The paradigm shift - 2007/2008

Just over a year ago at the cell leaders training weekend I made a big paradigm shift. I sat up in bed one morning and realised I was still trying to put lots of effort into ‘services’ and not into the cells.

I had wanted the services to be so much better – lively ‘real’ worship, gifts of the Spirit in action, testimonies, lots of families, great junior church team, everyone involved etc. This is how we imagine things will be in the future when we grow. But I now see that putting effort in the Sunday services will not do any of that. Unless the cell structure is in place and functioning as God intends we will not see any difference in our services. People need to change / develop at small group level first. Also the purpose of the ‘services’ is to serve the cells anyway.

The traditional service model was still in operation, and we still thought of it as the main thing, even though it was not a ‘large’ celebration but only a small group pretending to be a congregation.

We had a choice this time last year whether to keep things the same as always, or to make radical changes. We chose to keep going pretty much the same, but carry on with carecell and make some minor changes.

God was saying to us loudly ‘you have stayed too long at this mountain’ (see below). It was time to fully embrace what he was calling us to.

Maze
We make decisions based on our limited knowledge, as though we are walking through a maze, and have to decide whether to turn to the right or the left or carry straight on. We make a choice that seems right in the short term, but we cannot see the dead end that is coming. God sees the big picture, in fact he made the 'maze' in the first place.

M20
About a month ago at 11:30am I joined the M20 at Aylesford and got stuck in a jam. I could have taken the next exit, but it would have meant going through Maidstone, and it was easier to stay on the motorway. Several ambulances came past. I assumed it was an accident. As the traffic was moving slowly I stayed on the M20 and after about half an hour everything started moving faster again. I thought I was out of the jam.

As I passed the next exit a strange thought came into my mind, as I contemplated coming off at that junction. It was the question “If you knew that staying on the M20 would take hours longer than coming off here, what would you do?” I pondered the question, but decided to stay on the motorway, thinking that there was no way it would take hours anyway. The junction after this was mine. Going through Bearsted would be inconvenient. I stayed on the motorway.

100 yards later, I came to a complete standstill. Operation stack was the real reason for the jam. I couldn’t go forward, I couldn’t go back. Three hours later I got home, after lots of stressful phone calls to friends about Peter and the other boys. I should have listened to God.

I was pretty sure God was saying to us now;

“You have gone past the first turning. That’s Ok, but I need you to know, if you do not come off this time you are in for a very long and frustrating time ahead.”

We lookrd at the ‘good’ things that are happening on Sundays, but that will soon come to a stop under the current system. It was a false hope.  We had hoped that things would change that way for the past 10 – 12 years!  Many of us LIKED the current pattern and could think of lots of reasons why not to change.  But are we here to please them/us or God?

This was a big paradigm shift.

Basically, where this is going is that we needed to stop ‘services’ as we knew them, and focus on carecells for the forseeable future. In conjunction with Andrew, the elders, church meeting, a survey of attendance, and visiting everyone individually, the decision was taken to cut down to two celebrations a month in 2008, which we did.

A few people unfortunately left, but they did find another local church to worship at where they were happy.

It seemed that something had 'broken' in a spiritual sense by taking that step.  Within a few months we multipled the carecell into two groups, an evening group and a family group.  The Sunday celebrations totally changed in atmosphere, and we had a worship team.

In 2009 the carecells multipled again, so we had two family groups and an evening group, with six group leaders and a sectional leader!

January 2007

Encouragements from Deuteronomy

March 2006

These were originally about rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem, but used here as SPECIFIC words for US as a church, as well as general teaching.  God spoke to me about the parallels here and the principles and promises we can take on board.

Zechariah 1 v 16
“I will return with to Jerusalem with mercy and there my house will be rebuilt.”
Encouragement that God will indeed build and restore his church here.

Zechariah 1 v18-21 (Horns and Craftsmen)
The horns represent opposition that will come from every direction (spiritual attack, plus resistance from other people). We are ‘craftsmen’ ie builders of the church. We will defeat the enemy and he will not be able to stand against us because God is with us!”
(cf Jesus “I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”)

Zechariah 2 v 4
“Jerusalem will be a city without walls because of the great number of men and livestock in it. And I myself will be a wall of fire around it” declares the LORD “and I will be it’s glory within.
We try to measure what God is going to do, but our faith is too small!!! God is going to do far more than we imagine. Our building is too small!! What God will do will be though the PEOPLE. The building will be insignificant! We need not fear this because GOD HIMSELF will be the wall around us for protection and the glory of God will be among us.

