Colin: Relying upon Grace

What do you rely upon? Where does your trust ultimately lay?

If we’re honest, most of us trust in a wide variety of things. Some of us trust in our bank accounts and feel safe because we can buy what we need. Some rely upon our position or title to help us feel secure. Some trust in intellect, believing we will always be able to think our way out of trouble. Others of us trust in our friendships or families, feeling surrounded by folk willing to help us when needed. None of these things are bad. It’s good to aspire to wealth, wisdom and favour with men, but even if we have them all, we are foolish to trust or rely upon them.

The Bible encourages us to trust in God. As David said, “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.” (Psalm 20:7) and his son, Solomon, said, “Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.” (Psalm 127:1). That’s why David didn’t take the kingdom from Saul when he had the chance. Even after he’d been anointed and promised the kingdom, he trusted God to make him king.

So what dreams has the Lord placed in your heart, what prophetic words has He spoken over you and what hopes has He given you? Prepare for them, position yourself to be able to step into them when the time comes, but don’t rely on your own efforts to get you there. Trust Him.

That is what the leadership of River is attempting to do. The Lord has spoken over us that we are to be a ‘resource church’, to bless the nation and the nations. He has also recently reminded us that we are called to be an apostolic resource centre – a community that sends out its best to bring life to other communities. That happens at a local level as we send folk into the estates within our towns. It happens at an international level through our missionaries & mission teams and it happens nationally through our partnership with Pioneer. Pioneer’s strategy to bless the UK is through partnership and through recognising where God’s grace rests on a church to bless their region. The aim is to build a network of regional networks that overflow with life and River is one such community.

I have been encouraged by the Lord’s grace in recent months: a number of healings in different settings, a regular trickle of people committing their lives to Jesus and prophetic words directing us to continue as we are. I have also been encouraged by the incredible folk in River, your generosity with time and finance, running messy churches and generally serving your communities with projects in partnership with other churches. Thank you!

When Pioneer established a national partnership with the Methodist Church, we agreed to take up the challenge to help revitalise 40 Methodist churches. River has recently been asked to explore partnership locally by three Methodist circuits! It’s early days, but God is building the house. Hallelujah! If we are truly to be a blessing to the Methodist churches that are looking to us, then we will need to send some of our best people to serve them. Some of us may even move for the work. That is costly as we often feel under-resourced ourselves, but as we give of our best, the Lord’s grace will be multiplied to us. Just as the food was multiplied in the hands of the disciples as they followed Jesus’ command to feed the 5000 with a few loaves and fish. If you’re reading this and your heart is stirred by the thought of helping to bring life to other churches, please let me know!

Colin: New Year, New Hope!

I hope you have enjoyed a great Christmas, celebrating the birth of a baby who would save the world! As God promised Abraham 4000 years ago, through Him every family on earth will be blessed, and as Isaiah said, “Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end”.

When we take a step back and look at history, we can see these precious promises being worked out. Maybe they’re not being fulfilled quite how we’d imagined, but the kingdom of God on earth is growing, as an army of men and women lay down their lives to bless others.

At this time of year we also like to look forward and wonder what 2015 has in store for us. In a recent gathering of Pioneer leaders, we all felt a fresh call to evangelism. The Spirit is clearly encouraging us to continue in His mission to save the world and to proclaim the Good News as loudly as we can. The Church in every generation has to work out the questions that the people of its day are asking. We can’t simply learn and repeat the answers of previous generations as they were spoken into different contexts.

 Thankfully, there are signs for optimism that the Church in the UK has started to find its voice after decades of decline. Independent churches like River have continued to see strong growth, but now mainstream churches are also growing. For example, the Church of England reported increased attendance in 20 out of its 44 dioceses and an increase of 5% in adult baptisms in 2013. Remarkably, the Causeway Coast Vineyard Church in Coleraine has seen over 2600 people respond to Jesus on the streets in the past 10 months! I believe a few key developments in church culture have helped produce this turnaround:

• A refocusing on the Father-heart of God – that He is love
• A rediscovery of the Holy Spirit powerfully at work in and through us
• A new appreciation of our need for all churches to work together
• A recommitment to serving our communities

National events such as Spring Harvest, New Wine and Soul Survivor have helped promote such values. On top of this, there is a fresh approach to Scripture emerging, spearheaded by men like Tom Wright, which brings life rather than dogma. I strongly recommend reading his ‘Surprised by Scripture’ and ‘Scripture and the Authority of God’*. He argues powerfully that we should change our emphasis in evangelism from one largely about personal salvation and escaping this world, to one aimed at saving the whole of creation; that God’s plan has always been to see the whole world redeemed; that Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the new creation; that we’re headed for an eternal home on a wonderfully renewed earth; and that this is to be achieved by God and man working together.

