Over on my church's sermon blog, we recently put up the following post:

Posting of Jubilee sermons will return with our Easter message which will be preached on April 16th. This pause is to give us the opportunity to share some personal messages specifically with our local church. If you are one of our regular internet listeners, please do take some time to pray for us that God will continue to abundantly lavish His grace on us, and that when we return to our regular messages they will have greater clarity and be more powerful and more relevant, both to our local church and to you our online listeners. If you would like to share any feedback with us about the messages you have been listening to, please email us at info@jubilee-church.org

Part of the reason for this pause was our Vision Casting Sunday last week and our annual Giving Day this Sunday. This past few weeks have been busy for me as I have played my part with the other leaders in working and praying towards this crucial day of our church year. You may have noticed a reduction in my blogging load here. That reduction in blogging content is likely to continue for a while longer as next Sunday we have a still more crucial service since it is literally the crux of the matter - our Easter guest service. Since I will be preaching, my focus for the next week or so in my limited spare time will be largely on that. So, I suspect that like our online preaching, my blogging may be subject to something of a pause.

Such a pause is no bad thing at times. Reflection on how we are doing, what works and what doesn't, and what our future direction should be is something we should all do from time to time concerning every venture in which we are involved.

This is your chance, as I am in a reflective mood, for you to share here what you feel works about this blog - what would you like to see more of, what less? It is an opportunity for me to reflect on how blogging is working for me and to think of the future.

In terms of the future of my local church, Tope shared on Sunday a new set of wording - five goals we are going to be aiming towards as a church in the coming years. I would love to hear your thoughts about these goals and what they mean to you. We will be aiming to be a people who are:

Together to Grow
We are unashamed about this - and have a strong desire to see people saved and added to our church. Whilst there is a single lost person in our surrounding area, how can we do anything else?

Together to Learn
We want to learn more and more in preaching, small groups, and other training courses to live the Bible's message.

Together to Care
We want our growing multicultural family to demonstrate the love of God in action.

Together to know God
Our core priority is intimacy with God in worship and prayer.

Together for the Nations
We dare to believe that we can play a roll in fulfilling God's global purposes through our giving and serving.

A corporate vision for the future impacts on every area of our lives, and as I think about this blog I cannot think of a better vision statement for me in my blogging than those five goals expressed above - it is strange that we can feel so together with our blogging buddies even though we are usually continents apart geographically and theologically!

I am praying that each of these goals will be worked out across the Christian blogging community; however, I do think we need to be careful that the sense of community online must never take the place of being part of the family of God in real life.

As I take some time out to reflect on my preaching, my church, my family, and most importantly my own relationship with God, ask yourself this - "Am I part of a local church that gives me a context wherein I can work towards each of these goals Adrian has shared?"

If the honest, measured, carefully considered answer is "no," then dare I say it - it's time for you to think about moving church or radically changing your own approach to and thinking about the church you are in.

Making good choices about such issues is far more important than anything you could ever say on a blog. I wish and pray that each of you will find yourself, like me, in the enviable position of being in a church to which you could well imagine giving the rest of your life and getting far more in return than you could ever give.

Who are YOU "together" with?