Poem from Elim Bible Week Ireland this morning (18th June, 2012)
We need healing, Lord!
Our spiritual myopia
Is eroding our vision
of a bigger plan.
So the inevitable
Collision
Of our church Utopia
With the limited
scope it has
Is making us
more comfortable
than we should be.
Our ground is getting
smaller,
So we get a bigger crowd
but on a smaller space
And we make the music loud
enough to drown out the cries
of the broken
and the poor.
Bigger congregations
won't answer segregation.
Locking ourselves in prayer
won't show that we care.
Enjoying when we meet
won't change the street.
Becoming more respectable
won't change the spectacle
Of communities that need
Hope infused
Sin refused
Tension defused
Satan confused
Saints enthused
We need healing, Lord.
New eyes to see
New ears to hear
That You are here!
Faith to believe that You win.
Courage to push the envelope
Until You envelop
People
Streets
Communities
Towns
Nations
Continents
And turn the world
Right way up.
We don't need bigger buildings
We need bigger hearts.
We don't need to increase our capacity for seats,
We need to increase our capacity to love.
We don't need more blessing
We need to be blessing more.
We don't need more grace,
We need to be more gracious.
We don't need more of God,
God needs more of us.
There isn't an answer around the corner
We are the answers hiding in a corner.
God doesn't need to fit into our plans
We need to fit into God's
And His plan is change from the inside out.
Hope from the foetus of faith
To the adulthood of the Kingdom
Courage that pushes us out
Birthing pangs that scream a declaration
Through the heavenlies
HE IS HERE.
God won in the Jerusalem dirt
When Christ was planted
Like a seed in the ground
Beside Golgotha's mound
And three days later
The Seed pushed through the earth...
The plant has been growing ever since
And we are now It's seed
Called to germinate
To propagate
To profligate
The Gospel.
God wins.
(c) Malcolm J Duncan