Zechariah 2 v 7
“Come! Come! Flee from the land of the North” declares the Lord.
As the Israelites were scattered among the nations, likewise many Christians have deserted the church and are scattered around. The first call God issues is for them to come back! God will make it possible for them to come back by setting them free himself!

Zechariah 2 v 11
“Many nations will be joined with the LORD in that day and they will become my people.”
Many others who don’t know Jesus will join those who come back and become ‘the church’. God’s people will be multiplied beyond imagination!

Zechariah 2 V10-13 are amazing – read them! What God planned to do through Jesus!!
In the same way, we can’t comprehend yet what God is going to do among us, but it will leave us speechless.

Zechariah 3 – a picture of being made clean.
“See the stone I have set in front of Joshua… I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.”
Jesus and his gospel of salvation is the only foundation stone on which we can build

Zechariah 4 v 6 (olive trees and lampstand)
“Not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit says the LORD Almighty.”
God will supply all the resources we need by his Spirit.

Zechariah 4 v 10
“Who despises the day of small things? Men will rejoice..”
God is encouraging us not to worry about our smallness, but rejoice as we see the building starting!!

Zechariah 6 v 12&13 (the branch)
JESUS himself will build. He will rule as head of the church , and head of this church. He is our King and Priest and we follow him.

Zechariah 6 v 15
“Those who are far away will come and help to build the temple of the LORD…and you will know that the LORD Almighty has sent me to you. This will happen if you diligently obey the LORD your God.
Many who are far from God at the moment will come and help us build his church. We will all know that God has done this. We MUST give the glory to him.

Zechariah 7 (true fasting and worship)
Our Sunday worship – has it really been about God or is it about ourselves and our needs?  Time to examine ourselves!

Zechariah 8 v 19
“…The fasts…will become joyful and glad occasions and happy festivals..”
Our worship will ultimately once again become joyful and happy occasions as they should be. Complete restoration of the people has an effect when we gather together, and will lead to great celebrations.

Zechariah 8 v 23
(Men will say)..”Let us go with you because we have heard God is with you.”
The church that Jesus builds here by his Spirit, as we work with him and obey him, with love and compassion, will be attractive, and many more will even come.

These are exciting promises. I am reminded not to think that it is all just for us. These promises are for us, but are also part of a wider picture of what God is doing. Remember the river – it is flowing though Lenham not starting at Lenham. What God does through us is going to be amazing, but will be also happening all over the place. Our task is to believe these promises for our area, and get to work here building what God has shown us.

May 2005

“Seek first the Kingdom of God and these things will be added to you”.

It seemed to me as I reflected on the past, that myself and a few others had wanted to create a lively Sunday service, with enthusiastic people, good music and more people coming.  Something that would be attractive to visitors.  As we worked towards these things they had not really happened, despite lots of effort advertising, running Alpha courses and holiday clubs, and putting everything into making those services really great.

In the past year I had really put those things on hold and taken a back seat more during the services. It also seemed that God was saying seek HIS kingdom first, and these other things will be added as well.

The challenge was to make sure our vision was GOD’S vision, not our own. He is the architect, we are the workers. (From the talk by Nigel Uden at the 50 year anniversary service in 2002).

I was reminded that our focus should be on the Lost, not on our own needs. Jesus left the 99 sheep and went out after the 1 lost sheep.

In practical terms, this meant 'letting go' of Sunday services and not worrying too much about them.  We were to put our effort into friendships, and our relationship with God, as we were learning to do in the carecell.

This was a very hard thing to do, particularly as people were gossiping that the church was closing! It seemed a bit like that with only a handful of people on Sundays, but we knew we were being obedient to God and decided to trust Him and keep going.


We also were having an extension built at this time.  God spoke to us about how when you build an extension, at first it seems like a mess and you can't see what the new bit is going to look like.  Then the old part gets messed up too (we were changing a lot of things, moving walls, bathrooms etc) and the whole thing seems a mess.  Gradually you start to see the new building emerge and get smartened up.  Then the old part that has been changed can be finished too and the whole thing comes together to make an amazing new building.

This is what has been happening to us.  We have been starting carecells, which is still messy because we haven't really seen what it's going to be like and are learning what to do and what not to do.  At the same time, the old structure is messed up and seems to be falling apart!  We felt encouraged to keep going, believing that eventually the new things that God is doing will transform the old, and all come together to be something amazing for God!

February 2005

Letter from the prayer group at St Luke’s church, Maidstone, following a time of prayer for Lenham;

Picture of hard, frozen winter soil with snowdrops and crocuses breaking through. God is at work – he can see what is going on beneath the hard surface – he can do anything.

