At the very core of Mankind lies a desire for adventure. We weren’t ever intended to lead mundane, humdrum existences. In Genesis chapter 1 it says:
‘God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it.’ Genesis 1:28
In this moment the Lord released into the very fabric of our existence the desire to explore, the desire to have an effect on the world around us and to change it. I’d like to put to you that the subdueing that we are called to is that of seeing heaven come to earth, following the mandate of the prayer Jesus taught us to pray,’Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven’.
So if it’s the intention that we enter into this creation mandat from our Father that means we partner with Him in bringing heaven to earth, how do we ever arrive at the point where things feel humdrum? The truth of it is that for many of us we allow this to creep subtly into our lives, until we suddenly arrive at a place where we realise that whilst we love the Lord, we’re actually not as excited about church and ministry as we once were. Now often times the things that we have time invested in are good! Running a small group, leading the prayer meeting and volunteering in the children’s or youth work is all worthy stuff but the truth of it is that we are all meant to keep dreaming. Standing still in the kingdom is not really where it’s supposed to be at, remember the apostle Paul wrote that we are to ‘run a race’ which involves forward momentum.
Now does this mean we should stop everything we’re doing and run off in different directions? No I don’t believe so. Think about what Jesus was teaching when he talked about the parable of the talents in Matthew 25. If we are faithful with what He puts in our hands we will be entrusted with more, that in itself sounds like adventure.
Rachel and I have had a number of go’s at pioneering. Whether it’s been children’s clubs ‘street side church’, family fun days or missional communities; one adage that we have always focussed on is ‘follow the life’. If God seems to be doing something, follow that! Explore it, get involved with it and allow it to touch all that you are doing. When Rach and I were with YWAM in South Wales and we were pioneering street side church we would struggle to get to speak with parents when we did home visits. One day we were praying and just felt the Lord say that we should make cards and put encouraging scriptures on them. As we knocked on the first door in my mind I could see this card being begrudgingly taken and the door being closed as usual. We perhaps shouldn’t have been surprised when we handed the card over the mum in question was very blessed and we got invited in for a cup of tea. Of course we went back and made more cards and thus started a season of greater relationship with the families of the children we were reaching out to. Follow the life!
The heart of pioneering is making sure you’ve got the space in your life for the Lord to lead you in a new direction. To recognise when what you’re doing is investing time and energy in things that aren’t producing the fruitfulness that God has called you to and being able to respond and do things differently. When you get to be a part of a family or community that are behaving this way, that’s when you truly hit the sweet spot; we’re meant to adventure together. One of the first things the Lord did was to create a family, a unit in which adventure was to be central and He has for himself created a large family, the church in which we are all meant to adventure together.
We look forward to adventuring with you!