Can anything change when you do the same thing in the same way?

It was great to have Dave and Liz Holden with us last Sunday at The King's Church Mid-Sussex. They are good friends and a great support and encouragement to all that we are doing together as a local church.  Dave spoke from Luke 5 and it was a hugely encouraging message.  If you were away let me encourage you to listen to it - you can download it here.

In Luke 5 the disciples had been out fishing all night and had caught nothing. Not a kipper! Then Jesus (a carpenter!) turns up and tells them to go out into the lake and put their nets down again. You can imagine how the disciples may have wanted to respond! 'We've been out all night Jesus - trust us when we say there's no fish out there'. Yet because it was Jesus they went, and incredibly they caught so many fish that it nearly sunk their boat.

They did the same thing in the same way - in the same boat, with the same nets, in the same place yet because Jesus had spoken they saw a miracle happen.

As we start a new term at The King's Church, much of what we are doing feels very familiar. We are still meeting every Sunday, we are running Alpha again, we are having a prayer room and prayer week again - the same place, the same boats, the same nets.

And it can be tempting to react like the disciples in the story: "Jesus we have been toiling all night and there's nothing out there." 

But when Jesus speaks, when Jesus acts, these familiar boats and nets can suddenly become a means by which we see miraculous things take place.



We believe that God has spoken to us as a church. I can remember a prophetic word from twelve years ago that spoke of a dam breaking over Mid-Sussex and that we'd be overwhelmed by it, much like the disciples were overwhelmed by their catch of fish. I don't believe we've seen the fulfilment of that word yet.

More recently, as we made the change from running one to two morning meetings, we sensed God saying that he already knew the name of every person who would come and fill the empty chairs that were now evident through running two smaller meetings. Someone else felt God say that we would not have enough capacity in two meetings and that, soon, we'd need to be adding a third meeting into our weekly schedule. Another person had a dream of the walls of HOME Coffee House being lined with hundreds of books, each one telling the story of someone who had encountered God through the life of our church.

We live with many prophetic promises. So yes, its September again, we are running Alpha again, we are having a prayer week again - but as we let out these nets in the same place, from the same boat - let's believe what Jesus has promised us. Hundreds of lives impacted by the good news of the gospel.

This Sunday (10 September) is Vision Sunday and then we head into our week of prayer. I can't wait. We heard stories all summer about revival, and how revivals start in a prayer meeting. Who knows what God may do as we gather to pray next week. See you there!