Who is Doing the Work?

I've been doing my best to seek God's will for this coming ministry year. As I started praying for direction and praying that he would use us to reach the kids, God led me to pray differently. He told me to just pray for the kids themselves and for God to reach them and push back the evil in this city. For me, this was a paradigm shift. Because we're the children's outreach ministry, we can think that it's all about finding out what we need to do in order for God to reach the kids. This can be especially be true for me, because as the paid leader of this ministry, I feel obligated to fill my time at the church doing...stuff.

But the reality is that God is the one that will reach the kids. Only he can find them, only he can save them, and only he can transform their lives. Now don't get me wrong; I still believe that in the end God ultimately uses his people to reach others. We are still the bearers of the Good News, whether it's by our actions or by our words. But I can't help but think that there is still too much emphasis on the doing of all the stuff that we think is needed to reach the kids of Kelowna. I can't help but think of those Transformation videos that many of us have seen. They're basically documentaries of how God moved in and totally changed whole cities. These "transformations" didn't take place because of clever and elaborate programs set up by pastors and volunteers who worked themselves to the bone. From what I can remember, there were two things that led to those great moves of God. One was a unity amongst the churches. The second was lots and lots of prayer that God would come and move and push back the forces that were oppressing the people. Eventually God did come in power and answered those prayers. And in the end, the churches were there to bring in the harvest. It was probably a lot of work and they probably did set up programs to handle all the needs and disciple new believers.

So maybe I'm just saying that we could be putting the cart before the horse. We plan and then pray that God would bless the plans and the subsequent work. Sometimes we do pray first, but even then it's mostly for God to tell us what to do next. What if we stopped being so uptight about what needs to be done next, and simply started praying that God would be the one to do something next? I'm not suggesting that we cancel the things that we are doing, but I'd like to spend a whole bunch more time praying for God himself to come and do his work before I worry about what else needs to be done.

Now that I've stirred the pot, what are you thinking? Do you understand what I'm trying to say? Do you agree/disagree? Are you with me? Post your comments below...