Author: Ron Baker

Often, when we are in the midst of life, there is nothing to be said.  You just continue on, stepping where there are rocks underfoot, and trusting that you won’t be blown off the path.

For me, these are the times that I enjoy the most.  A risk is taken and a project undertaken.  Once you are on the path, the refreshment is in the work itself.

So, yesterday and today I have not a lot to say about where we are headed as a group of people called the Kindersley Alliance church.  I’ve been checking things out (I prefer to call it “research” — sounds important).  I’ve been following up on phone calls.  And I’ve been letting God try and break through as I listen (maybe not as much as I should, but sometimes a sense of direction is coming).  Others I talk to also contribute there loonies worth (things are no longer two cents worth, but I’m not sure I want to call some of the ideas “loonies”).

What can I say?  Not much — let’s just see where things go!

I’ve been told just an hour down the road is a town with lower house prices.  Turns out it’s true!!

My wife, Jill, went with my sister to Rosetown today.  They snapped pictures.  They viewed four houses.  They compared perspectives.

In the end, Jill found a place we would have loved.  For $50,000 cheaper than in Kindersley. 

We’re not moving!  But if we were . . . a cheaper house is just down the road.

As one Edmontonian proclaims — “Saskatchewan is the great undiscovered country!”

And imagine, in the great undiscovered country there are even places that are even more undiscovered!

Can I summarize the things that we as a board are sensing God is calling us to for the coming year  (a most awkward sentence — but you get the idea)?

Our year’s motto?  “The year of the impossible”  

For each of us around the table Saturday, this past year has been one where God has been molding us.  Our lives need more than we can possibly do for ourselves.  We were once again impressed to realize that a full life is truly impossible — without God!!  But with God, this can be the year of the impossible!  A year where we step out and expect God to be there, where God will do above and beyond what we can ask or even think, or even dream.

Faith in action is risky. 

One of the areas we need to attack this year is understanding the needs of people in order to reach out to them with the love of Jesus.  We need to look around us and understand where people are at.  That means by April of next year we would like to do some “surveying” to be sure we are on the same page — on the same page as our neighbours, our friends, community people and work place acquaintances.  We need to understand our own stories so that we can speak to people about how God has touched our lives in ways that will relate to their own situations. 

We need to speak to them of the hope they can find in God through Jesus. 

We need to be in such a place that our actions of love will create a buzz of talk about God. 

We need to be In such a place that as people see what God is doing — the things that can only be “God things” — they will be pushing in to see what God can do for them.

An impossible order!

So be it.  Let’s see it!!

We finished our board retreat at noon today.

A local restaurant beckoned — off we headed to the Crossroads Restaurant.  On the crossroads of highway 7 and 21, the food was great.  After “vision” discussions and “thinking ahead” planning, just talking about hockey was fun!

Stay tuned tomorrow to see what we came up with (I want the church to hear this first thing tomorrow morning during the worship service — tune in around 2:00 in the afternoon and you’ll find this posted)!