10th Sept 2017 - This Term's Vision - Simon Benham

By and large, Simon’s walk with God hasn’t been one of dreams and visions – its more been a case of ‘doing the obvious thing’ – taking on jobs and responsibilities as they came up.  But there has been a notable exception – a prophetic word at Stoneleigh, God saying “You will lead churches of thousands”.

That Word is not fulfilled yet.  Generally, prophetic words don’t come true just like that, you have to do stuff to make it happen – and so we’re shaping the Kerith vision for this term to bring the fulfilment of this particular word closer to reality. 

‘Churches of thousands’.  The current fashion seems to be to prefer small churches, rather than large ones.  But the first church (in Acts 2) was a church of three thousand from day one … perhaps God’s heart for little churches is to see them become big churches!

Here’s what the full passage says:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.  Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles.  All the believers were together and had everything in common.  They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.  Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favour of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. [Acts 2:42-47]

Verse 47 speak of ‘adding to the number daily’.  If there were one thing from this passage Simon would wish to claim for Kerith, it would be this.  Scaling the numbers from Acts to Kerith, it equates to a desire for about 100 people to be added to our church every year.  That’s why we have a target of 100 baptisms this year (we’re counting baptisms because that’s a more solid response than praying a prayer).  So far this year, we’ve baptised 84, and there are still four months to go – but in all honesty, a lot of these are people we should have baptised long ago, so to keep going with ‘fresh’ baptisms at this rate we need to up our game!  (Looking back to the first church in Jerusalem, its growth didn’t stop at three thousand; by Acts 4:4 it had reached a size of 5000 men, and Acts 6 says it continued to increase.)

For the record, here’s the status report on the progress of our vision:

·         Bracknell.  We’ve paid off the mortgage on K2, bought a strip of land by the side from the cricket club, and have drawn up plans for new K2 building, which the elders are currently renewing.

·         Sandhurst.  We’re developing a partnership with an un-named party that would give us a Sunday + a mid-week venue.

·         Windsor – We’re renting a great hub with the Gospel Hall in Dedworth, where we’re now going to be meeting on the second Sunday every month at 4pm

The full outworking of all this will take time and cost millions, but don’t be phased!  Rather, ask what does God want us to do personally to make this a reality?  There are three things to take on board:

1.       Be devoted, be sold-out for Jesus – accepting Him not just as our Saviour, but as the Lord of our life. Lord of Finances, of Time, of Jobs, of relationships.  Jesus doesn’t claim Lordship of this things all at once – we’d be overwhelmed! But he does want to be Lord of all.

2.       Embrace community

a.       First, there’s ‘Big community’ – meeting on Sundays.

                                                               i.      Get here as often as you can – not just once a month (that’s the current US definition of ‘attending regularly’). We can always find excuses, but church should take priority

                                                             ii.      Get here on time (!)

                                                           iii.      Come with a heart that says not ‘what am I going to receive?’, but ‘what can I give?’.  A service should not be judged not by how much we enjoyed it, but by how much God enjoyed it.

b.       The, there’s 'small group community' – for deep relationship, encouragement, and for mutual support.

3.       Don’t neglect evangelism.  That doesn’t have to mean standing on a soapbox to the Lexicon, though it can.  The New Testament also models inviting people into a community (like small groups) and over time, those who Belong, begin to Believe and Behave.  The worst thing you can do is to ‘hide your light under a bushel’ – our love for God and for other people should be evident to all who meet us.