Picture of Lenham URC church as a strong heart growing and beating bringing life to the village. The church is already the strong heart beat of the village – keep going.

Try to stop focusing on growth and prosperity. Seek HIS face and his love, just spend time being loved. The thought that as you receive you will give and as you give you will receive EVEN MORE. ‘Be a giving church’.

Prayed for unity between Anglican and URC, that you will work together to extend God’s kingdom. Prayed for both leaders.

Felt a strong sense of God’s love for Lenham and for his children in Lenham.

In carecell, Angela reminded us of what God said in the past about building, and the need to put in strong foundations.  She felt that what we were doing in the carecell at that time was putting in the foundations.

June 2004

This marked the start of the prototype 'carecell' at Lenham URC.  The elders met with Andrew our Minister, and with Rev Alan Wharton (the URC cell enabling minister, picture left). 

The timing seemed right.  Alan had just got funding for his post, which confirmed all the things God had been saying to us. 

Alan led the first carecell, with five members.

During the prayer time in a service at this time, I had a ‘picture’ in my mind of a river flowing along Lenham High Street. Mark P had been talking about the River of Life, bringing healing and blessings from God, so I knew that this river represented God at work in our village. I tried to see which way it was flowing. I wondered if it was coming from our house (ie the carecell) but then I saw that it was a much larger river, with branches flowing down every street, all part of a river flowing through Lenham, and even that was a branch of an even larger river!

I remember a previous curate based at St Mary's church saying that Lenham is a ‘hard’ place. There is a song we sing that goes;

Soften every hard place,  flow through every desert, that
we may wade out into the water, a mighty flowing river.

I was sure that God was saying that the river IS flowing through Lenham and softening the hard places!  This gave us encouragement to keep going, knowing that God is doing much more than we are aware of!

May 2004

Peter welsh – sermon from Haggai 2 v 2-9

“The promised glory of the new house”

Rev Peter Welsh visited us on a Sunday morning, and preached on Haggai 2.

When we think of the church in the past, and larger congregations, we tend to think it was better then than now (ie the ‘glory’ days) but now it has dwindled. It was the same here at Lenham URC.  Everyone looked back to when lots of people came to the services, and even back to when there was a 500 seater chapel here.

In the same way the Israelites remembered Solomon’s temple that had been knocked down, and the new one they were now building seemed nothing.

However the new temple was greater because Jesus himself walked in it, and through Jesus all nations would be reached and peace would come, real, inner peace.

In the same way, we remember the church buildings of old, but now God is doing a new thing that does not revolve around buildings, but what he is building is among people and he is building his church centred on Jesus.

“The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house” says the LORD Almighty, “and in this place I will grant peace” declares the LORD Almighty.

The other promise for us was;

“Be strong all you people of the LORD” declares the LORD “and work. For I am with you”, declares the LORD Almighty.

This was particularly relevant as it came when we were thinking of starting carecells, and the whole ethos of carecells is based around friendships and community, rather than going 'to church'.  It confirmed exactly what we were seeking God about.

God is going a new thing among the people through friendships, rather than in the church building. And we should press on and work towards it because he is with us.

June 2002

50th Anniversary celebrations

Nigel Uden spoke to us about 'God's the builder'

It was an amazing thing.  We had found some words to the 'Bob the Builder' song for our summer holiday club which was going to be  based on a construction site theme.  We chose the song for the 50th celebration called 'God's the Builder'.  When Nigel saw it on the order of service after his talk, he said 'is that like Bob the builder?'  His talk was actually based totally on Bob the Builder and neither he nor us knew what each other was thinking beforehand!

It seemed that God wanted us to really take note!  Here are some exerpts from that talk;

The church, like Bob, is in the building business.

• We need to build buildings to meet in, so we can all get together.  But the community also needs the buildings as a reminder when they drive past that God is there and he matters.

• We need to build disciples, building people up in the fiath so they are strong; to celebrate the good things, and to endure and grow through the troubles.

• We need to build the body of Christ that will collectively stand out like a light shining in our community.

Bob uses bricks and mortar to build.  God uses us, living stones, to build us into a temple for God.

• It's all about teamwork (working together to get the job done).  We can identify the different gifts that God had given us, like the different characters in the program, and put them together into a team.

• Bob is not successful because of what he does, but because of the design he has been given to work on.  We are working to God's design, and that is why this church has been here for so many years, because God has a design and is faithful. God is the architect, we are the builders who follow his plan.
  

