New Life Brighton - Hot, Cold, Lukewarm? #1

Dear brothers and sisters,

Point 1 - Our situation

As a church, you will now be aware, we are in a ‘sticky’ situation to say the least. If all continues as things are, the church will close in less than six months because we will have run out of money.

Point 2 - Jesus is with us

However, there is every reason to believe the Lord is, absolutely, 100% with us … 

• Conversions
• A genuine sense of His presence during Sunday services
• Additions to the church (Bob and Lou, Most recently Mary (if she continues with us - for our encouragement, she text me the Sunday before last saying … “Hello Pastor, I am going to London today so will not be at Church. I had an amazing time last Sunday. Stay blessed.”)) 
• A will from other churches to support us. Eg, I got an email from Jon Hobbs at Grace Community Church, telling us how encouraged they were to hear most recently about how the Lord has worked, and that they will be increasing their support of us from next Sept from 2k to 3k per year, and that they may be able to do more as they grow, but cannot commit to more at the present time. The subtext here is, “we believe God is with you, we recognise the huge value of NLC and we are rooting for you and want to do what we can to help!”
• Two members from Grace Church have also volunteered to serve us when John Gillespie comes. Again, a tangible expression of God being with us.

More could be said - the point is, Jesus unquestionably loves us and values our church. He has no desire to close us down at all. He has plans and a future for us without doubt. 

Therefore … with all that follows, please take hold of, and do not let go of the unshakeable truth, Jesus is with us, is for us and has a glorious future for us.

Point 3 - Money is not our problem

However, we have every reason to believe that Jesus is not in a flap because he doesn’t have any money left for us. If Jesus cannot raise the funds we need to save the church - He really is not much of a Saviour - in fact, if that were the case - He is no Saviour! Money may be Hi mechanism for closing us, but it is not the reason.

Point 4 - ‘Something’ needs to change.

Therefore, we have good reason to believe that, if we do run out of money, it is because Jesus has chosen to shut us down. He wasn’t trying to save us because He thinks we are worthwhile but couldn’t. Jesus does not fail - ever. We can all see Jesus’ proverbial writing on the wall, in our plain sight which reads, “You have 5-6 months, and if ‘something’ does not change, I will shut you down”. That much we know.

Perhaps the ‘something’ that changes is, a sudden influx of external financial donors that meets our financial deficit. That would certainly cause the writing on the wall to disappear. Or perhaps the ‘something’ that changes is something to do with our church - perhaps we just need to change our strategy? Or perhaps the ‘something’ is that there is an Achan in the church (Joshua 7), and the ‘something’ that changes is that the ‘Achan' repents, or the Lord exposes their sin so that we put them out of the church. Or perhaps the ‘something’ that changes is something about us as a church - a lukewarmness is changed to a ‘hotness’.

The question for us is, “What is the ‘something’ that needs to change?” If nothing changes, we will close. Is the ‘something’, something to do with us as a church or is it something else?