By Dave Frodsham, lead elder, Jubilee Church Wirral

As I shared on Sunday, I want to restate that although it is a new year, we have the same vision.

Our vision details the sort of church we would like to be, what we sense God wants us to do and where we see ourselves going. Vision is the destination!

Our vision is to be An influencing church, releasing the kingdom of God to people, regions and nations.”

We also have a tagline of Touching Heaven, Changing Lives.

Our destination remains the same but our mission (our route) to that destination has changed as we go, as God has opened up new roads for us to travel along.

Mission is our route, but we also have a fundamental mission which is over all that we do to achieve our vision.  Jesus gave this mission for all disciples in Matthew 28:19-20:

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations…”

The route will sometimes change because we need to go round a hold-up or problem, or we want to get to the next part of the journey. Sometimes a new opportunity opens up, and we need to ask God whether this is the way He wants us to go.

Currently we our focusing on Sunday morning gatherings, running Alpha and the Jubilee Centre being a Life Hub serving different needs and CAP Wallasey Debt Centre.

The other thing that remains the same is our values – although we might focus on different ones in different seasons.

Fundamentally our values remain the same and we have highlighted six as our key pillars for how we do things.  There are, though, many other values that we hold such as:

• Being a church which is both in the word of God and full of the Spirit.
• Being a church which is multi-racial and multi-generational.

The values that we have expressed as a church are how we want to go about those missions.  Values are the vehicle of our travel! 

At Jubilee we are devoted to:

• Seeking God’s presence
• Being Family together
• Demonstrating courageous faith
• Being Generous
• Pursuing Excellence
• Giving Honour

I want to finish by illustrating our first value (seeking God’s presence) from a story in Exodus.

Here God offers the Israelites everything they might want: Freedom from slavery, protection, guidance, riches and a land flowing with milk and honey. BUT – blink and you might miss it – without Him.

Exodus 33:1–3 (ESV):
The LORD said to Moses, “Depart; go up from here, you and the people whom you have brought up out of the land of Egypt, to the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, saying, ‘To your offspring I will give it.’ I will send an angel before you, and I will drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; but I will not go up among you, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.”

Put yourself in their shoes. You are in the desert, and God is supplying your basics, and you are offered a new land with everything you want and need. How would you have responded?

They respond by saying this is a disastrous word – the gifts without the giver! They mourned because they had seen God do miraculous things and lead them in such a tangible way. They couldn’t see a life ahead without his presence.  They took off their jewellery and probably brought it to Moses and he intercedes for them (Exodus 33:15-16):

And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favour in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”

As a church we don’t want to go anywhere without God, so in 2023 we will keep to the vision and mission He has given us and the values He has put in us, and we will continue to touch heaven and change lives.

So let us keep seeking after God both as individuals and as a church, and we will see God directing and shaping us.

God bless,
Dave

Dave Frodsham, Jubilee Church Wirral