[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected] where we are going as a people, what is our focuses? Where is God taken us?
[00:00:22] And doing a little review is important, right? Who does it at work every year? Do you know they do their own personal review. I'm sure most of you do. And then you know companies and you know departments and the rest of it all do reviews, don't you? Every at the end of every year to see how things are going, to see if any adjustments were made.
[00:00:44] But yeah, where are we headed as a church? Where are we going?
[00:00:49] If you're with us now, two weeks ago, when did we do the day together? That was two weeks ago, just I reiterated if you were there about us being going on this journey, about becoming a multi site church. That's where we feel God is leading us, is taking us on this journey and we want to hold that really closely to us this is all about us following God in going out and obeying him in the Great Commission, right, that he told us. Jesus told us to go out to make disciples, to baptize people in the name of the Father, Son, the Holy Spirit and to teach people to obey everything that he commanded. And that is the duty he's passed on to us.
[00:01:37] And so that's something as a church we hold very closely to us that drives what we do.
[00:01:44] And so how we go forward is driven by how he's speaking to us. Do you know what has he put on our hearts? Karen was just telling us about. We can all hear from God. Amen. We can hear his voice may not be audibly, maybe as an impression or a sensation or a visual picture or something like that throughout your lifetime, but we can all hear from God. And God wants to direct us and show us the way forward.
[00:02:13] And so we are pursuing this direction of becoming a multi site church. Why? Because God revealed it to us. He said do this, go out, spread out. As a, as a church.
[00:02:27] Being multisite is not a solution to the difficulties or problems we have.
[00:02:33] Actually in many respects it's is harder. It's harder than just being one single church, one congregation all together.
[00:02:41] But hey, and also but hey, God said, has not God made the foolish the wisdom of the world? Do you know that we look at and we think, hey, does this make sense?
[00:02:54] And sometimes we just go, hey, it seems right to the Holy Spirit in us, it seems right. It's on our Hearts, this is how God is leading us. So we're going to pursue it even though it's difficult, even though it's got problems in and of itself. And so our commitment to the future is to continue to be a multi site church. And that means not stopping with just gravesends, but going further and thinking about where else can we plant a site now that's not going to be in the next year.
[00:03:27] How and when that occurs we don't know.
[00:03:31] We haven't got that far yet. God hasn't revealed that to us just yet.
[00:03:35] But that is our passion to follow God in this, spreading out and impacting the community around us.
[00:03:44] So three things, a little review of last year and I think the first thing that we should do, the biblical thing I think we should do when looking back is to give thanks, right?
[00:03:59] You read any of Paul's letters? Well not any. Most of all Paul's letters, right? And he starts off by giving, he says Philippians 1 he says, I thank my God every time I remember you.
[00:04:13] Who says?
[00:04:14] Who thinks that in their head?
[00:04:16] In my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Paul gives thanks in so many ways in his letters he gives it for whole groups of churches. He gives it for individuals. He gives thanks for those people that are doing things like bringing his cloak.
[00:04:36] Do you know the everyday things that we do as church, the everyday things that we do as serving one another.
[00:04:44] He gives thanks for people who sweep floors, who put out chairs, who serve tea and coffee. He gives thanks for those people who bless kids, who serve them, who open up their homes to invite other people in to discuss the word and to pray for one another. He gives thanks for people who, you know, after a hard day's work they think I could just stay indoors. But now I'm going to go out, I'm going to commit to my growth as a disciple and to grow other disciples by being in a connect group.
[00:05:20] Do you know? And it's important to stop and to give thanks for the day by day, the everyday things that we do as a church together.
[00:05:31] And so let's give thanks, let's give thanks to us as a whole church as we've gone multi site last year. Do you know it's not just the people in gravesend that should be giving thanks for them going to plant the site. We should be giving thanks for what God has done through them. Why? Because we are one church, right?
[00:05:50] We are one people, one leadership team, one culture. One vision as a body of people. And so we give thanks to God for them.
[00:05:59] We praise him for what God has done through those people that we sent out into gravesends.
[00:06:06] And we should also give thanks to everything that God has done in the last year in Dartford. Right?
[00:06:12] We should give thanks. Paul names people again and again. And so just a little opportunity, because I think it's biblical, because I think Paul does it again and again. Give thanks to people. I want to say, give thanks to God for the production team, for Luke, for Olu, give thanks to the worship team, for Deb leading it and many others. The band that were great this morning, serving us for the welcome and the hospitality team for Ken and Linda, who leads that team. For everyone else on the team, serving us week in, week out for the marriage team. They've got another event coming up. Jackie and Tolu, thank you so much for leading for the women's team. Cressy and Jane for youth team, for Colin and that whole team that serve twice every week seems like that for treasure hunters, everyone on the team, for Laura, who faithfully leads that for explorers, for Liz Jarla as well, leading that for everyone here that I served. Do you know, on events throughout this past year that we've done, you know, at Christmas, at Easter, welcome lunches, all nations, all the different things that we've done as church, who've come, who brought food with fantastic food and that served us for being part of food bank for John, for Sue, for Marilyn, anyone else that has been and volunteered with them, who's given foods, thank you for doing that. For everyone that's been part of the evangelism events that we've done over this last year, for Colin, for leading them, but everyone who's been part of that light station style, Easter egg hunts, Christmas, Easter events, Dartford, big day out, Christmas hampers that we've done, do you know it's right that we should pause and say, I thank God for you, I thank God for one another.
