By Not Known
Most of us plan. We plan our shopping, work tasks, holidays, finance, fitness regimes, eating and such like. We plan because it makes us more effective at being what we want to be and doing what we want to do.
God plans and everything moves according to his plan (Eph 1:11). We Presbyterian Christians like to emphasise the sovereignty of God. That’s another way of saying that “God rules and plans”. And he rules big time as the whole universe of space and time is brought within his plans.
The following words give us a glimpse of God’s big plan:
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the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord (Is 11:9)
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the whole creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Rom 8:21)
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so that God may be all in all (1 Cor 15:28)
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to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ (Eph 1:10)
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a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1).
God’s big plan is to honour his own name by restoring the whole created order to its rightful place in and under him. He executes this plan through Jesus to whom the creation is entrusted for salvation.
God also has plans for his church. Our role is to tell people everywhere about Jesus with the goal that they believe and are baptised and then grow from converts into disciples by learning and acting on Jesus’ teaching (Matt 28:19-20). We are to do that depending on the presence of Jesus through his energising Holy Spirit.
What about the plans of the church? We must both plan our ministry and plan it around God’s goals. The alternate is a church that gently drifts through the decades with no sense of direction. Or a church that is efficient, but not effective for God because we are driven by our goals and not his. The ORPC Ministry Plan 2006-2015 is our attempt to turn God’s goals for his church into specific ministry goals and action plans. (Copies are available in the Dunman Hall racks.) Do pray that our ongoing plans will echo God’s heart and that we will be effective in his mission.
David Burke