The woman at the well - transformed by Jesus

What are you thankful for this week?
I’m thankful for the opportunity to attend a wonderful conference on 
"Leading your Church into Growth - Growing the Church the Jesus Way. "
​A small leadership team attended along with me. We discussed how we can create a prayerful culture of growth, and how we can Implement the 4 P’s (Prayer, Presence, Proclamation, Persuasion), and practice fruitful evangelism, develop more engaging worship, plus become an inviting and welcoming church, make pathways for seekers to become disciples, and we began to plan a journey of growth for our Parish. We came home inspired for Church growth and hope we can also inspire you for this journey. To begin with, we would like to adopt this prayer for Mount Eliza Anglican Church. We pray and work while trusting God for the increase. Will you pray with us? 

"God of mission, Who alone brings growth to our church, Send your Holy Spirit to give:
Vision to our planning, Wisdom to our actions, Joy to our Worship, And Power to our witness.
Help our Church to grow in numbers, In spiritual commitment to you, And in service to our
local community, Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen."

This week, I’m also thankful for an awesome time of worship and fellowship with our Wednesday congregation. One lady expressed how helpful my ministry had been to her recently and I felt humbly grateful that God could use me to help her. The conversation left me feeling satisfied, and helped me to catch a small glimpse of what Jesus meant when he said to his disciples, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about” (John 4:32) after his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well. This Sunday we will explore that biblical story all the more and include an episode of "The Chosen" that depicts Jesus' interactions with this questionable woman. You can watch here: https://youtu.be/el7dzoNV3IY
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At the end of the story, we can understand Jesus saying that "Doing God’s will and His work in the world is truly satisfying" (John 4:32-38) and we can also realise that Jesus himself is the perpetual spring that continually refreshes "us" for doing God's work. He is the life-giving water we can draw on and offer to others as the Samaritan woman did. Her interaction with Jesus was transformative, as are our own. When we have those awesome encounters with Jesus, we will want to share our experience with others and draw others to come to him as well.
May we do this increasingly.
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​Rev. Tanya