Quest for God

Introduction

Again a thwarted outcast! But by this time I had grown beyond my earlier anxious attempts to find yet another church where maybe I would be welcome. I was just grateful to the Lord for all the ways he had led me and protected me, picked me up when I had stumbled, and taught me more and more of His ways. I was prepared to wait patiently for Him to reveal the next move.

And He brought to me a collection of mostly young people who had become bored and disillusioned in their various denominational church homes, and He said, “This is your church, feed them.”

They wanted to learn, and they wanted to grow, and they wanted to live as a Christian community. It brought me to a better understanding of the ‘church’ as not primarily a building for ritual worship, but a basic group of committed Christians.

Within three years of my latest return from overseas, I found myself a widow, running a large Community House with its own chapel, and with a congregation of some three dozen enthusiastic young adults.

But, as the years passed by, I was brought again to that depressing understanding that it is impossible to draw anyone nearer to the Lord than he really wants to go. Over time my little church slowly descended into a state not very different from that of most other churches in the land: the Minister and Missionary had been separated out from the pew-sitters, who were comfortable to say Amen to any proposal suggested by the Minister, to write appropriate cheques to prove their wholehearted approval, and then move back to concentrate on their worldly career.

 

4.1

I returned from overseas knowing that I had no ministry, no church that I could work with, for the Uniting Church was now a reality: not even a church where I could comfortably participate in worship, for my areas of dissent were still a real barrier. I knew that the spiritual gifts such as healing, prophecy and tongues mentioned in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 were still available to His people today, but to the main-line evangelicals this doctrine was anathema: and I knew for certain that some of the prophets in Pentecostal circles were liars and that most of their 'signs and wonders' did not stand in the presence of God's tests of love and truth: so Pentecostalism was no haven for me. What would the Lord do with me?

He did not leave me idly wondering. Within a few days of my return I was visited by half a dozen women who had been among the 'regulars' during my ministry in the Presbyterian church.They said that they could not just accept that my ministry had ended; that they had continued to meet and pray during my absence, and that, furthermore, they had contact with a number of young adults – eighteen to thirty year old age group – who might well be interested in the sort of ministry I could offer. These were people who had lost interest, for various reasons, in the normal church life, but still believed in Jesus, and still wanted to study the Bible. Would I set aside an evening to meet with some of them?

In this simple way a new work began. And my congregation was no longer to be composed mainly of middle-aged matrons, weighed down with problems of health and all the cares and anxieties of a growing family:  rather they were young, carefree, healthy people, still looking forward to life as a challenging adventure; still with minds open to discuss and debate; their eyes and ears not yet dimmed to the understanding of what a Christian life might be, even today. It promised to be a very different sort of ministry. I was exuberantly enthusiastic.

I tried in vain to get the use of a church or church hall in which to hold a week-night meeting. Such places were often available to Scout Meetings or Ballet classes, but their doors were firmly locked against me. I took a look at my house. It had a very large living area, and there was reasonable parking for cars. We would meet at my home.

We began on Tuesday nights with open, rather unorganised sharing:  Bible study, church history, Old Testament history, theological questionings, testimonies, prayer times, planning for outreach – whatever the group wanted I went along with, believing that, wherever they began their search in this great 'sea' of Christian knowledge, they would find Jesus if they truly wanted to know Him. The parameters I set were that the program we followed was related to our actual Christian walk, and that we pursued each issue with an emphasis on truth, not just endless, though enjoyable, argument and debate.

I saw no point in just mutually airing experiences and feelings, criticisms and hypotheses; for the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and we must allow Him to lead us into a place of one accord with Him. We could not indefinitely discuss various issues and eventually agree to differ; for while the Holy Spirit, speaking through one of us, might agree with, enlarge upon, offer a deeper analysis of, an issue another has raised, He will not oppose or contradict Himself. I stressed that we must understand this clearly. Jesus is the Spirit of Truth, (John 16.13) and He is the Way and the Truth and the Life, (John 14.6) and as we know His Truth we must make our stand and actually live by that Truth.

