An encouraging note …
Every once in a while, I think it’s good to share some of the encouragement I receive … because we’re all in this together! This one comes from the RUN conference in England …
Dear Run team and speakers.
On the way to the RUN conference my pastor asked me what I hoped to get from the conference. My answer , “A sense of hope for the church (national), that I might see some point to it & feel positive about it again”.
I write this with tears of relief & gratitude. I have found there are others like me. I am not alone in my huge disappointment & desire. There are others who are desperate for Christ’s body to look, sound & act different; to be ‘more than this’. Not only are there people who join me in this but there are those who are able to articulate what we might look like & what things we can do to help us sound & act differently. My hope was restored.
For me listening to Brian was like soaking in a bath of salt water & hope that, whilst washing off surface dirt that had begun to cling, sully my appearance and cause infection, was also a balm to my soul.( ..and I didn’t go all crinkly from being in it 3 days!). At times I felt I was being anointed, at others it cut me to the quick; for both I am very grateful.
It is my guess that ministerial training in this country needs this kind of ‘surgery’ , huge doses of this teaching, in order that the church’s sickness gets healed and the body of Christ in this nation might spread the gospel instead of dis-ease. My hope is partly that the church instead of anaesthetising itself to reality & the nation’s pain, might embrace it as Christ did the cross and indeed as He embraced me….even me.
Thank you Brian and RUN for the opportunity to step off a while from my clumsy, slow journey and now to continue with the re -assurance that, despite the fact that I have only recently set out and have gone only a tiny way so far combined with the utter lack of a map, it is a journey worth continuing and even it is worthwhile me continuing on it.
May God bless you, rest you and multiply all you do in His name.
May these words encourage all of you who are bringing hope that there can truly be “more than this.”
