Stick to one roadmap

Here I am in familiar surroundings, leading at church. We're a church used to change and lots of it. Sometimes it's hard to catch a breath.

Seven years ago, just after I'd arrived here, the minister (and my boss!) called me up one December morning and asked if I had any plans for lunch. I didn't so he picked me up a few minutes later and we went out to a local hotel for lunch. I asked what the occasion was, and he replied that this was the Christmas staff lunch!

Things have changed and grown since then, with almost 20 attending last year's Christmas staff lunch. Sometimes I have to be primed on the names of the latest staff! The children's area of ministry has grown healthily year on year and the youth scene has exploded, particularly over the last 18 months or so.

That minister, Alan, has now moved on to pastures new (ironically to my home church) and that could have caused sizeable tremors in some churches. However, we have a good team in place, and know that God doesn't abandon us. Along with my colleagues Rob and Margaret (associate pastor and community centre co-ordinator respectively), I look forward to painting on a fresh canvas.

John Lennon once wrote, 'Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans'. As a church leadership team, it's essential to stay focussed on what God's roadmap is saying. It would be easy at a time of transition to allow distractions to blur the view ahead. All sorts of distractions; one's own ideas, ambitions, hobby-horses. Others' attempts to seize a little infuence or empire. Ultimately God is a master builder and only He has the blueprint for us as a church and for us as individuals. Daft to tune in anywhere else really.