Courage

J Oswald Sanders, the director of China Inland Mission early last century, once said "A great deal more failure is the result of an excess of caution than of bold experimentation with new ideas. The frontiers of the Kingdom of God were never advanced by men and women of caution". Mission has always been, and always will be, a risky business. Mission wil always require boldness, courage and a willingness to fail. Whether is it simply the courage to speak to you work colleague about what Jesus means to you, starting a new cluster or stepping out into mission overseas mission requires courage. Unfortuantely courage isn't an attitude easily found in church life.

I'm sure that at some point you have watched the Wizard of Oz and remember the cowardly lion. The lion wanted to find the wizard so that the wizard could magic up some courage for him because he was tied of being afraid. Lions are meant to be big fearless ferocious creatures but this one was a wimp! What he discovered at the end of the story is that courage isn't the absence of fear it is doing the right things in spite of fear. Courage is not letting fear paralyse us.

For the Christian courage is about recognising that fear need not paralyse us. Why? because "God will be with you wherever you go". If God is for us who can be against us. We are meant to be a people who are salt and light in our community, a people who are healing the sick and casting out demons, a people who are prophetically speaking to individuals and nations, not hiding away in buildings too afraid to do anything different or new.

is fear in some way paralysing the missional drive God has placed in your Spirit. Maybe today is a day to repent and believe?