Lisa is a young mum who saw the sorry state of the play equipment in her local park. Her friends didn’t want to bring their kids along because it was tired and failing.
Lisa decided to do something about it.
But this wasn’t about Lisa or even the play area.
This was about our vision as a church to transform our local area. As such, individuals like Lisa relate that to their own world. With God’s help and the encouragement of others, we all contribute solutions and a better place to live.
The whole church got excited by this and supported her in various ways. See the film here.
This came about because LifeLine’s vision is owned by individuals. We have faith to bring about transformation in the spheres in which we live and work. Our vision is clear enough that each of us can see the part we can play. We won’t all be pioneers, but we help those who are.
Running a food bank, a parent and toddler group and a youth group are helpful activities. These may be a clear step to delivering your vision. Or they may just be activities done for other reasons.
Our vision causes us to engage with people and their issues. We aren’t experts in social security benefits, housing policy, court proceedings or parking permits. But loving people is never dull and it has caused us to seek God for his agenda locally. This in turn has brought us into contact with civic authorities.
The council, health authority and others are very interested in the work we do to help people belong and build community. We’ll return to this next month.
Does your church have a vision for your neighbourhood? Not a written declaration (we haven’t got that) but something that motivates your church members. How is that going? Would your church members be able to articulate what you are doing locally and why?