February 2001

I had been reading about the cell church movement. In William Beckham’s book (The Second Reformation) I noted that as Jesus modelled, you start with one or two, then twelve, then a basic congregation of 70 etc.. I was thinking ‘OK, we can manage 12 maybe, but where will the 70 come from? I distinctly ‘heard’ God say “You start with the 12, I will supply the rest!!”

Also at the time we read in Isaiah “ Enlarge your tent pegs, do not hold back.” When thinking about revival we thought about a lot about 'buildings' and what God wants to build through us. We thought that perhaps God was talking to us about preparing the people in this way, enlarging our expectations and taking practical steps to be ready for growth.  Practical steps would mean putting in place a structure that would cope with growth, and the carecell model does just that.

February 2000

I had been watching builders at work building a new hospital wing for quite a few weeks. It seemed as though the structure had now suddenly sprung up, but they had been seemingly pushing dirt around for ages with nothing happening. I suddenly thought that it was an illustration of how God works, maybe what he’s doing among us. It takes a long time for God to prepare us, but once the foundation is laid we’ll see rapid growth. It is frustrating at the moment but God is laying foundations.  I think God was warning us that getting the foundations right takes a long time.

In the same way, I was looking at the climbing Hydangea, which for several years had only ever had one flower, in the same place. All of a sudden this year there were lots of flowers. In the same way we have seen little fruit of our work at church, but there will come a time when there is suddenly a lot of fruit and we need to be ready.

In April I wrote a song about what else we had been learning.  Basically, we realise that we were right to believe and pray for revival, but we were starting to realise that God was going to bring revival through US, more precisely by HIS POWER IN US, not just by people turning up as we had sort of hoped they would!!!

JESUS YOUR PRESENCE IS ALL THAT WE NEED
We know we are weak in ourselves, so we plead
For Your Spirit to fill us, we’re down on our knees;
O Sovereign Lord, (x3)
All we need is You.

Although we are few, although we are weak,
We trust in your power in us as we seek
To be faithful to You as we live out our lives.
Your grace is sufficient for us.

So guide us dear Lord as we seek to obey,
To let Your light shine out through us every day.
Our hope and our trust are in You, so we pray;
O precious Lord, (x3)
All we want is You.

January 2000

I was very frustrated at church one Sunday with the way things had worked out with the music side of things. I was feeling cross. As I went to get the vestry key the Lord said “Just wait and see what I’m going to do!” It was a definite thought in my mind just as clear as anything.  I incorporated this into my song ‘O God our Father’ as a way of claiming this promise

• O God our Father

O God our Father, we are crying out to you
For this place that we live in has turned away from you.
O God our Father we are falling on our knees
We need to know your power, O God forgive us please

Won’t you stir us into action, show us what to do
Join the hearts of your people here so the glory goes to you

O God our Father, we believe you when you say
‘Just wait and see what I will do’, we want to be amazed
O God our Father, you are changing us it’s true
Your promises will be fulfilled, o Lord we trust in you.

This song also incorporates the idea that has been coming across strongly, that all Christians in Lenham need to work together for this to happen, that where there is unity God can bless.

At a similar time Dave said that when you give a child a new toy, it means more if they have to wait for a while. In the same way we will treasure what God is doing more if we have to wait and trust him first.  So we continued to pray and wait.

July 1997

In our bible study group we had been studying the book of Acts with some excitement. We all felt sad that nothing like what we read about happens these days and all wanted to see revival like that.

Then one day we listened to a tape by Ed Silvoso about revival in Argentina. It was amazing to discover that things ARE happening around the world to rival those in Acts. We still felt sad because we knew someone like Ed Silvoso would never come to England, let alone Kent.

The next thing we heard was that Ed Silvoso WAS coming to Kent!! A group of us went up to Medway to hear him speak. It was encouraging because God was saying to us through it that he cares about us and we ARE included in what he is doing, even here in Lenham where it seems hard.

After that we committed ourselves to pray regularly for revival and for our community. We had regular 'prayer celebrations' where we worshipped and prayed.  Our favourite song had the chorus 'Send revival, start with me' by Matt Redman.  Little did we know that God would answer that very prayer.

February 1993

Dave and I were at our old church in Ashford. The visiting speaker (Bernard Thompson) was giving some examples during a talk, and he pointed directly at Dave and I and said, For example, God might say to you “Go and start a small group in your village”, and I would say, “Go and do it.”

He didn’t know that we even lived in a village, or that we were indeed wanting to do that very thing!!!  But I recognised it as God speaking to us.

When we came to Lenham URC that’s what we did, and that is the way God has continued to work through us since then.