bring up a family. However, although Peterborough is a great city, it has tremendous need of the transforming power of the gospel!

My dream is to see a significant gospel-centred, mission-focused church in Peterborough that will play its part in seeing this great city transformed through both demonstrations of the Kingdom, such as ministry to the poor and declarations of the life transforming message of the gospel.

However, this type of dream will only be fulfilled by many, many people coming together to humbly and sacrificially ‘sow’ their lives into seeing the city and region transformed. I’m unashamed in saying that we in Nene Family Church cannot fulfill this dream on our own. We are praying that God will send many people who have a heart for the city and surrounding villages and towns. Maybe God is calling you? If so, please do get in touch to find out more

The Apostle Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians states emphatically:

“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth” (1 Cor 2:6, ESV)

We live in days when there is a growing emphasis within some quarters of the Christian world on ‘entrepreneurism’   or ‘you-can-make-it-happen-ism’.  There is nothing inherently wrong with a pioneering spirit, and in fact Paul was probably the greatest New Testament example of a pioneer (apart from Jesus). However, any form of pioneer-ism or entrepreneurism that gets disconnected from the wonderful truth revealed in this passage is very dangerous! Paul is emphatic; it is the sovereign activity of God alone that makes the difference! All of his and Apollos’ work would have come to nothing if God’s sovereign life giving work was not at work!

Returning to reasons to move to Peterborough, one overwhelming reason to come is that this work that we are looking to accomplish does not depend upon me, you or anyone else! I’m absolutely clear that this task that God has called me to is totally futile without God sovereignly breathing upon it. However, this truth make the adventure that much more enjoyable, because we know that we are totally reliant upon God for everything!