The group gradually enlarged and stabilized at about three dozen young people. We decided to meet on Sunday nights as well, for a more orderly time of worship – hymns, prayers and teachings. And as we got to know one another better over the weeks, the subject of Communion was discussed. Were we a church, in the original New Testament concept of a church, and, if so, shouldn't we be sharing Communion? I prayed about this, linking it with my own long-time unfulfilled yearning for a proper church home for myself. Eventually I shared something of this background with the group, and said I was prepared to lead a Communion Service each Sunday.

For me, this became the joyous answer to all those years of earnestly seeking the Lord's Will in this matter of church membership. No longer did I have to go through seemingly endless agonies of looking for a church where I could know the Presence of the Lord and also be really free to serve Him as He was leading me. He seemed to be saying to me, as I looked at these eager young people "This is your church. Feed them."

But at this very point of mutually agreeing to share Communion together, a few people had 'second thoughts', and decided to leave us. It seemed that while they had enjoyed being part of a discussion group, they became uneasy when we thus became a 'church' – I had gone too far in introducing a Communion Service, they said, and withdrew back into the safety of a main-line denomination where priests were Priests, properly ordained by Bishops, and pastors were Reverends, properly 'called' by a legitimate church body with a name and a status and a Bank Account. They became fearful of the freedom in which we now began to walk. We were left with some thirty 'members', more than two-thirds of them young, unattached adults; the rest were the people who had supported my meetings over the past six years or so, and who had been largely instrumental in gathering up this new group of young people.

From here on my story centres around my strivings to bring these people to a place of really knowing the Presence of the Lord, of confidently walking in His way, to a spiritual maturity through which they could become true witnesses to the Grace of God in our world today.

 

4.2

Several of our young members shared rental accommodation; others lived at home, but yearned for the time when they too could be really independent. Over time, there began talk of some of them actually living together as a Christian Community, and the question was put to me whether our Ministry could provide such a house.

To me it was a startling idea. We never had much money come through our hands, and we never needed it. I received only a minimal reimbursement for any large out-of-pocket expenses; we had a small fund to help people in emergency and distress, and that was all. And here were a group of people talking about the possibility of the Ministry buying a house! I was not enthusiastic at the thought of us becoming the sort of organization that could handle such a long-term commitment with its on-going practical responsibilities.

Yet the idea of ‘community’ continued to surface, till I felt that I had to address it seriously: I had, after all, encouraged them to seek the Lord’s will for their daily lives. All things were possible, I said, if we were tuned to the will of the Lord, so we should take two exploratory steps: let us consider, first, who would actually want to live in such a ‘community’; and secondly, whether we had any hope of financing such a project.

So, from the younger ones, I asked for a written application from those who would like to form a live-in community; and, from the total membership, I asked for written offers of financial support for such an acquisition, whether a lump sum as a gift or as a loan towards a deposit on a house, or a regular offering towards the mortgage repayments. Within a week we had seven applications to live in such a house, promises of about $4,000, and offers of furniture. To buy a house at that time in the general area in which I lived would cost us about $40,000. With a 10% deposit in hand we could certainly continue to explore the project. (Interestingly enough, none of us even thought of the possibility of just renting a house!

The process of events after this point of decision was quite remarkable. The house next door to mine was rented to very noisy tenants which led me to find out through the local Council who the owners were, and to write asking them if they were interested in selling the house. I also went to the nearest bank and asked about the possibility of a group like ours getting a loan to buy a house.

The Bank Manager was politely distant when I mentioned a deposit of $4,000 on a $40,000 property He suggested that I go to a Building Society, where such a low deposit was more likely to be acceptable. I felt the Lord had sent me to him, so I pressed him to say what size deposit he would need from us to consider giving us a loan. His answer was $20,000. Meanwhile the owners of the house had responded to my query saying that they were, in fact, thinking of selling the house, and that the price would be $43,000.

