Broken branch

One more post to complete the story of how it came to be that I should go to Durban. As I mentioned before I've been leading the youth at Beulah Family Church for a few years now and I feel a burden of responsibility and care for them as I would if they were my own children. I also mentioned the image of the "babysitter" - how can I leave "my kids" without someone to take care of them?

This dilemma was not only faced by me, but by the elders of my church who are ultimately responsible for me and for the youth. We had no clear-cut way forward, but we did have to make a decision quickly as it was the beginning of May at this point, and that meant whatever I was to be doing in September I needed to be getting on with it already!

Thankfully we could do a lot more than fret - we prayed. At our church prayer meeting we sought God over what to do, awaiting a breakthrough from Heaven. As we spent some time just waiting on the Spirit to see what He would do, I felt Him point me towards Romans 11 in the Bible. More specifically He brought to mind the image of the branch broken off the tree in Romans 9, and I knew He wanted to guide me through that.

So I opened it up to Romans 11 and read. For those who are not so familiar with this passage (if you want to read it go to www.biblegateway.com, type in "Romans 11", and it will come up) it comes as part of a letter to a church in Rome during the New Testament era. It essentially describes how one group of people rejected God and another accepted him. It puts this in terms of an olive tree. It says that the natural branch, the nation of Israel, was broken off from the tree for their disobedience to God's call - particularly in rejecting His Son, Jesus. Another branch, the nations of the world (gentiles), are described as a wild olive branch being grafted into that tree in their obedient faith response to the good news of Jesus Christ.

What does this have to do with me? I believe God was pointing me to the fact that he doesn't always do straightforward things and that He can have a great plan in something that looks like disaster. If you want a fruitful olive grove the last thing it would seem you want to do is to snap off some branches! You can just imagine calling in an expert gardener to have a look at your olive tree and takes a looks, mumbles to himself a few times, and then just rips a branch out of your precious tree! That's what me leaving, even at this point, still feels like. Nothing's coming to a natural end, there's no natural handover, there's seemingly no sense in me being disconnected from Beulah.

But God has bigger plans. When the branch of Israel was broken off it was to create space to graft in the nations of the world. The intention of my being broken off so violently is to create space for another branch, one that will ultimately be more fruitful, to be put in my place. For a while it leaves a sore, open, vulnerable gap - but it is necessary to graft in another fully formed branch. Romans 11 refers to this (in the original setting) as bringing in the "fullness" of the Gentiles. I believe very much that the "wild" (possibly in character, possibly also meaning "not native" to Beulah) branch will bring in a fullness that I've not been able to bring in.

Further along in the passage it talks about the natural branch (Israel in the passage, me in this metaphor) being grafted back in again at a later stage. I know that I will return to Beulah, at least for some time. But to be grafted back in at a different spot (i.e. not returning to do the same thing as before) is exactly what I'm going to SA for! If I went for a short time (one of the options we've considered) I know things would just be on hold until I got back and resumed them. This way they carry on without me and I make a clean break, like a branch being snapped off. So when I return it will be in a different way, also because I'll be very much different from my time in the challenging context of Hope Church, Durban. In Romans 11, verse 15, it says, "For if their rejection means the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance mean but life from the dead?" My inclusion back into Beulah, by God's grace and call (i.e. not because I'm a big-shot), will mean great blessing to come upon the church. Indeed the miraculous intervention of God is one of the things I believe the environment of faith in Durban will push me to enter, and indeed to remain in and bring back with me to Beulah and beyond.

So I very much got the impression that God had a much bigger plan for what seemed to be a senseless ripping out of a branch of Beulah Family Church, and that it would be part of the fulfilment of the things God has promised me regarding His people at Beulah.

But I couldn't just go on that! What if I were wrong? What if I was just hearing what I want to hear? What if it were a diversion from the Devil? So I waited to see what God would speak through other people and see if what I had matched up with some potentially more impartial people.

