Sit with me

As soon as we returned I went to chat to David and Philip at MORE Training and told them it was time for me to leave. I was really aware of the fact there was never going to be an easy time for them to let me go but I remember well having the conversation about how God had led and provided so far for us and how they’d seen this reality. So, I vividly remember driving from the oce down to the Sentinel Newspaper Oces where I was delivering Customer Service qualifications and saying to God. This is really exciting but really scary! This was big for me, even as we began walking out of His vision in 1997. What about family? What about my Fatherly responsibilities? I had much to learn about being Fathered by the biggest and best. Tracy reminds me that I waited until we were going to have our fourth child, Lizzie, to make the move!

Sitwithme

Decision made, I felt God challenge me again. This time to devote the coming January of 2004 to Him. To give Him a month of my attention. To not take on work but sit, worship and listen. The truth is that I wondered where His wisdom was in this!! We were not in a good financial position. We were in the negative and surely if I didn’t take on work it would be tough. Miraculously by the end of December, I’m sure through the generosity of friends on a journey, but definitely by the grace of God we were one month in advance in our Bank account. Jesus had us covered and there was no excuse but to give Him the time He was calling me into. I was slowly learning, and still am, that He’s got this stu. I felt like a serious call so I took over a simple space we’d made in our loft with some boards and a ladder, heading up there each morning in January to dedicate time to Him.

I put up a washing line and when I felt He’d spoken something important to me or reminded me of His promises, I wrote them down and pinned them to the line as a reminder to me and a visual response. I remember distinctly the importance of this time. The impact of Him saying that ‘You need to fully let go of the old so that you can fully lay hold of the new. ’ He really was going to allow me to be a part of some amazing and beautiful things and open up His plans for Tracy and I as we set in our hearts to give to Him whatever we had.

Psalm 46:10He says,

‘Be still, andknow thatIam God; Iwillbe exaltedamong the nations. Iwillbe exaltedin the earth.

That year saw a busy travel time. I was invited through the reconnection with our friends Alex and Ian Wolvers to visit Sri Lanka where they had found themselves following a time of mission in China. Changes on the island meant that more Western families were settling on the island and the Church where the Wolvers had found themselves was looking to develop a contemporary worship service. I was invited by the minister to share, train and equip the beginnings of a brand new work at St Andrew ’s, Columbo. Learning from 11th to 26th September from the 3 weeks in Singapore in 2002, I spent week one getting alongside those who’d signed up to be involved and some who may have been a little resistant. It felt important to share friendship and build understanding. I also sat in a very formal meeting of church elders who questioned me about the how and why bringing something new in the Church would be helpful and particulalry to explain the context of ‘Contemporary Worship’ . This was new for many. Understandably, I was unknown to them and they wanted to check me out before I was let loose. It was an intense meeting but helped set things in place for what followed. I developed and demonstrated some skills in week two and in week three began to release and involve those who formed part of a new team. The model that God had given me in Singapore during my first three week trip was proving really helpful and eective. This was one of the most stretching times of the new season. Again God was teaching me and enabling me. During the time on the Island as well as work with the church I found myself in the English Governor ' s home sharing over dinner, delivering morning devotions with those on their way to daily work and to church leaders in the amazing old colonial bulding of the YMCA in central Columbo. As I look back again, it seemed that God had been giving me a priviledge to become a catalyst for something new in the nations. Pretty mind blowing for a boy from Stoke. In every year we were learning to depend on God and were seeing God provide for our practical needs in all sorts of ways. Still, at times, for me personally there have been wobbles. Times when I wondered if I’d heard right, when the world’s realities in front of us seemed challenging. There’s not room here to share every time we saw Him move, but this was probably one of the most memorable. I’d arranged to meet with Robert Mountford for a catch up and was sharing with him a particularly challenging financial time we were in. We sat in the lower coee bar at The Grand Hotel in Hanley and across the table were chatting. Into the room came a lady. She walked to the bar but