So we needed $20,000 deposit to get a mortgage from the bank I had been led to; and I felt that the Lord was telling me to offer $38,000 for the house. We had a deposit of only $4,000; and the purchase price quoted for the house was $5,000 higher than the figure I felt the Lord was giving me. I wondered whether my guidance might not have been from the Lord don’t we all hear attractive but wrong voices at times! I replied to the owners saying that I had envisaged a value of $38,000 for the house; this was so far below their expectations that it was useless to consider the matter any further. And I told the Ministry all that had happened, and suggested that we just forget the whole project for the time being.If the Lord was with us in it all, something more would happen.

And something more did happen! Within the week, the house owners had written again, dropping their price a little. I wrote back apologetically, saying we could not consider anything more than $38,000, that we had no assurance of getting a loan even at that price, and we were sorry to have raised their hopes of a sale to us. A couple more letters were exchanged, and they said we could have the house for $38,000! Subsequently their Real Estate Agent assured us that what we had offered was in fact a very fair market price.

(Some readers may be wondering why I write of the need for $40,000 when my guidance re the price of the house was $38,000. Anyone who has ever bought a house will understand the additional costs of establishing the mortgage, paying government stamp duty, paying adjustments to rates, and arranging insurance. We needed the full $40,000.)

But yet no Contract was entered into. I was convinced now that if the Lord was truly with us in this, we were to stay with the same bank, which meant a $20,000 deposit. We talked and prayed, and people began writing cheques of a size which really cost them. Within another couple of weeks our bank balance was a healthy $18,000. Could this satisfy the Bank Manager? Then in the post came another Bank Cheque for $2,000. To this day I do not know its source! The Lord had provided! He was truly guiding us, caring for us. As a group we could say “The Lord has achieved this for us!”

I returned jubilantly to the Bank Manager. It was little more than a month since out previous talk. “Tell me,” he said, "How did you raise another $16,000 in four weeks?" "It's a long story," I said, "if you've got time to listen." He listened, quite intrigued.; He promised us our loan; we made a formal offer for the house, which was accepted.; The noisy tenants shifted out quite speedily; within a mere three months of our original enquiries on the matter, we had possession of our Community House.

The house had only three bedrooms, but was of a style which could easily be extended when needed. So we looked at our seven applicants, and prayerfully chose three to be our first community men. Two moved in immediately; the third had a problem: he had failed his final university exams, and his father would only support him to repeat his year if he left our group. He apologetically disappeared from our midst. We invited another man to fill his place. He moved in, but managed not to completely move out of his existing accommodation, where he felt he ought to continue to 'witness' to a couple of 'unsaved' people.   At the end of about six months of his trying unsuccessfully to sort out his priorities between the two houses, we felt he must be pushed to make a definite decision. He chose to leave our Community House and return completely to his previous residence.

The other three people who had applied to live in our house were rather immature young ladies who really all wanted to live together. I did not feel it right to invite one of them to move in with the two young men. Rather we began to talk in terms of providing a second house once this first project was running smoothly.But by the time a further six months had passed, it was apparent that each of these young women had by now changed her life-plan and, while hanging on in the Ministry, yet had no further interest in pressing for a second Community House. The subject was never raised again.

I had to struggle with some disappointment that, after all our talking and praying, after all the Lord's goodness in enabling us to acquire this house, we had only two young men wanting to live there: but I was determined to make this place more and more surely God's house. It became the venue for all our meetings; everyone enjoyed its open doors as a 'drop-in' centre; and the spare bedroom was used for all the usual range of 'emergencies'. The rest of the Ministry continued faithful in their financial support of the project, so we never had any problems in meeting our new monetary commitments. And within the two young men was a growing awareness that their life was – or at least should be – in the guiding hands of the Lord.