Soon a guy I've often known to be quite accurate when hearing from God (Mark Bruce) spoke a word about a clock. It was no ordinary time piece, but a shift clock where workers clock in and clock out. The essence of the word was that as one worker clocks out, another clocks in. The other doesn't clock in before the first one finishes, because his shift starts when the first's ends. Simiarly the shift worker does not wait to be replaced, he just completes his shift knowing that the workload and other workers are managed by someone else - He just has to do his own work, not worry about others. God is never early, and never late, but always on time.

This confirmed exactly what had been said to me - that when you break the branch off, another will get grafted in, and one can't happen without the other. I'm not going regardless of whether or not there will be a replacement, but I'm going so that a replacement may come in - someone better for my youth than I, as much as I'd love to be that person.

This whole episode, with the tensions, the highs, the lows, the expectations, the worries, the amazing purposes, and so on, was just too much and actually brought me to tears. I nearly never go teary eyed, but such was the relief, the gratitude to God, and the joy of knowing that all I had hoped for them and me would be fulfilled, that there was nothing else I could do.

Later on the elders to whom I'm submitted confirmed that this is was in fact God speaking and decided to send me out in September in faith, whatever happens. As much as I'm responsible for the youth, they are more so and are the ones who delegated me to them. Hence it had to be also up to them to decide whether they were prepared to leave these sheep somewhat without a shepherd for a while.

So I've not so much decided to leave as been snapped off/had my call terminated, by God so that he may move me and someone else onto bigger things. Let it be for great fruit and glory to your name, Lord!

Onward Christian Soldier

Alright, so I've told you a little more about what I'm leaving behind. So what am I going toward?

In part it's actually a great unknown. Since we've (that would be myself and the elders of Beulah Family Church) only recently given definite confirmation that I am being sent out, a lot of things have yet to be planned, and exactly what I'll be doing is being sorted out as we speak.

"But surely", you ask, "you must have something that's made you go?" And you're right, I do. As mentioned before I know the Lord Jesus Christ has set me apart be a leader in His holy Church. While at one point that might have been, at least in part, a reflection of my thinking I could and should be the best at everything (one of my friends jokes when I catch up with her by asking, "So, have you taken over the world yet?"), it is now solely a reflection that God pleases to call me and equip me for this purpose. While I have been certain of it for a long time, somehow I only grow more instinctively sure that this is what my life's work is about. As I've grown in the knowledge of what God has for me I've become aware that he has for me a task of planting and leading new churches, particularly in the most messed-up urban areas of the UK. Why he would choose me for such a role is nothing short of God's own sense of humour - well, and maybe something about showing that it's going to be Him that makes things happen because on a natural level me and those things just don't quite fit together!

So getting on to why I'm going to Durban: I became aware last year that if I'm going to fulfil this calling I need to get some experience of church planting, and also need to be challenged to grow by a setting that's far more radical than ours at Beulah. While Thornton Heath isn't a great area (Don't get me wrong, there are many great things, but it does have a lot of the typical urban troubles), there are far worse. Also, while we do have some great influence in the area, it's not currently at a level where it thoroughly transforms the world around (Again, don't get me wrong, I think I'm leaving at a time when God is pushing us very suddenly right into doing this transformation stuff in a way far beyond what we've done so far - just we're only living in a small part of the Gospel power that is coming). I originally suggested to John, my lead-elder, that maybe I could go away for a while. For no other reason than that I knew it would be challenging, that we had churches we're working with there, and that I loved the idea of learning more Spanish, I suggested Mexico. I didn't really expect John to be too impressed by the idea anyway, but I knew I needed to ask. What he said was, "How about Durban?" Having just been to SA to see his daughter who had gone out there for a few months he had been investigating that very possibility. Adding to that that we have much stronger links with SA and Durban than we do with Mexico, and that it would be a great benefit to Beulah to be able to connect directly to our international church planting agenda, I said, "I'll do it!"

Thus this trip is a lot about my formation into the leader God has called me to be. I know I'll be challenged and stretched by the faith of our brothers in Durban, by the church planting context, by being away from home and living independently, by being away from Beulah (my only church since I got saved in 2001), and by adapting to a culture wholly different from my own. All that can only be a good thing for my leadership development, and I'm sure actually that it's essential.

