Commitment
Commitment was a word we heard a lot about at the Workshop last week. How committed are we to maintaining NMEFC? Are we willing to give more time and effort? Do we support each other and Church activities already running? Do we have ideas we can work with rather than suggest some other “they” should do? Bob M has a saying “Your vision, Your burden”, are we willing to accept this or will we just allow Seaforth to wither away and transfer our affections to another Church, using it like a library or a cinema to be visited when the mood takes us and requiring nothing from us except money?
A person who has shown a lot of commitment is Pam Hajnasrollah. After years of prayer, hard work, worry, and anxiety, Tubakunde House in Rwanda is due to receive its first children tomorrow. Pam has lived her vision, her cause has shone through everything she has said and done. Every time I have met her she has been fired up by it, not to the exclusion of all else but as an integral part of her existence.
She also feels a great affinity for this Church and last weekend, in the midst of her work (and worry about her sick mother, for whom we pray and send best wishes) found time to encourage me by e-mail as I prepared for the workshop. She wrote: “God must have been waiting and wondering when we [Tubakunde] were going to 'look up' and take the step in faith required in order to release His mighty blessing upon us. I believe it will be a blessing too, for Seaforth to 'look up' and be moved by the power of God Almighty!”
The amazing thing was that I was already preparing a presentation encouraging the membership to pray and listen to the Lord telling us what He wanted for NMEFC. This was the message we received in several different forms during the prayer vigil in January and what motivated us to start the Tuesday prayer meetings.
A lot of discussion at the workshop and after, at the Prayer and Bible Study meetings, revolved around what we should be doing to show our commitment to God’s work and NMEFC in particular. How do we witness in our lives? There is an old song that says “Jesus bids me shine”, do we shine? Do people recognise our Christianity just by looking at us and witnessing our actions? Are we Christians all the time or just on Sundays?
Before we invite more people into the church we need to look at ourselves and what we are offering them. As Jesus said, consider the plank in your own eye before worrying about the speck of sawdust in your brother’s (Matt.7:3-5). Could you do more, are there other things cluttering your life that if jettisoned would give more time for God’s work? Could you be an Elder? Is there anyone you want to nominate? Watch this space for more on that subject.