They asked for more help with Bible Study; when we shared meals together their talk was more spiritual; later, they decided they would like to wear some sort of cassock, and, after much discussion and pleadings, I got out my sewing machine and made them rough brown tunics which must have made them look a bit like the original Franciscans! They loved them: it made me think of the betrothed maiden showing off her engagement ring! They were saying, "Look, we belong to Christ!"

I am sure I assumed that the added amenities of the Community House along with the enthusiastic life of the two residents would encourage the rest of the people to a greater spiritual maturity. But it did not develop in that way. Rather, the people began to look to our two 'community men' as being 'set apart' as future leaders, and so began to treat them differently and pray for them differently. The 'community men' were expected to live and witness at a higher spiritual level, while for the rest the excuse of 'worldly cares' was much more acceptable! The 'community men' were expected to be the 'doers', while the rest of the people were gradually becoming mere 'supporters'. The two men themselves were changing and beginning to accept this new role that their colleagues were putting upon them, and, looking back now, I realise the seeds were being sown for the development of the typical churchly separation between laity and clergy.

However, I am looking too far ahead! For the next twelve months we all pressed on expectantly. We did not concern ourselves over-much with 'out-reach'; we concentrated on 'growing up' as a body. We worshipped, we prayed, we did intensive Bible Study – some of our younger ones started learning New Testament Greek – and we talked and shared. We visited other churches, prayerfully sat through their worship, amicably chatted with their members afterwards, as we had opportunity – and afterwards talked about what we had learned and seen and felt there. We saw the failings, the blindnesses, the hypocrisies which passed for so much of Christianity today, and we strove to walk more surely in the way of Christ. We pondered texts like " . . . . . the sheep follow Him because they know His voice. And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers." (John 10.4-5) and tried to understand and have victory over those other voices which we knew so often led us up 'dead-ends'; we tried to grow in faith and trust and love and grace.

 

4.3

A little more than a year after we had acquired our Community House, our two resident men started talking about a bigger project – a larger, purpose-built Community House on the outskirts of suburbia, with a few acres of land, which would be a buffer zone between us and the rest of the world, and a place where people could come and stay a while, and ponder their need for Christ.

My immediate response to them and their idea was two-fold. First, that as their experience in 'community' was only a year old; wasn't it premature to think of moving on so soon? Then, secondly, what would their own personal commitment be in relation to such an extended project? Then I had further musings as no one else was presently talking about living in a community house and to move further out would put a burden of more travelling time upon most of our members. Would the whole ministry really be committed to such an expanded work?

The response of the two men was to commit themselves to a life of celibacy for the work of the Lord through the Ministry, as and where He led. This was a very dramatic turn of events, not to be easily ignored. I had been teaching them to listen for the Lord's voice and act on it: I myself heard no resounding "No" from God, so I decided that they should be allowed to follow the idea through prayerfully and see what came of it, even as we had done in the process of acquiring our existing house.

So the men talked with the rest of the Ministry, who were quite happy to further investigate the idea. They looked at the financial situation, and decided that it was possible; then they asked me, as the person with the most flexible day-time hours, to start looking out for a suitable location.&

For me there was still no word from the Lord for or against the project, so I did as they asked, and for several months I perused Real Estate advertisements and trod prayerfully over acres of soil. But nothing felt right. There was one acreage which looked possible, but investigation into Town Planning revealed that the present solitude there could be very short-lived. We actually made an offer on another beautiful site, but the owner decided to withdraw the property from the market. I was ready to say that God was not with us in this endeavour.

Then my husband died suddenly, and, since my children were all by now married, I found myself living alone. I was soon announcing that it was right for me to move into 'community' myself, and perform the 'motherly chores' for the men; and we resumed our search for a new larger property, more suitable to our expanded needs.

Within weeks I was looking at a place for which there came a great Amen from my heart. It was a large and unusual house, which could easily be adapted to our community life-style, even having the potential for our own chapel. It did not have its own acreage, but it fronted onto a large lake, with extensive public parklands. There was only one close neighbour – a tiny little cottage next door, currently rented; and the Lord seemed to be showing me that this could be bought in due course, and could be suitably furnished and used in those many situations where it was good to be able to offer a needy person a few nights accommodation.

