I realise that several of my blogs have a) been a bit angsty and b) been a bit me, me, me. I’m sure my initial motivation for setting this blog up was to encourage you dear reader (excuse the period drama speak) about my amazing God and tell you about the adventure of planting a church. It has occurred to me that I have said little about this church-planting malarkey and some of you still remain in the ‘unknow’ about what I am actually doing.
In fact I’m sure over Christmas a few people asked how the church I’m building was going. Such has been my ambiguity, that some of you think me heroic enough to be part of a building project. Let me clarify, once and for all, that I am not involved in physically resurrecting a church.
To dispel another myth that none of you have been sheepish enough to query, I am not physically planting a church either. Hopefully you will have by now realised that this is a metaphor, even if you couldn’t quite work out what it implied. They plant a lot of tulips over here, but to my knowledge church bulbs are as of yet, unavailable, even in the Netherlands. Apologies for the confusing terminology that Christians have chosen to adopt here. The term ‘church plant’ is a metaphor alluding presumably to the fact that when you start a church from scratch it begins small and formless like a wee-seedling and then becomes a massive sunflower, bush, tree [insert your favourite foliage in here].
So I am in Holland planting a church, which means in plain English, that I am part of a team of people who have moved to The Hague to start meeting together to worship Jesus and we hope that by starting jobs, university courses here and getting involved around our neighbourhoods and with activities that float our respective boats that we will befriend people, introduce them to our amazing God and then flourish into a wonderful church (photosynthesis galore) as more people decide to join us. There are currently over 40 of us meeting on a Sunday, but the number seems to be creeping up weekly.
We don’t have our own building yet and are renting another church’s hall, but in mid-March we are hoping to move more centrally into The Hague, we’ll possibly be renting a theatre, but we are still waiting on God for this. Where we meet isn’t the most important thing though, we just want to be somewhere with space for all our activities and somewhere that’s really easy for everyone to get to.
Our desire as a church will be to see new people meet and glorify Jesus and as they do to see the city of The Hague blessed as lives are restored, broken relationships are reconciled, the sick are healed and for God’s love and joy to reign in our lives. It’s also our desire to be a multicultural and economically diverse church, which truly reflects God’s heart for all people.
There’s one final thing to clear up. Some of you seem to think that I am working for the church. This is not true per se. I am here simply as a regular member, but we are all needed to make church happen. We each are essential to meet invite our friends and people we meet to church (or Chris, our leader, would be preaching to empty chairs), but we are also needed to make church practically happen (serving tea and coffee, helping out with the kids’ work, playing in the worship group, welcoming people etc.) When I’m not at church (which is most of the time) I am still loving and worshipping Jesus, but in a different way. The Bible says that we should offer our whole lives to God as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1). I do this in Leiden mostly as I enjoy my MA course, rowing and spending time with all the wonderful people I have met so far.
Hope that clears things up a little. I’ll keep you posted with our progress as a church, as well of course as with my personal adventures. And any questions - just whack ‘em in my direction!
No comments:
Post a Comment