Staying the Course
This time last year, Arsenal football club was having a shocking start to the football season. After a series of defeats, many were questioning the ability of the relatively new manager Mikel Arteta. Arteta said he had a plan; fans were encouraged to keep the faith and things would turn around eventually. From the relegation zone, things did not look promising.
What a difference a year makes. Although we’re just two weeks into the new season, Arsenal are top of the table with four victories out of four. (No doubt the very act of writing this blog will ensure a swift journey down to mid-table mediocrity!) The point is that Arteta had a plan, which wasn’t obvious to most people watching. Eventually it started to work, and now fans are seeing the benefit. This is sometimes how strategy works – you make hard choices which have what appears initially to be a detrimental impact on your organisation, and it takes time to start to reap the rewards.
We head into the autumn at St Mary of Bethany with a smaller staff team, having said some sad goodbyes. We experience the pain of the changes we have made; we have yet to see many of the benefits. But there is a plan; there is a strategy and we trust that better times are ahead. As a church we understand how vision works. Over the last few years, we have set our vision, spelled out our plans and stuck to them, with God’s help. Now we have a new approach to mission and evangelism thanks to our Associate Vicar, because we planned to appoint her and made the necessary hard choices along the way. We have plans for our building, because we set those as a priority and arranged our church life to ensure this would work. When we make plans prayerfully, in God’s timing he will bring them to fruition. In biblical terms, you cannot reap fruit without first pruning the branches. Often this feels counterintuitive and risky.
If you’re struggling with the changes so far, and you’re uncertain where we’re going or how we’ll get there, reflect on God’s priorities and his timing. If our plans are his plans, then he will help us to realise them. As we begin our whole church consultations on our children’s and youth work this weekend, let’s join together in a spirit of prayerful co-operation in making God’s vision a reality among us.