Everyone in the Ministry viewed the property, and agreed that it was just right for us. Finance was organised without any problems, our first community house was quickly sold, and my home rented out, and we were settled into our new location. Within weeks we had a visit from the owner of the cottage next door. He wondered if we would be interested in buying it – and we did!

Our new Community House was very large, with spacious rooms, but in parts it was in need of renovation. The cottage next door was in a terrible condition throughout. So we had many hours of 'busy bees' while we pealed off fading wallpaper, painted walls inside and outside, repaired window frames, made curtains, and so on. And all the people of the Ministry worked hard together, and joyfully, as week-by-week they knew the Lord's hand guiding our activity. And having our own chapel – an undercroft room set up permanently for worship, and used only for that purpose – was itself a great encouragement. The atmosphere of prayer, the Presence of God, seemed to linger in it.

After the excitement of settling-in had dissipated, I began to discover for myself the real stresses of community living. Here I was, at the age of fifty-five, having reared three daughters and seen them married off, and now enjoying my first grand-children, being 'mother' to two young men in their early twenties, two men who had publicly committed their life to the Lord's work. They had lived next door to me for nearly two years, during which time we thought we had got to know each other pretty well: but now we were meeting over the breakfast table, sharing a bathroom, begging to differ about what we should watch on television, discovering our different food tastes, and feeling that we were 'on call' without ceasing. There were tensions!

For the two men also it proved a much deeper commitment to live with me rather than just to live next door to me. I saw how much they were still content to 'agree to disagree' on many matters, and how they could take refuge behind the closed doors of their bedrooms rather than try to talk a problem through to a point of real truth. I began to see more clearly how much they could treat the Community House mainly as just a place to live, and as 'God's house' when there were meetings or visitors, at which time they sprang into 'spiritual life'. With me actually living with them, they were under much more pressure to really live for the Lord without ceasing.

For me, as well as accepting more deeply the responsibility of having these two men really grow up in the Lord, there was the daily discipline of cooking, cleaning, washing and mending for them: this was for me a far bigger task than it sounds, for in rearing my own family I had always had the luxury of household help! But I was able to accept the challenges of this new lifestyle with an ongoing sense of joy and hope that in our community witness the Lord would be glorified and our work for Him would develop.

I was able to take a long-term view as I watched our group of young adults grow in the Lord. By the end of our first year in our new home a third young man had joined our live-in community, our little 'guest house' was being well used, and it seemed that some of our people were getting to really live a Christian life – knowing their way round the Bible, learning to know the Lord's voice, moving in the wider society and sharing their faith as the Lord gave opportunity.

We developed a special way of sharing our Sunday worship, which potentially opened the worship pattern to all, and also gave us all an ongoing indication of each other's spiritual state. It worked like this: -

While I remained responsible for bringing the main message from the Lord – the 'sermon' – every member was encouraged to seek the Lord to bring some contribution to the worship hour – a Bible reading, a hymn, a pressing word from the Lord, maybe just a vague hunch about something we needed to bring to Him for guidance. And before our worship service we ate a meal together, and at the end of the meal each person shared what he had brought as his contribution to the worship. When we were walking strongly as a group, the spiritual fruits of this exercise were great – three people might each bring a different Bible passage which yet instructed on the same theme; four people might bring hymns which were exactly what were needed to surround the sermon theme; one person might tentatively introduce a topic which would occupy us for the next few weeks. In these ways we experienced God melding together a worship hour which we could present back to Him as a unified offering.

Not all of the contributions were actually used in the worship time; for example if there were ten appropriate hymns we decided, around the meal table, which three or four of them we would actually sing; if we had four Bible readings around the same theme, we would choose to use the one we felt spoke most clearly to us. But each of the four people who brought Scripture, and of the ten people who brought hymns would have the satisfaction of knowing that they had received and shared something from the Lord. And for those who sat silent was the challenge and the encouragement – they too could seek the Lord and bring a contribution next time.

