I am continually surprised at how quickly I lose sight of Jesus and start making my own plans.

Over the next week or so I will be doing a series of posts about what it means to work towards changing a community.

As I am preparing to head off to the U.K. to work with people who want to do just that, I want to have a crack at naming what I have learned over the last 20 years of ministry in a way that might help someone who is wanting to make a start.

Much of what I have learned has come through the mistakes I have made, and I am certainly not holding myself up as a model, but I have discovered someone else who might be a useful model to reflect on.

Nehemiah is a unique book because it is the journal of a man who was setting out to transform a community, and he is honest enough to record both the successes and the failures. He is also detailed enough to catch a glimpse of what he actually did.

As I have taken my own journey, I have come to appreciate Nehemiah. I have found myself in situations that feel, at least to me, similar to those he describes, and the choices he makes stand out as really helpful guides to anyone who wants to make a lasting difference in a specific community.

The first thing that stands out about Nehemiah is the personal relationship he had with God and his dependance on that relationship when things were tough. Nehemiah didn’t have the advantage we have of the availability of a personal relationship with Christ, but he sure held on to God tightly:

Nehemiah 1:4 (NIV)
When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven.

Nehemiah 2:4-5 (NIV)
The king said to me, “What is it you want?” Then I prayed to the God of heaven, [5] and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my ancestors are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

Nehemiah 4:9 (NIV)
But we prayed to our God and posted a guard day and night to meet this threat.

Nehemiah 6:8-9 (NIV)
I sent him this reply: “Nothing like what you are saying is happening; you are just making it up out of your head.” [9] They were all trying to frighten us, thinking, “Their hands will get too weak for the work, and it will not be completed.” But I prayed, “Now strengthen my hands.”

Probably the biggest lesson I have learned in the last 20 years is how easy it is to slip into trying to do God’s work without God. Regular readers of Faith Reflections will know that my favourite quote from Mother Theresa is:

Many people mistake our work for our vocation. Our vocation is the love of Jesus.

It is my favorite because it speaks to my strong tendency to lose sight of Jesus in the face of my work.

Henri Nouwen wrote:

“I know that I have to move from speaking about Jesus to letting him speak within me, from thinking about Jesus to letting him think within me, from acting for and with Jesus to letting him act through me. I know the only way for me to see the world is to see it through his eyes.”

The first, and most important thing I would want to share with anyone who is setting out to make a difference in a community is that you will most likely be entering a place where you will be in a continual temptation to grab the steering wheel of your own life and relegate Christ to the back seat. This will actually be your biggest battle.

I was interested to flick through the epistles yesterday and see just how central our relationship with Christ is from Paul’s perspective.

Romans 10:17 makes it clear that anything useful we will have to say or do will come from him:

Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word about Christ

1 Corinthians 1:28-31 makes it clear that its not about our strength or skill:

God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, [29] so that no one may boast before him. [30] It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. [31] Therefore, as it is written: “Let the one who boasts boast in the Lord.”

2 Corinthians 5:14-15 makes it clear that it is his love that is the source of our motivation and his life that is our purpose:

For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. [15] And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.

Galatians 6:14 makes it clear that Jesus is not only our most valuable asset in ministry, he is really our only asset:

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Ephesians 3:16-19 makes it clear this love in us is the engine room that drives our lives:

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, [17] so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, [18] may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, [19] and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Philippians 3:3 reminds us that confidence in anything but Jesus is misplaced:

For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh—

Colossians 2:6 -10 warns us against the temptation to think that anything else can take his place.

So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, [7] rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness. [8] See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ. [9] For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, [10] and in Christ you have been brought to fullness. He is the head over every power and authority.

I am continually surprised at how quickly I lose sight of Jesus and start making my own plans. Before getting to the specifics of what it means to reach out to a community, the need to continually be coming back to Christ and ensuring that it is he who is setting the agenda, is what I want to communicate up front.