This past weekend in Stoney Creek we had our second cluster event as part of our Partnership for Missional Church. We had a great time hearing from our steering team, listening leaders and partners from the other five congregations that are participating. We heard lots of stories of what God is doing in the midst of these churches. It was just awesome.
On Friday morning, Dylan, the elders and myself dwelled in the Word (Luke 10) like we have sometimes done in adult class. Our reflections together centered on the commands and the prayers of Luke 10. Jesus tells his disciples that “the harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send forth workers.”(Luke 10:3)
Have we prayed for workers? That was the question we were asked. I had not thought of it before but it’s true: We should be praying Luke 10 too, not just reading it. The disciples were sent out, just 70 of them and the job that they had to do was bigger than what we have to do here at Tintern. Never-the-less, a God of abundance can work within the scarcity of humanity. We should pray for workers. One of the ministers who was at our cluster group on Friday, Drew Chapados from Windsor remarked, “If we aren’t praying for it, we aren’t looking for it.”
The funny thing about workers is that you sometimes don’t recognize them even when they are right in front of you. Our tendency is to imagine a very familiar worker: someone that looks like us, thinks like us and acts like us. “Yea God, can you send us some more of those!” I think we all probably think that if our church just had a few more of us here that things would be awesome! 
Sometimes however God has something else in mind for us. God is faithful and true and sometimes God sends us, not what we want but what we need.
Prayer brings about a life of attentiveness so when we start praying about something, it is only then that we start looking for it. We celebrate what we value and we value what we pray for. Where have you met potential partners in ministry? Our mission at Tintern is make disciples together for the benefit of the world. Do you know of anyone who could be of some help in accomplishing that? It could be someone who isn’t a member of this congregation. Perhaps you know someone in need that we could serve in the name of Jesus who indirectly might teach us something that we need to understand. Partners in ministry could be anywhere.
So this is our prayer in 2012, “Lord send workers into your harvest. Please open our hearts and open our minds to make us aware of them when they are near.”
Noel Walker
