I know both Simon and Jonathan have blogged about Kate Coleman's word to us as a church yesterday but I wanted to add my voice as I too was challenged by her.
In her introduction, she talked about how she visits many churches around the country in her role as President of the Baptist Union to get a feel of what is happening. On the positive front she talked about a spiritual hunger not only in churches but in the wider community but that on the negative side she felt churches seemed to have lost a sense of the power of the gospel, instead being content to just be 'nice'. The gospel has the power to transform lives - that's what we need to share with our friends and neighbours.
She went on to challenge us to be prepared to get out of our comfort zone. She warned that is possible to fail and miss what God wants to do - that is really frightening. Many of the barriers to growth come from within and she said we need to seek God and deal with the issues both individually and as a church. She also warned to expect criticism but to be heartened rather than threatened as it is evidence that God is moving.
We've got our church conference this coming Saturday and I believe God wants to move the church to the next level - that's really exciting and we need to be open to hear him and expect change.
Pray for us...
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2 comments:
Hi Liz, I was unable to attend church on the night that Kate came to talk to us but I have been witnessing the buzz in people who were there, as a result I can't wait to hear the tape I've ordered. May The Lord bring it on.....posted by Michelle had to use anonymous because I can't remember my blogger password.....Now why does that not suprise you!
I was so glad I was able to be there Sunday evening - it was indeed a very challenging evening (but very strange for me in present circumstances, but, hey, God moves in mysterious ways ...
I'm still hoping to be there tomorrow afternoon (hopefully feeling better than today).
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