Engaging with the emerging ministry opportunities
How will we draw near … how will we sit alongside? Engaging with the emerging ministry opportunities
Acts 8 26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south 27 … and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch. This man … 28 was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” 31 [The eunuch] invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 35 Then Philip … told him the good news about Jesus.
It’s one thing to have God place ministry opportunities before us. It’s another thing to take up those ministry opportunities.
In October last year, I came to Christchurch having been sent south (from Wellington) by the Lord. I haven’t seen any chariots here at St Pauls yet, but we’ve got a new community Sharing Shed in our carpark, a new railway container to store the stuff we needed to store so that we had room to welcome others into our space, a coffee cart pulls in every now and then, and we’re hoping to get some food vans in here on a Friday evening for the takeaway dinner option at the end of the week.
God is up to something. Opportunities for being alongside others and alongside our community. We’re being invited to stay near the chariot and to sit alongside others. Opportunities for ministry are emerging.
The simple Sharing Shed has brought people from the neighbourhood alongside us, including someone who would like to offer counselling services out of our church. The Food Chariots (trucks) haven’t arrived yet, but when they do, we believe it will be another way God can bring others alongside us and us alongside them.
Actually, the chariot(car)-park is now full every day of the week too, and that’s because we’ve just welcomed a Community Services Trust to offer its programs of service to the community from our place. Yet another example of God bringing people alongside us.
In all these things, I hear God saying to us: go to the chariot and stay near it. Who knows, maybe someone will ask us to sit alongside them? Who knows, maybe someone will ask the same question the Ethiopian eunuch asked: how will I get to know Jesus if no one introduces his to me?
This is the exciting journey we’re on here at St Pauls, as we discover how we will be alongside people, and how we will share Jesus with others.
Laura Everett in Faith and Leadership says this, “to fully preach the gospel, we need to sit with people [even those] wildly different to us. To fully preach the gospel, we need one another, and we need the stranger.”
Please join us we pray in this season of discovery and emerging ministry … Jesus, thanks for drawing near to us with the love of God. Thanks for sitting alongside us. Help us receive the opportunities you are giving us at St Pauls to sit alongside others in our community. Reveal to us the ways we might be able to gently share you, Jesus, with them. Amen.
Pastor Mark Whitfield
August 2024
