Future Battles

Sometime close on two maybe even three years back I was stood at the back of the Church I attend and wondered what was I doing? What was my ministry, what was my desire, what was my motivation, where was my love?

I’m sure we’ve all had these feelings from time to time but for me it was the first time they had hit me with such force. I clearly recall thinking that it would be easier just to stay at home, do DIY, nothing or whatever I fancied rather than losing an entire morning (effectively) to what had become a meaningless exercise, at least for me. Part of the problem is that I had, deliberately I might add, successfully removed myself from all forms of leadership within the Church – I have never seen myself as a leader but rather someone whom comes alongside and encourages – I was no longer running a housegroup, no longer leading small groups, no longer the Head Usher and so on … yes, looking back I was probably too busy but I went from all to nothing which then gave me the time to ponder my ‘whats’.

And in that I recognise that dropping everything was probably not good for me. Anyway, within a week or two of that Sunday morning we had a visiting speaker, Derek Brown, whom very succinctly put into words what I was feeling. It was a time of change, a time for new beginnings, for new battles, for walking into new areas of growth and ministry.

So for the last two years I’ve been seeking God trying to find out what it is He wants me to do, where He wants me to stretch, to step out of myself and to use my God given talents and abilities. Now I confess, I’m not someone whom has Damascus road experiences of hearing God and I really struggle to hear / know His will for my life. I find that writing is a cathartic outlet (even if nobody reads it) and that the act of writing helps me to clarify my thoughts, random though they may appear and thus a part of what God wants me to do will undoubtedly work out through this blog.

I firmly believe that God wants us to use our innate talents and our learned abilities. A former pastor used to say that “everything we need to do what God wants is already in us”. In other words if we are a musical whizz then there is no point me trying to fight that and not use those musical abilities to glorify God. In my case I am confident that I know what I can do, what I am good at and beyond that in what I can do for God. Does that sound brash? I guess it could, but then that is also a part of who I am.

So my skills, talents and abilities lie in two distinct areas. I am good with technology and have an intrinsic ability to understand it, how to use it and further how to deploy it for effect. I may not be the ultimate master of a particular gadget or tool but I can see where it could best be utilised. The other clearly defined area of my life is my ability to organise. Want me to organise a party – I can do that. How about organising a drama company through rehearsals, planning, budgeting and production of a play or do you want to move home and need help in organising the minutiae of the move – then I’m your man.

So organisation and technology lover are my core skills, my God breathed abilities. For sure I can do lots of other things and love to turn my hand to most anything (the latest being to undertake car mechanics on my eldest son’s car) and I’ll give anything a go at least once. But how best to utilise these for God?

Being Head Usher was something I did for 10 years and was very good at (no that’s not just me saying so). Something I could return to and do with my eyes half shut and operating on automatic but to be honest I don’t want that. It doesn’t glorify my God, it doesn’t give of my best and towards the end it was slowly choking the vitality out of me. Even my wife commented one day that “you’ve had enough of it, you should quit” and that was the final straw.

So this blog, my future direction(s) or as I’ve entitled the post future battles will be played out and as I go along I will share mt hopes, dream, fears and mostly I hope I will share my love and passion for tech and how I am using it in our Church in an effort to help any who stop by.