September 12, 2015 • 0

New.

Here are some thoughts that Rich has shared on his return to work from sabbatical over the summer, as we look ahead to the start of a new season:

It’s a new start, but not just because it’s a new academic year. For us we have new starts everywhere – team members living in new cities and new ministries being birthed.

New is a word that has a variety of emotions attached to it. For some their eyes light up. For others their shoulders slump. For some their hearts leap and for others their hearts sink. Before the summer we launched a Community of Practice gathering with 5 national teams who are becoming our training partners and taking responsibility for the training work of discipleship and mission in their nations. There were 5 teams there that represented 12 nations between them. New.

This gathering signifies the birthing point of a relational network for the discipleship & mission movement across Europe. But more on that in the coming months…

New cities & new ministries. Anna and I have moved to Edinburgh with a small number of our team. You can read some of the journey here. New books are coming – one of which you can read about below. New workshops in different cities. New learning communities in different nations.New. It’s exciting and unnerving – all at once. I have been reflecting on the journey of our family and team as we engage in new relationships, live in new territory, dream new dreams and look ahead to what is coming. It brings both a great sense of adventure and a great sense of vulnerability. I imagine this is very much how the disciples felt as they were sent out by Jesus – ‘lambs amongst wolves’ is the vivid and emotive picture that Jesus painted for them!

I am seeking to allow God to work in me and through me with this ‘new’. When things are new all your senses are heightened. You notice things that you may have missed before. You feel things that you haven’t felt for a while. As I have tried to allow God to work, New has brought up for me two key things to engage with:

Intimacy & Dependence.

I am allowing these heightened senses to help me be more aware of God and draw me closer to intimacy with him and with all the aspects of New that I am working out – everything from bus routes & schedules to people & relationships. I am allowing God to grow my dependence on him to a greater level.

As I grow this life of intimacy and dependence, my question at the moment is “how can I become both deeper in love & closer in step with Jesus and see the greater things that New will bring?”

Rich leads 3DM Europe with his wife Anna. Rich and Anna are passionate about living as a family on mission and catalysing movements of missional leaders who are learning how to take hold of that for which Christ has taken hold of them. Along with some of their team, Rich and Anna have recently moved to Edinburgh with their three children – Josiah, Esther and Samuel.