Thought for the Week

It is interesting Jesus did not ask us to go and build churches; he asked us to go and make disciples.

Now we have too many churches and too few disciples.

We have many church buildings which are only partly full and which are costing an exorbitant amount of money to upkeep.

We are spending more on buildings than we are on mission.

Is this right? Is this what Jesus would want?

Our churches are precious to us, but can we really justify spending thousands of pounds on them when there are so few people who actually come to worship in them?

Ministry in Argyll is in a state of crisis at present with 50 per cent of charges in vacancy and an expected 75 per cent to be vacant within another year. What do we do? Many small churches have single figures worshipping on a Sunday and the cost of ministry to sustain this is considerable.

The ordained ministry is limited and lay ministry is being used more and more but even this is being spread very thin as demands are required in so many places.

There seems to be no answer to this if we continue to think of ministry as we have always done.

We have to try to catch a vision of how ministry could be.

We may not be able to see this far ahead, but we have to go forward in faith.

God told Abraham to leave everything he held dear and go into an unknown future in faith.

Maybe this is how God is calling his church.

Maybe we have to just move forward in hope and trust and see what God will do.