Eaton Ford - Lazy or diligent?

We began with a hot drink and a chat about events during the last week. Once again the main topic was next year's youth camp, important aspects are to make sure that Father is glorified in all we do and say, to have some plans for earlier events that could help us meet young people and their parents in Eynesbury, and to consider how best to bring new believers into the church in St Neots. We have had one enthusiastic response and one unclear response from the two churches we have approached informally so far.

Jim mentioned that we are all supposed to feed the other sheep that belong to the Shepherd, we are not meant to feed our own organisation with a supply of his sheep. Sheep are not a commodity, we are a family.

Chris read Proverbs 10:4-5, he'd come across these verses while reading privately before the meeting. He said that in his own life he feels he's been a lazy son, but it's never too late to start and now is the time. Yahshua said the fields are full with the harvest (John 4:35), if we are diligent and wise we'll be busy gathering those crops.

Jim has been reading about the period of time between the old and new testaments, a time when Israel had no revelation and no real sense of the Lord's purpose. He thought how he would hate to have no revelation or purpose in his own life. But Jesus came and everything was changed, and his Spirit is with us and speaking to us daily. What a privilege we have!

Sean emphasised the importance of loving our neighbours. He read out Romans 13:8-14 where Paul writes that the time has come to wake up from our sleep. He had read this passage recently and it had been on his mind. Like Chris, he feels that he has been, if not lazy, then at least asleep. We talked for a while about how the church in the UK seems to have been asleep during our lifetimes. Christians seem to be mostly inactive in our day. It's as if night has come, everyone is asleep so it's natural for us to yawn and slumber too. But we need to wake up!

We talked about how everything must be done for Father's glory, we dare not take any of that glory for ourselves. Then Chris shared a picture of a house, it was like looking down at the plan of the house. He realised that the house is Father's living temple built of the living stones of his people. It's the house in which he lives, where his Presence rests. There were many rooms in the house and each room was like a different part of the church - the Baptists, The River, Open Door, the Methodists, St Mary's in Eaton Socon, and so on - each one like a separate room. As he looked, Chris saw that not all the rooms had internal doors. Sometimes a room had an external door, but no connection to the other rooms. And the Lord said, 'What an inconvenient house!' He also told us that he will open up doors between the rooms, he doesn't want a house like that, it needs to be changed to make it more useful.

Jim saw it a little differently, he was encouraged because we are going to go into the town and open up doors for young people to come in and have life in its fulness. We prayed for doors to open up right through the estate, doors to open for the Good News. We asked this in love.

Jim also mentioned that we need the Holy Spirit to give us openings on the estate that we can develop, ideas that can be presented to others as projects, at least four half or whole days of activity on the estate. And we need something for Brampton too.

We discussed this and jotted down six preliminary ideas, but Sean felt a little unsettled in his heart. He reminded us that the Lord will provide the things for us to do, they may not necessarily be the things we think up for ourselves. So as we go forward we need to be open and expectant.