[00:08:10] So I think we should all get the opportunity to thank God for one another and what God has done through it. So let's have a couple of minutes, just get in your groups and let's just pray out our thanks to God.
[00:08:28] All right, that's great.
[00:08:31] If you bring it back in.
[00:08:35] Yeah, let's thank God. Thank God for what he's done in and amongst ourselves. And who did I forget?
[00:08:45] I'm sure there's loads of people. I forgot Gary and he's been up here. So Gary and the hosting team for Julie and for Karen for leading the prayer meetings for Mary J. And Voku on the hosting team as well.
[00:09:00] Oh, connect groups. Yes. Sorry.
[00:09:03] Oh, yeah. For the other elders. Yeah, I've got to. Yeah. Thank God for them for me. Yes, thank God for me. Thank you, thank you. Appreciate it.
[00:09:18] Great. Okay. I'm sure. I'm sure I've forgotten someone, but, yes, God sees you, even if I've forgotten. His memory is perfect in every way.
[00:09:30] But also we give thanks. But Paul, in his letters, he doesn't stop there, does he?
[00:09:36] He brings words of review, of correction, of insight, where he addresses a church and says, these are opportunities. These are moments in which you can change. Maybe you should change. Actually, I want to share just a couple with you about how we feel that we should change as a church. And maybe you find that a bit strange, you know, that the leader or one of the leaders of an organization is sharing the difficulties that we have. Do you know, it's not normal. Does the CEO of whatever company or director of the company share what's going on behind the scenes? What these problems is with you doesn't often happen.
[00:10:21] But we're not a leadership. We're not like an organization that's hierarchical. We are more than that. We are a family.
[00:10:31] And when you read Paul's letters, right, some Timothy, Peter, the individual letters, they get sent to individuals, but actually the bulk of them are sent to the whole church, aren't they?
[00:10:46] Why is that? Why does Paul send it to the whole church?
[00:10:51] Well, that's because the problem is public, right?
[00:10:55] The problem. You know, we went through Galatians.
[00:10:59] Do you remember going through Galatians? It's not been that long. Hasn't it? How did the last one last week, didn't they great? Okay, I wasn't here, but yeah, we've been going through Galatians. And Paul addresses the whole church publicly because it's a public issue and everyone can see the issue, right? And so we need to be aware of it. But also everyone's involved in bringing about change.
[00:11:23] It's not just the leadership who's got to make a change. And it's going to come through strategy and a growth principle. And do you know, certain pastry, you know, certain organizational hierarchical structures within a company.
[00:11:38] It comes through us understanding the word of God and applying it in our lives.
[00:11:43] That's how Paul directs the church. So there's a couple of things that I think, really I want to share, because we are all part of the solution.
[00:11:53] We are all part of taking on what God's Word says and applying it to our lives and applying it to the whole church.
[00:12:00] And so we can all be part of the, part of bringing change here.
[00:12:06] One of the things is that we have grown quite quickly, proportionally as a site here.
[00:12:14] I think that around half of the people that attend here in Dartford have joined over the past two years, which is fantastic. It's great to know that this church has been growing here in Dartford, but it also comes with its own problem of that how do we become this family together, do you know? And I want to say we are a family. You know, we've talked about it, we maybe say it a lot from the front, but we are a family.
[00:12:47] That's a spiritual truth, right? So Peter writes that we are the household of God.
[00:12:53] A household is an extended family in those days where in the times when he was writing into it's extended family that live and work together for a common good. And he says we are the household of God. We are God's people brought together as a unit to live and work together.
[00:13:16] And so we have shared values and we share things with one another, we work alongside one another.
[00:13:24] And I think some of the questions are that, I think that we struggled for everyone to feel like they are part of the family. Do you know, as lots of people come in as we've grown, it's actually been quite difficult.
[00:13:39] So things, you know, heard, you know, little stories like, you know, do you spend a lot of time with other people in the church?
[00:13:49] You know, I know there's some people that can come and can attend on Sundays and actually not spend any other time with anyone in the church during the week.
[00:13:59] Do you share stuff that you're going through with other people in the church? Do you share your problems and your difficulties? Do you share your prayer requests with other people? Are they walking beside you?