But it's also not just about building me up, but building the Church in the world. It's not just some folks in Durban who are planting that church, it's all of us brothers and sisters in unity in the family of churches joined together we like to call Newfrontiers who are doing it. This mission is our mission, as part of the Great Commission: to make disciples of all nations and to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom in every nation. So I am going to receive, but to do so by serving and giving myself to building a church for God's glory in Durban. What that means in practical terms we have yet to decide, but will do soon. I'll obviously have some primary responsibilities, but I do intend to work amongst the most needy as well as others. I will be going to bring the saving Gospel of God to people, to strengthen believers in Durban with whatever I have, and to give help to those who desperately need it out of the overflowing compassion of God. I hope that Hope Church Durban will be a more God-exalting, Christ-preaching, Spirit-filled, mercy-giving, righteous-living, city-reaching place because of my being there. In short I want to use whatever I have received to play some part in bringing them into all God has for them, and for the world through them (I'll explain quite a lot more about that one in another post soon).

All that you can't leave behind

What a great title to steal from U2!

Okay, I promised I would write a little more about quite what's going on, so here goes.

While the picture is obviously posed and done with some dramatic license, the reality is that booking my flights and sealing my departure has very much begun to bring home quite what leaving means. For about a year I've been meeting with obstacles of one kind or another in the preparation of this venture, and so I spent a long time thinking of Durban as a possibility, and not putting too much stock in it. I was still doing lots of reading (something I'll tell you about another time), still praying, still planning things - but always aware that the mission could be aborted just before launch.

The biggest reason why I might not go has been my role with the youth at Beulah Family Church. Since finishing uni in 2003 I've worked for near on 4 years full time at Beulah - 3 of those having pretty much final responsibility for all the youth work.

While I had been involved in youth ministry before that point, I always saw it as a bit of a junior league ministry - just a stepping stone to my ultimate call of church leadership. I did it, but I didn't love it; I served, but only in part. But at the first of our new annual youth gathering, Newday (www.newday.xtn.org), in 2004 God did something dramatic for both the nation and for me. With a rain that broke all national records, and came with biggest force on Newark (where we were), God gave a demonstration of quite what he was planning to do with this generation of people. It wasn't us reading into the weather either like we rely on omens and such for God spoke prophetic word that confirmed it. In fact a dramatic natural sign was prophesied beforehand to the team who have responsibility for the youth within Newfrontiers (the family of churches I'm a part of and going to Durban with - www.newfrontiers.xtn.org), and when the woman who foretold it came up to speak to us all about it after the event (the rain) a sunny day produced another rainstorm just like the ones we had earlier (the like of which I'd never seen before!) that started as she spoke and finished when she finished! It was an awesome demonstration of power and confirmation of the message that God is indeed planning to sweep the UK and beyond (as had also been prophesied at our prayer and fasting gathering a few months before) with the Gospel and with an outpouring of His Spirit, and that He was pleased to do it with the write-off generation we see around us. Many think the Gospel is a dying thing, but it's not even confirmed by the evidence now. God is keen for this new generation to see even more the life of the Gospel!

So what I could see is that God is definitely not looking at youth and thinking that it's a second rate thing. He's also clearly not put off, as I was, by the general apathy and other massive issues that do cause people to write-off youth today (in fact over 80% of UK media coverage on youth paints them in a negative light). On the last night of our week long camp with several thousand others, and after all the adventures, God did something dramatic in me too. It was a very surreal experience but all I'll say at this point is that it was quite possibly my most significant encounter with God ever, and certainly up until that point. In it I was sure God was calling me to drop my pride and to get in wholesale with what He was doing.

"How does this all relate to Durban", you say? Well to go to Durban I will have to leave what I felt like God had given me responsibility for (the youth at Beulah). Not only that these people, both in the church and out, have been the subject of countless hours of labour, prayer, concern, rejoicing, tears, and joy. These were not just young people, they were (and are) my young people - almost as though I had shared in God's love for them as their Father. No matter how inviting the prospect of adventure, beaches, a new challenge, and so on were, I simply could not leave them.

