I have shared already in another post about how God spoke to me at Colour conference this year on the importance of my role and calling as a mum, but over the past couple of months I have seen that I have another mission field as well as my family, and I was already in it I just didn't see it!!
You see this year I took on the role of overseeing cubbyhouse which is the 1-3 year olds at my church. I put my hand up for the role when I saw that it needed filling and felt that I was ready to get more involved in church after just serving once a month last year. It sounds simple enough, see a need fill a need, but I was not quite prepared for what the job entailed. I loved being with the kids, but leading a team was much harder that I anticipated, actually recruiting team, ensuring they show up, training people, it turned out to be a very daunting task and after the first couple of months of the year I wondered what on earth I had gotten myself into and wanted to quit. The beauty of when God enlarges you though is that He equips you too and I found myself under the direction of some great leadership who sat with me while I vented (and on a few occasions cried), offered practical suggestions and sought to make sure I was trained for the task. Part of that training was to do a 7 week leadership subject at Hillsong evening college and during those weeks something changed in me.
During those weeks I caught the vision of Hillsong church. I've been going here for 3 years but to be honest I still felt new, after being a Baptist girl for 35 years and being in a church where you knew everybody this was a huge shift for me to make, one that I knew was from God but making this place home has taken time, it's been a process and it took a lot of grieving on my part to leave a church that had been my home for so long. I've made friends here and had gotten a little bit involved, but it often still felt all overwhelming to this small church girl. But during those 7 weeks hearing different speakers and discussing things afterwards with our small group I began to understand the heart behind everything that happens at church, a heartbeat and vision that sees every little thing we do as a mission to share Jesus, glorify God and help people feel welcome in what is God's house here on earth. Whether it be directing people to a parking spot, saying hello at the door, cooking a sausage, looking after children, it's all part of a big body working together so that people can meet with Jesus. I had never truly grasped that before and began to get excited that I am part of a place with such vision and focus, for what happens on Sundays, but also way beyond that with citycare, street teams, school mentoring, prison ministry to name a few, as well as partnering to help overseas with orphans, disabled children, fighting human trafficking and many other things.
People say many things about Hillsong, I have heard them all, sometimes those criticisms have come from people close to me and have hurt, but I have come to see what an enormous privilege it is to be a part of this house. A house where I have flourished through incredible teaching, incredible worship, seen amazing generosity, it all comes from a heartbeat and vision focused on being a glorious bride on the earth for Jesus. When you catch a vision like that it changes you!! I started hearing things in that leadership course that inspired and encouraged me like a throw away comment in one session about bringing skills to church and of all things he mentioned people throwing great kids birthday parties, well hello that's right up my alley and I realised I had never translated that kind of creativity into our kids ministry and suddenly saw new opportunities to really sow into Sunday mornings with skills I had never thought of as spiritual gifts.
That was only half of it, I also started to grasp the mission calling in what I was already doing. I have always felt a calling to work with children, I had thought when I was younger I would be a teacher on the mission field or work overseas in an orphanage, but God gave me revelation that my calling is right where I am, doing what i'm doing with what God has placed in my hand. As I look after children while their parents go to church I am 'facilitating miracles' (another comment from the course) as the adults meet with God, some of them for the very first time, but I am not just babysitting, I am also introducing those children to Jesus as well. The very last night of the course was taught by one of the children's pastors and his passion for seeing young hearts meet God fired up something inside me, I signed up the next day to do kids at Hillsong conference. What God did there was truly amazing!
Kidsong at conference was a full on, crazy, exhausting week, but it was one of the most amazing and profound experiences of my life. Watching people pour their heart and soul into teaching kids about God, seeing kids as young as 3 lost in worship, seeing my own Bethany worshipping, praying out loud, growing in confidence, those kids met with God and I was blown away. I guess I had always thought that the young age of the kids I have in cubbyhouse meant they were too little to understand much about the Bible, and some weeks we have lots of cryers and it's hard to even do the story with that background noise, but I came home from conference with a whole new vision and purpose and have been putting it to use the last 2 Sunday mornings and also at home with my own kids. My calling is to a mission field of children, but I don't have to leave the country, my suburb or even my home to do it, it's right here in my hand, in front of me the whole time, and if this is what God has in mind for me to spend the rest of my life doing then bring it on. The photo at the top of this post is my girls at conference and it says it all, young hearts like theirs (especially theirs) are my mission field and these kids are gonna change the world, what better investment could I make!!!
Am I still passionate about overseas missions? Absolutely, which is why we have 6 sponsor children, it's why we support child rescue, it's why we buy fair trade, it's why we sowed into the heart for the house offering at church this year beyond what was comfortable for the first time, it's why I am doing a fun run to raise money for A21, it's why we have prayer maps, we are involved in overseas mission by doing our part from here using what we have. That may not be revolutionary to you, but it's been a massive revelation for me!!
I am still very much on a learning journey when it comes to leading a team and am very grateful for the help and wisdom of others as I grow in that role, but I can see that God needed to put me outside my comfort zone so that he could enlarge not just my vision, but also my capacity to outwork that vision. I am excited for the rest of the year ahead and beyond and look forward to seeing God work miracles in beautiful little hearts. :-)
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