River Churches will continue to run Alpha Courses and demonstrate His love by serving our communities, but if we are to see a real breakthrough in evangelism, it means all of us embracing the call to be good news! So how can we best cooperate with Jesus to see His kingdom come and encourage one another to be good news? Well, we could start by asking ourselves and others questions like: When was the last time you prayed for an opportunity to share your faith? When was the last time you took a step requiring faith? When was the last time you offered prayer to someone outside the church? When was the last time you were able to demonstrate your love to someone practically? These types of questions may make us feel uncomfortable, but they will challenge us to change. The answers will also enable us to celebrate the wonderful moments we get to be light in this world. I know that the more steps of faith we take, the more prayers we pray and the more love we show, the more people we will see respond to Jesus and enter a more abundant joyful life. What we have is just too good to keep to ourselves!

Colin: Called to High Places

“The Lord God is my strength, and He has made my feet like hinds’ feet and makes me walk on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:19).

This verse appeals to the fell walker in me! I love to walk in high places; the thrill of climbing a mountain, overcoming fatigue, dealing with extreme weather, finding a way and gaining a new perspective on the world. My good friend, Paul Wratten, and my brother Mark, share this passion and we’ve long dreamed of walking in the Himalayas together. Last month that dream became reality as we got to walk in the midst of the highest places on earth. We have many stories from our time in Nepal, many lessons learned and wondrous sights seen.

One lesson the Spirit taught me was that our Father gives us dreams, not to frustrate us, but to inspire us. We don’t need to make them happen, He wants those dreams fulfilled and we can trust Him to open a way for us to walk in the things He’s called us to. In pursuing our dreams, there are two extremes we do well to avoid. The first is to think that it all depends on us, that our choices will get us there and so we need to make it happen. The second is to believe that God will make it happen regardless of our choices.

At one stage, we were stuck in Kathmandu, frustrated by the weather closing down Lukla airport (a crazy little strip of tarmac on a mountainside!). We’d wasted a day trying to fly out and the second day wasn’t looking promising. I went to bed anxious that our dream would be frustrated. The next morning our guide told us that if we didn’t fly out that day, we should change our plans and head to a different region. Our flight wasn’t till the afternoon and it was normal for afternoon flights to be cancelled… my dream was disappearing. Then we met a man who offered us a helicopter flight for just £200 more each. One of my companions was up for paying the extra, and the other said they couldn’t afford it. As leader of the trip, I was given responsibility for making the decision. In that moment, I had clarity that I wasn’t to make the dream happen but to trust God. So I let go of my dream and said “no” to the helicopter flight. It didn’t feel good; I might not get another chance, but within two minutes there was a commotion at the check-in desk, we were suddenly booked on an earlier plane and flying within an hour. Lesson learned and the dream was back on!

This is one of the first lessons God taught humanity. He gave Abraham a dream that he would lead a new tribe unlike any other on earth, a tribe that would be a light to the world, that would exist to bless every other tribe. God told him to leave his homeland and showed him the land He would give to this tribe, a land of abundant blessing. He told Abraham to walk the length and breadth of it and know it would be his. Abraham was obedient and also worked to build an inheritance for his descendants. There was just one problem: he had no children and his wife was past child-bearing age. Abraham & Sarah did what many of us are tempted to, they tried to make God’s promise come true through their own efforts. Sarah gave Abraham her maid, Hagar, and she had a son called Ishmael. However, this caused family tension and the world has been living with the consequences ever since.

God has given River a dream that we are to be a resource church, a blessing to other churches and nations. We are called to walk into that destiny, to embrace it, but not to make it happen at any cost. So we celebrate the success of Ignite (that had a source in River) attracting over 300 students nationwide and we thank God for local churches linking with us, but we do not seek to promote ourselves or to build a name for ourselves. Rather we look to God to open a way for River to walk in all that He’s promised, and simply seek to enjoy serving churches and communities in whatever way we can.

What dreams has our Heavenly Father given you? What high places are you called to? Be still and know that He is God, embrace the dream, prepare for it, but know that He will open the way for those dreams to become reality.