I am enjoying my role heading up the ministry section of the English Language Community Outreach programme, teaching many of the future missionaries about mission, at the OM training centre in West Midlands and am currently on my 4th ELCO programme....it is the second team I have supervised in one particular church and the third team we have had actually based there. For the first two teams, nothing much seemed to be happening, we had holiday clubs for children and just a few children turned up and to me, not much fruit was showing. But just like when we plant seeds in the ground and we cannot see much happening on the surface, I was wondering if were making any impact. Now however I can see how wrong I was.
For the current team things really seem to have changed....they are running after school clubs and I can now see how wrong I was before. The first week one child turned up, but last week we had 17 children there!! What a blessing!!
But we must acknowledge and not forget the previous teams work in breaking up and preparing the ground. This work is so important in the garden and just as important in longer-term ministry. We must make a start and in the beginning be prepared to see very little fruit....but we will not see any fruit without someone doing that very important job first. And people will never realise how hard that part was. When someone looks at a beautiful rose they don't appreciate how hard it was to produce that rose they just enjoy the beautiful flower before them.
"Who despises the day of small things?".....and yes that is more wise words, from not just a good book, but the very words of God!! (Zech 4:10).
Blessings