Communion continued to have a central place in worship each week, being shared after the Lord's word for us had been preached. It was not just an 'in memoriam', (as in 1 Cor.11.24-25), but also that mysterious feeding upon the 'Body and Blood' without which we have no 'life', no 'abiding in Him', and no hope for 'eternity', (as in John 6.53-56). And, quite specifically, it was our empowering to go forth and live as He would have us do.

I felt I had reached a new pinnacle of satisfaction in my walk with the Lord. We had a beautiful house in a lovely situation; we had our own chapel and a special 'guest cottage'; we had a young enthusiastic congregation who had the will and the ability to also really walk with the Lord. I had three spiritual 'sons' who were especially in my care; and, for the first time in my life, I was able to give this work my undivided attention. I was completely free of all other worldly cares. Ministry was now my total life.

 

4.4

p; To be a real Christian it is not sufficient to merely believe, but we are also to actually walk with the Lord, to live with Him, for Him, in Him; to listen for His voice, and to obey it. When we stop walking, it is inevitable that we lose the knowledge of his Presence that we once had, for, in refusing to walk on, we have said "No" to Him, we have become children of disobedience, as the rest of the world.

As the years passed, so there came signs of stagnation in our group; some were beginning to say (or at least think) "I believe; I am saved; but I surely have a right to live my own life!” Some were yearning for more miracles, signs and wonders, thus falling into the Pentecostal error of seeking 'gifts' more ardently than the Presence of the Lord Himself. And so it was that even as some of the group continued to grow in faith, the diminution of real living faith became more and more apparent in others.

One of our two original community men became caught up in a false zeal to increase his faith: he found surreptitious ways to deceive us about his excessive fastings, and he experienced visions and voices which, over time, proved to be not from God. He also struggled despairingly with his relationship with his atheistic parents. He took several 'holidays' from Community, and eventually left us altogether. A couple of years further on, and our other original community man – he who had most ardently wanted to move to a larger property so that we could be more effective as a group – he also decided to leave our ranks completely. With neither of these men was it possible to talk constructively about the vows they had so enthusiastically made or the dreams they had dreamed of their future life with the Lord. Neither of them continued to walk with the Lord: they each got totally reabsorbed back into the ways of the world.

This left our third man, Greg, and myself living together in this big house, with a support group which had slightly increased in size, which was providing all the funds we needed for our activities, but from whom there were no requests to join us in Community. Our people spoke admiringly of the dedication with which Greg and I had given our lives to the Lord, while they clung tenaciously to that life which they had chosen for themselves before they had known Christ. More and more they were becoming content to see Greg and I as the 'Ministers', while they were the 'congregation'. We were in danger of becoming just another little independent church!

 

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The departure of our two original Community men, through whose enthusiasm we had been encouraged to move into this bigger property, was undoubtedly a great disappointment to us all, but after this there came another crisis in our midst which revealed in all of us the limits of our commitments and faith. One of our older women, Joan, who had joined the Ministry since we had moved to our new location and whom we knew had a history of 'nervous breakdowns' and was now taking minimal medication, really wanted to come off her tablets altogether. She had consulted her doctor who was willing that she could try.

In my career as a psychotherapist I had helped many patients do just that, and I knew that for some it was a simple matter of coping with not too unreasonable fears and doubts as the medical dosage slowly decreased, but that for some it was always going to be a really terrifying experience: so it was not lightly that I tried to encourage every one in the Ministry to be prepared to help Joan and her husband in whatever way they needed help during this time. I spoke of helping her with the daily chores of the household and being with her when she went shopping, and stressed that the most important thing was that Joan should be aware of our love, and need never feel deserted when she needed a companion. Her husband, who had been part of our ministry longer than his wife, had talked at length to her doctor about the whole plan, and was totally enthusiastic.

