Many gifts - joint task!

Published in News First — our monthly church newsletter  

Last Sunday, we had our Congregation’s Annual General Meeting, as part of our worship service - and this is a cut down version of my reflection for that day.

An AGM gives us the opportunity to look back over the past year - and to also look forward to this coming year, and the future.  The past year has been an interesting and challenging one, and there has been significant movement in some areas of our life together as a congregation. 

Remembering our past is a great way to recognize what God has been doing in our church, but we need to be careful that we don’t just leave our eyes fixed on the past - instead of the new pathways that God is opening up before us.

In the middle of last year, we did some visioning for our church, and we came up with a guiding principle of ‘Living God’s Love Without Borders’.
A guiding principle that leads to actions that will make our church a place where care, and compassion, and respect, and justice, are our markers - and where we make a difference to the community in which we sit.

This is the time to regenerate that vision and to re-vitalise our community - to offer more engagement opportunities in ministry within and beyond our church - and to discover how we really do live by this principle of living God’s love without borders.  When that happens - What will our community look like?  What will we be doing differently?  And how do we go about getting there? 

There is something infinitely precious to God in each of us.  We are wonderful and priceless, and no trouble is too much for God, to help us realise who we are.  The real us, is not the sins and the mistakes, or the foolishness of our life.  God knows all that, and loves us anyway.  The real us, is someone who is loved and cared for by God, and by other people.

Our true identity as people flows from God - from that immense, and wonderful, and effervescent Spirit - who is within, and behind all creation - and whom Jesus revealed in his life, and death, and resurrection.

God says to each of us - be yourself!  Recognise and declare who you are in God’s eyes.  Reach forward into the fullness of life that God has to offer - by choosing to believe that light is better than darkness - that sharing is better than hoarding - that truth is better than deceit - that mercy is better than revenge - that love is better than indifference - that God is stronger than chaos.  Choose to believe in a God of love - and that choice - will change your life - and the life of the community around you.

As Christian people - our task is to live the Jesus way of life - in this world.  And when we do - we become God's loving here on earth - we become signs of what a community of people can be, if touched and transformed by God - we become bearers of hope, and bringers of life, here in Warragul.  Our call is to live a life, in which we too can say - as a person and as a community - we are, living God’s love, without borders.