Next month it will be two years since we moved to St Margarets Rd and began our adventure of neighbourhood ministry. How has it gone? I would like to say that we’ve seen a number of people make commitments to follow Jesus but that isn’t the case. So have we failed?
We have seen one neighbour recommit to follow Jesus after drifting away for a decade. Another is on the edge of choosing to follow Jesus but pride is preventing him from admitting his need for forgiveness. We have shared our testimonies and had gospel conversations with several other neighbours. However, we are still looking for that first real decision for Jesus. But this journey with our neighbours hasn’t been just about them but also about my wife and I as well. God has been teaching us much about what it means to be faithful to those in the place we live. To be faithful is not easy, it doesn't come naturally. To be faithful requires dying to my egotistical desires for comfort, convenience, affirmation from success and more.
It would be easy to look at our situation and conclude that God is not on the move here, that there is no wave here, the soil is too hard and not ready, and so on. Or that what we are doing isn't working and that we need to find a new approach, a new method, or pray more, or something, anything to get results. However, what I hear God saying is "be faithful". Yes, God can move mightily and amazing things could happen, but is that the only way that God works? Often God works slowly. "Slow" is a word that we have excluded from our spiritual vocabulary, especially when it comes to ministry and discipleship. Yet to learn to be faithful means being in a situation where results are uncertain and slow to come by.
This is a quality that is in short supply in the Western church. If our statistical graphs aren't showing an upward curve or things are happening then one's faith and belief in God is questioned or one must try some new idea or new way of doing things or move to another place. I wondered how much of this comes from the Spirit and how much is our desire for results to feed our egotistical needs?
I recall reading of a missionary to Africa who died after spending 15 years ministering to a tribe without seeing one single convert. He was followed by another missionary who shortly after experienced a breakthrough with many conversions. Was that because the second missionary had more faith or was more effective? No more likely he reaped the faithfulness of the prior missionary who tilled the soil and planted the seeds. Without the first missionary's faithfulness there would not have been any converts.
People are no machines who if we push the right buttons, pray hard enough and skilfully present the the gospel to will flip their spiritual switch and lead to them committing to follow Jesus. Each and every person is unique and special before God and God treats them that way, not as projects or programs. Each one needs to be loved into the kingdom, patiently and respectfully.
Many of our neighbours have become our friends and we have developed a deep love for them. We yearn for them to know Jesus yet there is no special formulae that will make this happen. What we can do is remain faithful to them, loving them, serving them and sharing gospel truth with them. Looking back on my own conversion and spiritual growth I am humbled by God's own faithfulness with me, never giving up when I was bull-headed, unrepentant, slow to learn, even regressing at times. God is faithful and becoming like Jesus means me being faithful to those among who God has placed me. It is not results that I should be looking to but my faithfulness before God.
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