鲍鱼tv

Good morning. The church can be a demanding busy place. Its work is driven forwards by armies of volunteers who give of their time and talents freely to serve its ends. During this past year, much of the regular activity of the local church has been curtailed or halted. Some of the church鈥檚 keenest supporters and workers have found this enforced downing of tools to be very difficult indeed.聽
It would be easy to think of the church as being like the hard-working labourers in a vineyard. This picture of a vine or a vineyard appears repeatedly in the Bible. We might easily assume that what God wants is that the vine is well cultivated in order that it be fruitful, and that really the job of the people of God is to tend the vines to keep production levels up. But we really must not think of ourselves and our calling in this way. Jesus did not say 鈥淚 am the vine, you are the labourers.鈥� He said, 鈥淚 am the vine, you are the branches.鈥� Individual members of the church are not labourers in the vineyard 鈥� they are the vineyard, because like branches which have been ingrafted into the true vine, they bear its fruit.聽The Covid pandemic has forced us all, and not just in the churches, to reconsider what truly matters in our patterns of life and service. This will almost certainly help us to see what will remain and endure after this viral disruption has聽 been alleviated.
Lord, grant that today, our calling to bear your fruit would deliver us from the frantic busy-ness of trying to produce our own. Amen.