Several weeks ago my grandson, Dylan, and I enlarged a shade garden that is on the side of my house. Dylan wanted to make a Granddad's garden and I thought that a great idea. He worked very hard digging up the sod that was pretty well impacted and then it was my turn to spade over the newly uncovered earth. We added some fresh soil and then we mulched the whole area. We now have some flowers planted in the plot and hope that it will grow to maturity. We have done all we can to assure the plants have a good start and now we can only leave the rest up to Mother Nature.
But wait; don't we have to feed the plants, water them, and weed the area, tie up the tall plants and make sure that the garden pests aren't eating the leaves! We can't just stand back and hope that all will be well with Granddad's garden if we don't care for it. Even in the winter it will need to be mulched and weeded and watered when we don't get any moisture, to ensure healthy plants continue to grow.
It's a bit like church when you stop to think about it. We select a place to hold our worship services. We prepare our area by making banners, and purchasing hymn books, by hiring a musician and giving her the instrument she needs to produce the music each week. We print our bulletins and we prepare the power point presentations. We have our fellowship groups in place, and we have our missions planned out. We have educational opportunities to offer. Now all we can do is stand back and leave the rest to God.
But wait; don't we have to continue in mission, continue reaching out to help those in need? Don't we still need to be out in the community, telling folk about what we have here and inviting them in? Don't we even now have to continue to offer opportunities for spiritual growth, sharing where we are on our faith journey and learning about how God is active in our lives?
Like the garden, we can't stand back and hope that all be well if we just coast along now. Even though we are well on our journey in building a new church we will need to carry on reaching out, to share our story, to offer classes and group experiences, to build good worship services and learn new music, to ensure that we keep growing.
If every one of us spends a little time in our church "garden" think of how well we will be able to "mature."