Inspiration

We hope the following will encourage you to think about your relationship with God.
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Winston Churchill said; “Change is the price we pay for survival.”

Over the past few months the church has made some important decisions about the future – decisions that involve change on a large scale. The decision to move the church to new buildings does not only mean a geographical change but inevitably will also change the way we do some things as well as giving us opportunity to start new ministries and reach more people.

Friends, I realise that for most of us change in church is not easy and for some really difficult. But as Churchill was aware, in any organisation change is a necessity for survival, not change just for the sake of change, but change that has an aim, the aim to improve, to grow and to survive. But not just survive, to thrive.

We are called to be a people who embrace change because our God is a God who is constantly moving and doing new things among us. We live in a fast paced and fast changing world and if we do not change and adapt we will all too quickly become irrelevant to the community around us.

If people would have been asked in 1968 which nation would dominate the world in watch making into the twenty-first century the answer would have been Switzerland. Why? Because Switzerland had dominated the world of watch making for the previous sixty years. The Swiss made the best watches in the world. It was the Swiss who came forward with the minute hand and the second hand. They led the world in discovering better ways to manufacture the gears, hearings, and mainsprings of watches. They even led the way in waterproofing techniques and self-winding models. By 1968, the Swiss made 65 percent of all watches sold in the world and laid claim to as much as 90 percent of the profits. By 1980, however, they had laid off thousands of watch-makers and controlled less than 10 percent of the world market. Between 1979 and 1981, fifty thousand of the sixty two thousand Swiss watchmakers lost their jobs. Why? The Swiss had refused to consider a new development—-the Quartz movement-—ironically, invented by a Swiss person. Because it had no main-spring or knob, it was rejected. It was too much of a paradigm shift for them to embrace. Seiko, on the other hand, accepted it and, along with a few other companies, became the leader in the watch industry. The lesson of the Swiss watchmakers is profound. A past that was so secure, so profitable, was destroyed by an unwillingness to consider the future. Past success had blinded them to the importance of seeing the implications of the changing world and to admit that past accomplishment was no guarantee of future success.

So friends, as hard as it is at times, we must continue to develop a culture in our church that embraces change and does not look at the new with fear but with anticipation of what might be. We must not make decisions based on what we might lose but on what we might gain trusting the promise in Jeremiah 29v11-13; “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

I do not know how long it will be until we move into a new building. I do not know all the changes that the future will demand of us – but I do know the one who holds our future in his hands. So until that day we carry on with the work he has called us to. We must not let our waiting be an excuse for idleness but an opportunity to wait on God for his timing and to pray, pray and pray again for his wisdom, guidance and provision so that when the time comes we will be ready.

“Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27v14)

Your friend and pastor
Mark