[00:14:13] And we'd like to just grow in that.
[00:14:16] We'd like to be stronger in that as a whole church. You know, everyone's got busy jobs and families and life is just hectic and maybe we can look back at New Testament times with rose tinted glasses.
[00:14:33] And it's difficult, it's difficult for us, but we have an ambition to grow in it, do you know? And so I'd love us. Thank you, Susie.
[00:14:44] I'd love us to pray for that in a moment.
[00:14:48] But the other aspect of it is probably similar, is that we are very much struggling with the number of people serving with our regularly on Sundays and during the week.
[00:15:02] One of the problems that we've noticed is a Culture of dropping out at the last minute.
[00:15:08] And it has knock on effects for the rest of the teams, right?
[00:15:13] So hey, if people drop out on a Sunday morning says I can't make it this morning, do you know what the rest of the team really affected?
[00:15:22] Do you know, when you don't turn up when you're supposed to be serving, the rest of the team there have to kind of pick it up and run with it themselves.
[00:15:31] And when you do that, it does impart a kind of sense of I don't really care about you.
[00:15:40] You know, it imparts a sense of you're not really a priority for me. And so I feel it's fine just to drop out at the last minute and to leave the rest of my team who are serving in a whole. And people struggle with that across the church. And I think that's something that we can change, that we can do something about.
[00:16:02] Do you know we are this family of God, that's the doctrinal, that's the theological truth. We are this family of God and so we should behave like a family of God that can depend upon one another and be there around.
[00:16:17] But I think the other aspect of it is, the other part of the puzzle is that actually across the church that serving is left few people.
[00:16:26] There are some amazing people. As I've gave, we've given thanks for those that have served so diligently.
[00:16:33] But there is actually the bulk of the work for every Sunday has been left by too few people.
[00:16:40] And there's something that we can change there.
[00:16:42] But I want to go back to like Paul does, a theological truth. What has God said about us? So how should we change our behavior?
[00:16:51] And through Paul's writing in 1 Corinthians 12, we can see that Paul uses this metaphor of we are a body, we are Christ's body.
[00:17:01] And therefore we have different aspects, we have different roles and we have different gifts. You know, he uses this analogy of a foot and an iron and hands and things like that. We have different roles. And so we all are given a task of bringing the gifts that God has given us in to serve the church.
[00:17:22] Do you know whether it's on kids work or worship team or a connect group or an evangelism team or anything like that, We've been given these roles.
[00:17:31] And when parts of the body don't work, it's like having an illness.
[00:17:36] Do you know you walk with a limp?
[00:17:40] There's a truth here. There's a truth that we need to take on as a whole church and seek. How can we change it and work through it.
[00:17:49] And our vision is for, as I said, our church to grow, to be a growing church, to impact the town around us.
[00:17:57] But we can only do that if everyone gets involved and serves. And so I'd like us to stop and to pray for that.
[00:18:08] To pray that God comes and changes us. Do you know Jesus sends out the workers into the harvest? He sends the workers into the harvest and says pray for the workers, pray for yourselves, pray for yourselves. We need God to come in and empower us. Amen.
[00:18:30] Amen. Okay, let's break up into our groups and let's pray for that.
[00:18:39] Great, thank you. Thank you. Getting involved in praying.
[00:18:43] As we pray we declare our dependence on God.
[00:18:47] We're not the people that provide all solution but we put ourselves in God's hands and we ask for his Spirit to come and enable us and empower us.
[00:18:58] And as we pray we declare that. We declare that to the heavens, we declare that to those outside that are watching we are dependent upon God and we want his spirit to work through us. Amen. Amen. Great. Last bits, last bit. Let's look outside of the church, let's look out outwards because while we have a vision for continuing as a multi site church and planting new sites, we also have short term goals as well. Ambitions and want to really focus on the next term.
[00:19:33] Three months up to Christmas terms. I'm old school.
[00:19:36] Old school, school. If you see our main three. We had three terms, didn't we? They now have like six semesters or I've got no idea. Anyway, anyway, so yeah, this term, what?
[00:19:52] Oh, six half terms. Oh, that's how you do it now. Okay, yeah, but I've heard people talk about semesters as well. I thought that's what you did in uni. But anyway, anyway, who knows? Okay, answers on the postcards, send them to someone.
[00:20:12] Let's focus on the next three months. Right. So up to Christmas we've got some evangelistic opportunities that we really want to pray into.
[00:20:21] So our light stations where we go out on Halloween and we go out and bring some good news, some light in a dark time.
[00:20:33] They've always been good opportunities to meet neighbors and opportunities just to on a sort of non threatening way just to invite people to hear about some of the gospel and what the church does.
[00:20:48] So we're going to go ahead with them this year. Let's pray that it doesn't rain.
[00:20:53] It's always been. I don't think it has ever rained, has it? No. Great. Okay, good.
