Disturb Us, Lord

“Thus says the Lord,... Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.  I am about to do a new thing; Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?” (Isaiah 43:18-19)

“Disturb us, Lord,

 When we are too pleased with 

     ourselves,

 When our dreams have come 

     true

 Because we have dreamed too little,

 When we arrived safely

 Because we sailed too close to the shore.

 Disturb us, Lord,

 When with the abundance of things we possess

 We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;

 Having fallen in love with life,

             We have ceased to dream of eternity

 And in our efforts to build a new earth,

 We have allowed our vision

 Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord,

To dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

            Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land,

We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back

The horizons of our hopes.

And to push us into the future

In strength, courage, hope, and love.”

[--Attributed to Sir Francis Drake, 1577]

This month our church’s Long Range Planning Committee will be unveiling the first draft a new VISION direction for our church for the next 5-6 years. The committee spent all of 2017 working, praying, researching, brainstorming, and discerning God’s guidance in understanding what this Vision might include and entail. And soon, our entire congregation will be invited to attend two “Town Hall” meetings where we’ll all be able to hear where the committee has landed thus far, and to give input, feedback, and suggestions for “next steps.”

Consequently, while we still have a few more church-wide steps to take before our Vision can be adopted and begin to be implemented, it will eventually become a framework/standard that will guide our work and direction as a body of Christ into the foreseeable future as we seek to be “Christians SERVING with love, CARING with compassion, and SHARING Christ with boldness.”

So, as we here at LaGrange First UMC begin to think about where God is leading, my prayer is that we would be open to being “disturbed” a bit out of our comfort zones in order to hear and understand God’s call and Vision for us as a church!  I’ve heard it said before, “if God’s going to be our partner, then we better be prepared to have some big plans!”  May that be true for each of us, both corporately as a church and individually in our personal lives, as well.  Remember, God loves you and I do, too!