Momentum

One of the questions I ask myself regularly each week, is how does this coming Sunday move ‘The Project’ on?

If that sounds a bit ‘management speak’, let me explain.

In the biggest of pictures, ‘The Project’ is to adore God as his people, and to do so in a way that encourages us to live lives that more fully reflect the glory of the Lord Jesus.  That is, The Project is to build us more fully into a church.

That means my sermon has to be focussed on that.  I am not vaguely ‘teaching the Bible’ – I am intending to change lives.

But that phrase ‘fully into a church’ means that what we do on Sundays has a ‘body’ emphasis; not just that we sing together and pray together, but that we engage with each other.

Now, as leaders we have a bigger scope than just ‘this Sunday’ and what it will achieve.  We have a sense of where should be moving on a monthly, annual, even longer-term perspective.  So if we have a sense that we should be more like X or Y gospel value in the next couple of years, the question should be: how does this Sunday advance us on that issue?  Does it intend to make a difference?

How does it build momentum?

So, to give you a couple of examples:

We intend to be more consistently welcoming to newcomers; so this Sunday I shall build momentum on The Project by once again inviting newcomers to join me during each of the main services, to have dedicated teaching on our church and its values.

We intend to have an overarching youth discipleship provision, which seamlessly moves from the creche right through to the time the young people leave to go to college; so this Sunday I shall build momentum on The Project by introducing our new Youth Minister, on the day when the children graduate from the work of the Children’s Minister into his care.

Can we do this every Sunday?  Not on that scale, no.  But we can ask each week, are we marking time or marching forwards?

How’s your momentum?