Pastor @ mbc’s Weblog

Dear Friends,

Many years ago, a rich man went to a famous painter, and asked him to paint him a picture of his favourite horse, offering him a large payment in return. The painter agreed. Some weeks later, the rich man returned to ask how the painting was progressing, and the painter said “Its not ready yet”. Months passed, and the rich man kept returning to ask how the painting was developing, but always the painter said “Its not ready yet”. Finally, the rich man became angry, and demanded to see his painting. The painter took him into his studio, lifted his brushes, and painted a magnificent picture of a horse onto a blank canvas in about 15 minutes. The rich man was amazed at the quality of the painting, but was still angry with the painter. “Why did you take so long to begin, if you could paint such a picture in only 15 minutes?”  The painter took him into another room, which was filled with thousands of sketches of horses – some of the whole animal, some of just parts. The reason he could paint a masterpiece in 15 minutes was because of the year of hard work he had spent in preparation.

There are no short cuts in the Christian life, or in Church work. It is not the short bursts of activity which achieve results for God’s Kingdom – it is the steady discipline of hard work, faithful service, and committed prayer.  Preparation is all-important.  Do you prepare yourself for worship on Sundays?   Do you spend time preparing your heart and mind to meet with the living God, and to receive his word? Do you prepare for the opportunities that God will send you to speak to others about your faith, or to offer friendship, encouragement and support to other Christians, or to your neighbours?  I hope we don’t think that when the moment comes, we will know what to say or what to do, unless we have carefully prepared beforehand.

This autumn, we will all have an opportunity to prepare ourselves more thoroughly for Christian service, by attending the TIDE course on Sunday evenings. TIDE stands for Training in discipleship and evangelism; and these two aspects of the course are very important. Discipleship, at its heart, means learning and growing to be more like Jesus. Evangelism means learning to share Jesus with others. I hope that you will make every effort to come along and get the full benefit from the teaching material we will be using. The course begins on October 7^th with an introduction, and the first session will be on October 14^th.

I have a friend who is a very gifted musician. He tells me that he needs to play every day, for at least half an hour, in order to keep his skills sharp – if he does not, his timing and accuracy are far from being at their best, and his music suffers.  This is true for you and me as Christian disciples – we need the discipline of daily dedication. Discipleship, someone has said, is discipline mixed with love. God’s love, not ours. Its what I need – and I’m sure its what you need too.

Every blessing,        Stephen.