We had been working towards finding a replacement for me who would do great things for the youth here at Beulah and in Thornton Heath. With our new centre opening and a whole new day ahead of us it seemed (and does now) only right that someone new come in to complete what I started. I still know that God has called me not to be a youth worker, but to lead the church. Only now I know youth shall always be on my heart and always at the heart of any church I lead. Because of that we do really need someone who can give their life's work to carrying out all of God's purpose for youth in Thornton Heath. It really is deserving of that, and I have genuinely prayed, "God, give them someone better than me". While I care for them as my own, God has taught me to be humble enough to know that there are people better for them than me, and also that my satisfaction and success in working with them is not the ultimate issue. God, and his mercy for them, is the ultimate issue.

However we have not received such a person even now and I simply was not prepared to leave under those conditions. Even now (I'll explain how I've come to leave even though nothing's changed on the surface) it still pains me to leave, especially in this way. The image I have used in explaining this has been like that of getting a babysitter for your kids. You may have planned the best night out and been looking forward to it for so long (like I had with Durban), and thus arranged for a babysitter (my replacement, although I'm really like the babysitter in this illustration - the temporary one) to have responsibility and care for your kids while you're gone. If the babysitter doesn't show up you don't just go out anyway! No! You stay where you are and take care of them. Your preference doesn't come before their provision. Certainly my big concern is for the blessing of my people and that particularly the ones that are part of my church family be helped through to maturity and holy happiness in God. I don't want to see them waste their lives, but to live them for Him! To have fought hard for this for years just didn't fit with just quitting now because it was convenient.

While I'm now convinced God has a bigger plan for my leaving (another post) and that I should go ahead as planned, it's still so weird to be leaving that which you've lived and breathed for so long.

Also with the new centre and the great new things God is doing at Beulah Family Church, it's so weird to just leave as it gets started. Again having laboured for it for years, to leave when it's just getting started for real is just weird.

Add to that that Beulah has been my spiritual home, family, sanctuary, and more throughout my 6 and a bit years as a follower of Christ. I've not belonged anywhere else and I don't choose to leave because I'm bored here at all!

It's been also where I've shared in my great passion for the gospel and my growing passion for young people with others too. It's the sort of thing that bonds people so tightly as you share together in something that consumes your whole life.

Finally Thornton Heath has been my home (lived in one house) for my entire 25 years. It is not one of many places I've called home, but my only home.

All this, these tickets have confirmed, I'm leaving behind. I will come back, but it will not be the same. I'll come to Thornton Heath in the same way I will go to Durban - as one travelling on a mission. It won't be my virgin homeland, but one more stop on the ever onward journey to see the Church of God grow in the nations of the world. I don't just leave for Durban, I leave for the great cause that God has called me to in Durban and beyond.

Amazing what a few pieces of paper can do!

It begins

Well, well, here begins the rather unspectacular start to my Durban Adventure. For those of you less familiar with what this is about I'm uprooting after 25 years in Thornton Heath, London, UK, and moving to Durban, South Africa, for about 10 months. I'm leaving my current full-time post at Beulah Family Church (www.beulahfamilychurch.co.uk) and going to work with Hope Church, Durban (www.hopechurch.co.za), serving them in establishing an exciting new community of God's people in that great South African city.

Just to say that I'll be using this blog to keep you all up to date with what's going on and why, and that I'll be adding more to this page very soon (i.e. before I leave). Also I'll be posting to my Flickr page (www.flickr.com/photos/andrewthecook) all my favourite pictures, but also ones explaining this blog.

There's not a lot more to say right this moment other than that after much wrangling and confusion this adventure has well and truly begun as I yesterday received the tickets for my outbound flight on the inauspicious date of September 11th 2007 (see picture above). After over a year of talk and verbal commitments we are now committed in a tangible way and there's no going back!

It begins.....!