Glorious Advance Through Daily Struggles
Pete Collinson, from Wellspring Family Church, Dereham, shares how God has led them to start several projects that are meeting the practical needs in their community and seeing transformation amongst their neighbours - but not without a liberal shedding of sweat and tears along the way.
PETE: I love that our church is part of Relational Mission. I love hearing about the inspiring Kingdom advance our friends in other towns and nations are witnessing: the lost saved, buildings acquired, and the gospel shared. To extend our gaze beyond the local and support our brothers and sisters in worldwide mission is a joy. However, there is a danger here with our (wholly appropriate) celebration of Kingdom success. We can be captivated by the fruit and miss the daily trials and sacrifices we’re called to endure to see victory. The Great Commission is rarely pretty or easy work. In reality, glorious gospel advance nearly always comes through inglorious daily pain.
Behind the Smiles
At the 2023 The Call conference, I was powerfully struck by a couple of short videos showcasing some of what we do to serve the poor at Wellspring Family Church in Dereham. While I knew the videos were being made, I didn’t have the opportunity to see them until the conference. The content beautifully captured our privilege in reaching the community around us through various social action projects. I was, quite frankly, wowed! I felt honoured to work alongside the saints who made it happen, but as the videos continued to play, I sensed a disquiet in my spirit about how wonderful and uncomplicated the ‘hard’ work appeared to be. The very real smiles, friendships, and love were on full display, but what the videos didn’t show were the tears.
Psalm 126 says, ‘Those who sow with tears shall reap with shouts of joy!’ Far from the ideal of unrestrained delight, our experience is that the journey towards glorious victory often feels, in the day-to-day running of things, like we’re on a path to inglorious defeat.
The Food Cabin has been serving the community with more than just groceries.
Faithful Under Fire: The Triumphs and Trials of Ministry
In 2020, one of our elders (Phil Eggleton) set out on a mission to reach adults with mental health problems. Since then, this endeavour has become a significant and highly fruitful ministry valued by Dereham's GPs and other service providers. Keeping the gospel as a core focus of the ‘Well-come’ project, Phil has discipled several members through baptism and into joining our church community. Glorious victory.
In 2022, another one of our projects involved building a social supermarket in our small outdoor space. Currently, the ‘Food Cabin’ provides affordable groceries to roughly 200 households! The project, however, is about more than meeting local people’s physical needs. Those who use the service also receive prayer, access outreach events, and come to know that the church cares for them. Glorious victory.
The Holy Spirit’s presence in these and our other projects means we’ve seen incredible victory, and it is a glorious thing, but it doesn’t come without the shedding of tears. In fact, daily frustrations and heartbreak are all part of the journey.
We have experienced the disappointment of disciples walking away, grant funding failing to materialise, crime, criticism, fires, physical and mental burnout, and garden-variety exhaustion. It’s just as the Apostle Paul writes: ‘We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed’ (2 Corinthians 4:8-10). When we endeavour to bring the light of Christ into our community, we enter an ancient battle that the enemy ceaselessly wages against the saints. It’s tough, but God always remains faithful and provides us with the resources we need to get through. We are partakers in the story of ultimate triumph achieved through bitter trials. This sobering reality is why I’m certain every church in the Relational Mission family shares experiences of gospel advance coming at the price of pain and humiliation. I don’t know about you, but I draw great comfort from knowing I’m not alone!
Walking this road with the Lord and experiencing the highs and lows of ministry has revealed that, above all else, Jesus delights in our faithfulness and obedience. Even if things don’t work out as we want them to, He prizes tears shed on the very ground we are trying to take in His name. In the grand scheme of things, those tears are often crucial in softening the hard soil so that it may effectively receive the gospel seed.
Following the Example of Faithful Servants
We read the stories of Christian heroes and remember the churches they planted and missions they pioneered, but we can so easily overlook the pain God led them through as part of the process. William Carey is famous for translating the Bible into multiple Indian languages, but I wonder whether he felt much like a hero of the faith when staring at the smouldering embers of his print shop in Serampore, which housed a decade of his work. Carey is remembered for his glorious ministry, but his every effort for the Lord was reduced to ash in a fiery blaze. That sure looks like an inglorious defeat.
We could also consider the apostle Paul's far-reaching, church-planting mission. Because of his success, we can often be misled into thinking that every sermon, prayer, and letter saw immediate results! Yet, in Acts 14, we read that in Iconium, things went so badly that they fled to Lystra to escape violence, only to be stoned half to death shortly after their arrival. His words in 2 Corinthians 11 inform us that this kind of treatment would have been the norm rather than the exception. Few people’s ministry has had more impact for the Kingdom than Paul’s, yet he tasted what looked like frequent inglorious defeat. As Jesus said of Paul, he will be ‘my chosen instrument to proclaim my name to the Gentiles… I will show him how much he must suffer for my name.’
Embracing the Cost
So, let’s continue celebrating victories and never cease cheering on our friends. However, I hope what I’ve written encourages you in times of tears and perhaps lifts your eyes from the daily trials. Glorious gospel advance comes at the cost of daily frustration and pain. Knowing that the grass is not always greener in the other church is essential when your faith community faces challenges. There will always be embarrassments, seasons of slow growth, rebuffed evangelism, crackling PA systems, and people moving away. Rather than retreating, be confident that these things are part of the journey and that we are not called to be professional or polished but faithful. We embrace the crucified King. We take the crown of thorns along with the crown of life. At the end of it all, we get to lay before Him a life of service, all the triumphs and tears, and hear Him say those sweet words: Well done, good and faithful servant (Matthew 25:23).
By Pete Collinson (Wellspring Family Church, Dereham)
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