It’s sowing time!
It’s sowing time! My greenhouse is currently full of seedlings pushing their way towards the light. Soon all this new life will be big enough to be planted out into the garden. Peas and courgettes, dahlias and zinnias; all ready to grow, blossom and be fruitful.
It’s not only seedlings that grow. Churches do too! Just like all that’s happening in my greenhouse, this doesn’t happen by accident. Evidence shows that churches are most likely to grow when they plan and prepare for this to happen. Church growth is intentional.
This article of Manna contains stories about how churches in our Diocese have planned for growth and of the fruit they’re seeing as a result. There’s no ‘one size fits all’ for how this has happened. Just as in our gardens, what grows in one place won’t necessarily thrive in another.
Important as planning and preparing may be, these things aren’t the vital ingredient for growth. Growth comes when God is alive and at work within us and our churches. In his first letter to church he’s helped establish in Corinth, St Paul also uses a gardening metaphor to describe the growth he’s seeing. Paul says ‘I planted, Apollos [Paul’s co-worker] watered, but God gave the growth.’ (1 Cor 3:6).
Without God’s input, any plans we have to grow our churches will be little more than strategy, our efforts like those of ants running frantically to and fro. This is why our prayer for growth is essential. Prayer invites God to give us wisdom about what to do. It opens our treasure stores to resource the plans we want to put in place. It asks God to go before us to touch the hearts and minds of those we’d like to reach. It invites God to bless and prosper the work we do.
So be inspired! The accounts contained in this edition of Manna show what can happen when we ask God to grow our churches, offering God our prayer, our faith, our effort and our trust.
Let the sowing time begin!
