Faith
for the Future
These
words must now set our imaginations on fire as we are challenged by the
opportunities for change that are in ARM(Wales).
We must discover what God wants and move forward in faith that it will
happen. It
is not a question of deciding what we want ARM(Wales) to do now or even what we
think will work in our struggling Church.
The Church in Wales desperately needs renewal if we are going to make the
impact on society and the world that God wants.
Our constitution and hierarchy seem cumbersome and slow but there is now
more recognition of the fact that every member has a part to play.
But are we prepared to show a way forward?
That
you might think is an outrageous statement, how dare I even suggest that we can?
When the vote at our Extra General Meeting for the motion to hand over Flames
of Fire to New Wine Cymru was passed by 28 votes to five with one
abstention, I did not experience the relief that I might have expected, instead
I felt a sense of awe, it was as if I was standing on Holy ground.
We must therefore believe that to be the case and walk only by faith in
our Lord and Saviour, it is what He will do if we let Him.
Our actions must be determined by His revelation and we must not get in
His way. It
is so easy to have our agenda and that has to be laid down no matter who anyone
is or what official positions they hold.
Now
faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see
[Hebrews 11 :1].
Only God himself can bring that to mind as faith comes by hearing his
word [Romans 10:17].
We must therefore hear his word, either through reading or in prayer, but
having heard it we must believe it to be true.
So I can in faith say that He will use us to show the way.
There will of course be costs not least seeming to contradict the
traditional ways of the Church in Wales.
We shall meet opposition if we do things in our strength and maybe that
will be a sign that we are sticking to our agendas and not acting in love.
The Lord is pointing us to those three chapters of 1 Corinthians [12-14].
We must take note how the body must work as one and desire the spiritual
gifts. But
having recognized that those gifts are amongst us, and may be present in even
the “inferior” members, (dare I say Lay members?] we must take
special note that “I will show you a still more excellent way.”
Love must lead the way as actions flow from our faith.
We
want to see the Church in Wales take renewal seriously, that is our hope.
But those are our words and not words that the Church will easily relate
to, we have to let God show us how to speak of renewal, of charismatic gifts of
the Spirit, and of baptism in the Spirit, without causing distress in the rest
of the body. As
I pray about this I look for the connection between hope and faith.
Much of the time we do not have true faith but only human hope that
something will happen.
Healing might be our priority, it has been a popular theme at our Flames
of Fire conferences and we praise God when we receive His blessings.
He is so gracious to us as He uses our interests
and agendas but we do not see the “signs and wonders” in the way the
early church did. Is
that what we hope for?
Wouldn’t our churches be filled every Sunday morning if the power of
the Holy Spirit was as apparent?
Wouldn’t we have an influx of new disciples?
That is after all what the Church in Wales wants too, so our hopes are
similar, but our agendas are numerous as we work out what we can do.
When
Peter addressed the crowd at Pentecost,[Acts 2:14ff] he quoted from the prophet
Joel, ‘In
the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall
see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.”
So let us not only desire to prophesy but be prepared to dream dreams.
Set your imagination free, hand it over to Jesus and think about the
Church He wants. Let
this flow into prayer as you receive from Him.
Your dreams become hopes and slowly your hopes become faith.
Faith that He is going to act and you will be a channel.
The
prayer that this requires may take you by surprise as it is not one of words but
one of silent surrender to Jesus.
I encourage you to just sit in His presence in the knowledge that He
loves you and the Church in Wales and the world.
He will show you a unity in this, He will reveal His plan.
Remember too that Jesus was asked the question “What must we do to
perform the works of God?” His answer was, “This is the work of God,
that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
[John 6:28-29].
Such a simple answer but so hard to obey!
This
editorial was written to this stage a few weeks ago, I always leave it to
complete when the total shape of the magazine becomes apparent.
This time I am conscious that I have written more than I might choose but
expected articles have not materialised.
I would therefore encourage you to submit your reactions, we must be
where God wants us and lay aside our preferences.
I hope that there may be opportunities to talk about the future at
Flames of Fire please look for me or Brian, we are keen to make sure
that ARM(Wales) members gain from what we do in the future.
But I have been reminded this week that if we want to be involved in a
renewed Church in Wales, we must accept it as it is now and obey its rules.
I know that this can be hard but only love for the rest of the body will
bring the trust that we so much need.
We are “main stream” within our Church, we are not a “fringe
group” lobbying for any particular style of worship to bring in new people,
rather we are Scripture-based Christians who believe that God can and will do
much more in his Church if we let him.
I
hope you like the new covers, our Statement is now clearly printed on the back
emphasising what we stand for.
It is a shorter statement than the Flames of Fire
values but we also embrace them.
I hope that our valued non-Anglican members will stay with us and help to
shape our future together.
Mary Newsom