Chris was recently in the Middle East, visiting Hope Church members, when another visiting couple gave him a prophetic word about Hope Church.
They said, "Hope Church is to be a battleship, like an aircraft carrier, not a cruiseship."
On cruiseships, you have lots of passengers and the job of all the staff is to entertain and make life for the passengers as comfortable as possible. This is not to be what Hope Church is all about.
God is calling you to be like a battleship. On battleships there are no passengers. Everyone has a role to fulfil in the mission that the ship has been given.
On many of these they have runways for take off and landing. Many people are coming to Hope Church and it's good that you receive them, support them, mend any wounds etc, but then you equip them, train them and prepare them for the mission.
It's wonderful that you have people out in the middle east,
but where is the next plane taking off for mission?
For each plane that might take off, it will require 100 staff, to help train, equip, navigate, feed and prepare for that journey. Every single person in Hope Church, whether they get on a plane themselves or not, is part of the great mission to the ends of the earth. We have a captain, in King Jesus, whom we all follow, so lets work together to serve him.
2 additional considerations for Hope Church.
In 2022 Guy Miller (Leader of the Commission family of churches) gave us a similar picture about a battleship. He said, that he saw 2 main decks. One deck was a training deck - he could see us being significant in raising up and training people for God's mission, especially students who come to our city. The second deck was a children's deck. He saw a significant ministry to young people from our church and encouraged us to relish the challenges that come with having many young people among us.
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