This project of 'helping Joan' occupied our Ministry for more than a month. At first she was just a little more nervous than usual – talking more, unable to sit still for long, starting chores and not finishing them: then she began to wander off in shops and parks, as little children get 'lost', and we saw the need for someone to be with her all the time. Then she began to use bad language and do unpredictable things – like suddenly jumping up and throwing something on the floor – though never doing any real damage to anything. As her hyper-activity increased, I began to suggest to her husband that he should not be too disappointed at the thought of failure, and that he must be responsible for speaking to her doctor and deciding at what stage it might be best to have her hospitalised again. But he did not want to do that yet, so we struggled on.

I began this story of Joan with the comment that it all revealed the limits of commitment and faith in the people of the Ministry. I am not referring to the fact that there proved to be no 'healing' for Joan, though this was certainly a sadness: I am referring to the fact that our people undertook to do a job – to help Joan and her husband through this time – and then failed them. Some quit after the first week, saying they just could not spare the time; others quit after Joan began to go down-hill, saying that they had become frightened of her: some, as I only learned after the whole episode was over, had been laying hands on her in prayer, which I had expressly asked them not to do, explaining to them, out of my Pentecostal experiences, why I was insisting on this: and some were just failing to go as promised, without arranging for anyone else to take their place on the roster, and sometimes without even letting her husband know that they were not coming.

Within three or four weeks there were just two of us – Greg and I – helping her husband to cope with a wife who had by now become quite manic. Her husband, in abject defeat, organised her return to a mental hospital, at which Joan – or the entity which now controlled her being – rushed down the back garden, leapt at the cross-bars of the rotary clothes hoist there, and circled round and round and round with victorious whoops, then went meekly off with the nurses who had come for her! A couple of weeks in hospital, back on her medication, and she was her 'normal' self again!

Joan's husband had coped with several such 'breakdowns' during their long marriage, and he did not appear to be unduly upset at the situation: but when he came to our next meeting he announced simply, without sharing anything, that he was leaving the Ministry, and walked out of our life. Our people were left feeling guilty and astonished and hurt. But also they now knew in their hearts that growing up in the Lord's service could be painful, costly, and frightening. To some, the more passive pew-sitting style of Christianity began to look more tempting again; and by their actions, week-by-week, they were revealing that, in their hearts, they had decided that they had grown far enough!

As our people, one by one, reached this 'plateau' beyond which they did not really want to grow, so our worship hour began to become more formalised, more stereotyped. The contributions offered became neutralised and harmless – favourite hymn tunes, caressingly reassuring psalms, and the sort of texts that emotional women tend to stick on their fridge doors! And our common meal together, which used to be so full of expectation for the worship hour ahead, became rather funereal. Mere worldly chatter had never been part of this gathering, so as there was little to say about the Lord's present work in our midst, there was little to say at all.

At length there came a Sunday when I had to announce that there was no Word from the Lord that day, nor did I think that there would be another Word, till we had each taken more seriously – and acted upon – the strong Words He had been giving us over the past few months – Words mostly about sanctification and holiness, about commitment and endurance; about being wholly His, for whatsoever He would choose for us to do.

Then, week after week I sought the Lord in vain for another message for them. Week after week I stood on Sundays and told them we could worship and pray, but there was no Word from Him to share with them; God had spoken, and He was waiting for them to respond. And slowly we saw the signs of a death-like spiritual paralysis move over the group. The gulf between us – Greg and I – and them became deeper and deeper; nothing we could say or do was able to change anything: it was as if each member individually had taken his stand – for each, this was a far as they chose to go.

Jesus said " . . .. take care how you listen: for whoever has, to him shall more be given; and whoever does not have, even what he thinks he has shall be taken away from him." (Luke 8.18) Awesome words!But our people could no longer tremble at them. The prophetic words of Isaiah chapter 6 were again upon our group – they would keep on listening and keep on looking, but their hearts had become insensitive, and it seemed that there was nothing more they would allow God to do with them.