Last week we celebrated one year since I was officially inducted as pastor of Ford. As I promised them, I took the first year to discover the strengths and weaknesses of the church; to see what spiritual gifts are there and what else we need; and to discover where the Lord is leading us, so we can build our vision and strategy based on the Lord's guidance rather than on our own wisdom or lack of.
Strengths are too many to count, but above all I enjoy the love and acceptance that is prevalent in this church. You can feel it the moment you step through the door. No, we're not perfect in this regard, but there is a solid core of love this church is built on.
Weaknesses - well, I better not publish them on a blog :-) I guess in the time I've been at Ford, I discovered more weaknesses in me than in the church.
On the spiritual gifts, I find it interesting that we generally had the gifts necessary for the direction the church is taking; and where we needed the gifts and didn't have them, the Lord sent the right people who fitted right in.
Where the Lord is leading us - that's the central thing, because our vision, mission and strategy depend on that - and the gifts and strengths are there to support them.
I guess the biggest surprise for me was the kids invasion. I have one child who's 14, the others are grown up. One other family in the church has an 18 year old. And these are the only 'kids' that come from the church family. Apart from them, there are 3 other teenagers that have been in the church for a while, even though their parents are not members of this church. So I did not think we have much of a chance to build a solid group of children and teenagers.
But then, our Boys Brigade and Girls Brigade began to grow - we have some 60 kids in them. And we started a youth club with 4 teens, and now we are being swamped with kids from the neighbourhood. So I guess the great thing is that we are becoming a true family-oriented community church. Which is what I have been dreaming of but didn't quite believe we can get. The Lord had this planned all along :-) The big thing now is to follow it up.
