count your blessings

A few days at Unit3 we had a visit of over 20 german pastors and bible college students who are in Sheffield looking at “fresh Expressions” of church. As they approached the front of the building we were told afterwards one of them wanted to know why they were coming to us as “its not a proper church”. We were asked to show them around the premises and then tell our story  of how we ended up in a shopping precinct and what we do.

During the questions and answers a number of them were incredulous about the thousands of hours per year as a church community we invest in the variety of projects we do both at Unit3 and MCF. It became apparent that mobilising Christians in the churches they attend on this basis was foreign to them. I guess it’s the cork in the bottle mentality. The man or woman at the top and any paid staff team do the work. To me that’s such  a limiting model and a serious problem for churches whose ecclesiology has a strong priest/laity divide.

The role of leadership in any area should be to encourage, facilitate, and release others to do ministry. This seems to be the clear message of Ephesians chapter 4.

It made me count my blessings to be involved in such  a committed community of faith at MCF