[00:20:59] Let's pray for that. Let's pray for our Christmas stuff as well. Do you know, sorry, I've mentioned the C words. Christmas is coming. Really sorry. There was Christmas chocolates in the shops the other day when I went in. It's terrible, isn't it?
[00:21:13] 88 sleeps. Okay, thank you. Right, knock them off. If you've got your 88 day advent calendar, let's go for that. But yeah, let's pray for that. These, these are times when we can share the gospel with others, the good news.
[00:21:29] And we want to, you know, not only do these things, but also be challenged. As Karen was sharing a story about her every day and trying to be challenged to hear from God and to just bring a word of encouragement, a word from the gospel to others, we want to be challenged as a people to do that. And part of that is getting ready, getting us individually ready to do that. Do you know, it doesn't just happen overnight. You don't just become a Christian and then suddenly have all these.
[00:22:02] Be able to defend the gospel in all these different areas.
[00:22:06] It comes from getting ready, being able to understand how to talk about the gospel.
[00:22:12] And over this next term, we'd love to do more of that. We've done some of it. We'd love to do more about equipping one another to share the gospel and. Yeah. In simple ways that reveal the truth and challenge.
[00:22:27] But thank you, Susie. Is there more amens in the house? Yes. Great, Good. We are awake. We're not quite a Pentecostal church, but we are awake. That's it.
[00:22:38] And then secondly, more than just.
[00:22:42] I'm going to say, more than just simple sharing the gospel.
[00:22:46] Right. We want to impact the town, don't we?
[00:22:50] And we do that through. At the moment, we do it through Food bank, which we've been continuing to collaborate with other Dartford churches. Impact the town. There's possibility for it to grow in different ways in the future.
[00:23:05] We'd love to pray into that. Pray into hampers that we do Christmas. We're doing those as well, Colin, aren't we? Yes. Good. Okay. Hampers at Christmas for. For some struggling families that were connected with one of the schools. Let's pray into that.
[00:23:21] But also, I know everyone is aware of perhaps the racial tensions, the divisions that are happening up and down the country. You've seen the flags around, I'm sure you have.
[00:23:34] There's been, you know, some marches or gatherings in Dartford over the past month.
[00:23:42] Let's pray that we, as a church make a difference.
[00:23:47] Do you know how do we do that? I haven't a clue.
[00:23:50] But it starts with saying to God, God, use us.
[00:23:54] God, change the atmosphere of our town.
[00:23:58] Let's not make this a town that's divided upon different lines. Let's really seek to unify the town, be a town of which we are peace bringers. We bring peace to those around us.
[00:24:15] And I'd love for something to happen over the next few months. I don't know what it is, maybe if you hear from God, please share it.
[00:24:25] But let's do our last sort of prayer time around that and then we're going to sing a song. The band probably don't know, but they're gonna sing a song. Thank you for the band that sing a song. But yeah, we're gonna sing a song. So let's pray for that impacting our town, bringing the gospel and being a light into the world around us.
[00:24:53] Great, let's bring it in. Let me pray and then we're just going to worship.
[00:25:01] You know, I'm just reminded of that verse that was on my heart a couple of weeks ago in Zechariah. It's not by might, it's not by power, but it's by my spirit.
[00:25:13] Do you know, it's not in our skillfulness, it's not in our natural abilities, although they are God given as well.
[00:25:25] Do you know we serve one another, we serve God through his spirit.
[00:25:30] And so, Lord, I just pray for more of your spirit in our lives. I pray for it, Lord.
[00:25:38] I pray that you would come and unite us as one family, that you'd help us to be friends for one another. You help us to be more than that, to be there for one another, Lord, when we're going through difficult times, Lord, when we've got things of joy to celebrate, Lord, that we're there for one another. We're in each other's homes, we are there growing in discipleship with one another because of your spiritual work amongst us, Lord. I pray that you gift us, you help us, you give us the endurance, the servant heartedness, Lord, to continue to grow as a church, to supporting one another, serving our kids, Lord, teaching them in the ways of the Lord, Lord, teaching our youth, helping one another be welcomed in together.
[00:26:32] And I pray by your spirit, Lord, you would send us out into the world, Lord, that through our discipleship together, Lord, rubbing up against side each other, Lord, you just shape us into better weapons for your glory, Lord.
[00:26:51] Lord, you'd send us out carrying the word of Lord, that sword that comes in to divide, to show people where the darkness is. And to bring the light.
[00:27:03] Lord, we'd be courageous and bold with what you have given us.
[00:27:10] Because we want to see your glory cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Lord, we want to see you reign. Your kingdom come from heaven and your will be done as it is in heaven. Lord.
[00:27:23] Lord, send your spirit upon us. Shape us and change us, we pray. Amen. Amen. Let's dance. Let's worship.
