Believe it or not there’s a town in Arizona called ‘Nothing’. I use the word 'town' pretty loosely. It has a population of 4. All that's there is a gas station, a shop and a flat back lorry that sells lumps of rock. Being about 40 miles from next nearest town it is literally ‘Nothing by name, nothing by nature’
In the middle of the town is this plaque. Notice the second sentence. It really 
caught my eye - it could almost be the mantra of many churches.‘Without vision the people perish’ says the writer of the book of Proverbs. It's true. We need to have a vision of what we are trying to do - otherwise the danger is that we'll end up like the town of Nothing, where nothing much ever happens...
But there's an equal and opposite danger. And that's the idea that we need to spent forever finding, honing and shaping our vision. We are always 'waiting on God'.Soemday we'll get around to doing something - but not today, because we are 'waiting for confirmation' that what we think is God's plan really is. Now don't get wrong, it's imperative to wait for God's leading - but I think that God wants us to 'get into the game', to take a step of faith. And it's as we take those steps, that His will becomes clear.
The bible is full of examples of people who took steps of faith, sometimes in the most extreme and pressured of situations, and found that God was already ahead of them. There's a cracking example in Joshua chapter 3. God tells Joshua to get the people to go and stand in the water (vs.3). Notice that they don't get to wait on the edge of the river until God stops the flow of the water! You can just imagine the priests saying 'God wants us to stand where...?' But it was only once the priests got wet that God starts doing a miracle, and the Israelites are able to cross on dry land.
This passage acts as a jolt for anyone who thinks that we have to be constantly waiting around, sitting on our hands, waiting for God to give us vision and tell us what to do next. I don't think it was any accident, either, that God makes the priests - as religious leaders of the community of Israel - to take a step of faith. And what more of a step of faith than to go and get soaking wet!
Of course there’s a place for being still, for listening, for waiting on God. But we can just wait for the game to come to us - he wants us in the game. The question then becomes - what steps of obedience and faith should we take?
I want to suggest four - and they fit very neatly with four categories that were talked about on the recent 'Leading Your Church Into Growth' Conference at Sneaton. Sometimes they are referred to as the 4 P’s.
PRAYER
Naturally prayer is a vital cog in any growing and envisioned church. You’d sort of expect me to say that - but it is actually true! We find it sooooo hard, so difficult, we feel awkward, we know we should be better. Here are a couple of practical things - firstly we have our monthlyPrayer Meeting this evening. We have a good number of folks who come along regularly (its always at 6 pm on the 1st Sunday of each month) - but it would be great to see a few more people 'getting their feet wet'. Then in June we're going to have a 4 week teaching series on 'Prayer' when we can grapple together with the subject. As well as teaching on Prayer, there'll be loads of practical ideas and suggestions that we can put into practice...
PRESENCE
By ‘presence’ we mean basically letting people know that we are here. Unfortunately, we have a pretty low-level of ‘natural’ presence at St Cuthberts. We have no spire, no fancy building, no landmark. In fact lots of people drive past us every day without even realising that we even are a Church! So, its an uphill job - but its something that we need to work hard to overcome. 'Wrose Connect' is a project that we're going to be hearing a lot more about in coming months - it is our way of saying 'Hey Wrose, here we are'! In the short term, we are going to be doing some leafletting of parish this week (Tuesday April 7th) to let people know about our Easter Services. Come and join us.
PERSUASION
This is a tricky one - because we fear straying from persuasion into coercion. But it need not be so.
It is simply giving people the chance to ask the questions they need to and want to ask. It's not pressurized sales tactics - just a way for people who often have a very sketchy idea of Christianity find out more. Practically all growing churches have ‘basics courses’ or ‘enquirers courses’. We are going to start one after Easter - and I’m going to lead it. Watch out for details...
PROCLAMATION
Again, the hackles can rise - we think of people standing on a box preaching. We think of those guys who stand on Darley Street and shout at passers-by. Nobody wants to get involved in proclamation if thats what its going to mean! But its not that. It’s about sharing our faith, about believing that we actually have a great message to share.
Here are a couple of challenges. Firstly, I've taken up thew challenge from our Bishop and booked a Confirmation (in October). All we need now are some candidates! Have we got the faith to believe that God will bring in candidates over thecoming months? Second, I did a bit of work on the figures ans discovered that we're running at an average of 92 adults in Church for the first 3 months of 2009. Have we got the faith to believe that we can average 100 people by end of the year?
We need ALL of the 4 'P's' - Prayer, Presence, Persuasion and Proclamation - so that we can become a truly envisioned and visionary Church here in Wrose...
Monday, April 20, 2009 at 10:51AM 
This work will involve completely replacing the hall floor - it has been there for over 70 years and has now reached a point where it is starting to degrade badly. At the same time we are going to replace the front door of the Hall. Again this is the original - and the weather has caused it to wear and rot. Although we'll be doing the work 'in house', the materials and other associated costs will amount to about £4000.
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