Passion
29th July 2007
Jeremy Rutherford
Jeremy has passion for the gathered church on a Sunday, Trevor has passion for the church meeting in cells and what goes on there.
The inverted triangle
Jeremy drew the inverted triangle of leadership. The usual model is the pastor at the top, who hears from God and from other influences, then there are the deacons or cell group supervisors, then further down are cell group leaders or home group leaders, then the congregation at the bottom.
Each person ate every level has ideas, thoughts, a walk with God, passion
Network tries to invert the triangle. Trevor and the team are at the bottom, the cell group leaders higher up, the the congregation at the top. We want God to work out of all the passions and thoughts that are in the entire congregation. It's not just 'leaders' who have these things.
Everything we do is to support those who want to grow the church, who have a heart for reaching the lost, for passion, for journeying with God. Support one another in our cells working this all out.
Passion for Romania
Tim Hewitt introduced Hannah and Matt from Romanian Relief. They have a passion for orphans in Romania. Hannah's story is that a couple of her school friends, Sarah & Emma, visited Romania and were so impacted that they returned at age 19 to try to make a difference. They're still out there, not a penny to their name, but have taught Hannah and those left behind what it means to love others.
The Romanian orphanages are as seen on TV: children tied to beds, no interaction, very poor facilities. So the girls imported a load of nappies, and visited the orphanages to feed the children and interact with them. This went on for a few years. But they then decided to provide more long term care to children who would never ever be adopted because of disability or because they are too institutionalised. They organised purpose-built group housing which now houses about 13 children, where they try to give the same life, love and attention that children would get over here.
Another 2 years further on, Sarah & Emma and their team are now working for the prevention of abandonment of children, working to educate and support young mothers. They support about 15 families a month with nappies, money, eduction, practical support. Both sides pledge to keep to a contract, if the parents abandon the child anyway then all the support stops.
One of the girls has adopted one child herself. She chose to become a young single mum.
Fighting injustice. Romania is only 2 hours away yet it is so different. Romanian Relief also does political campaigning. Romania joined the EU last year, which meant that Romania had to reach certain standards of living. They said they had reached that standard but they haven't.
Hannah has a passion for Romania, it has completely changed her life, what God has done is amazing. Her husband, her church and her school are all involved.
Network has given some money to Romanian Relief, Tim and Anna Hewitt have visited Romania a couple of times, and Tim would like to take a team from Network out there maybe in October next year. If that's your thing, speak to Tim.
Each person here has passion within them for our street, for our workplace, for those around us. We are Jesus to those around us, his passion is in us.
Passion for the homeless
Graham Shephard talked about what motivates him to talk to and help homeless people in St Albans. For him it's all about the phrase that faith without works is dead. If you want to show God's love to people, if someone has no clothes and nowhere to stay, you can't just say 'God bless you' without also doing what you can to sort them out. Not everyone can do this due to various commitments. Graham volunteers at Centre 33, the local drop in centre, and his cell sometimes help him cook a big meal to take to the centre. Giving them a really good meal with good ingredients, so they don't get tinned sausages that evening at the centre.
Graham is aware that he's treating the symptoms not the cause, but it's from Jesus and Jesus is in it and it means a lot to the people and people respond to it. There's about 25 people in St Albans homeless at any one time, plus those sleeping on floors and in hostels.
Ponder this summer
Jeremy urged us to use this summer to reflect, to look inside, to draw out passions in us which have fallen asleep or been pushed out or are dormant due to tiredness.
As you recharge your batteries, bring it to your cells and discuss it with them. In the autumn we'll see how we can plug into some of that as a church and support you and your cells.
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