Just like catching fish

We've seen 5 people get saved in the past 7 days (that I know of). People aware of their brokenness, and their need, people who know that only Jesus has the power to turn their life around, people who come because they’ve seen it lived out in their family and friends, on the streets, in power. People who’ve been hanging around for the past 30 years, and this Sunday realised, ‘I don’t know that I’m saved.’

There's an old Salvation Army song that says, 'Mercy drops round us are falling, but for the showers we plead'. Just after Pentecost, the birth of the Church, in Acts 2 it says, 'the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.' We're living that dream and the excitement is building. Who will it be tomorrow? Whose turn will it be to lead someone to Christ? Why stop at one a day? More Lord.

I was reading Isaac his bedtime stories tonight. He loves his 'Big Bible Story'. We read about when Jesus told the disciples to throw the net over the other side. They’d been fishing all night and were tired, but, ‘because you say so’, they threw the net over the other side of the boat. Their nets filled to bursting point, their boat overflowed with fish so it started to sink, and they had to call in other boats to help them manage the catch. And Jesus called them to go out to focus on people. As Isaac’s Bible story book says, ‘It’ll be just like catching fish.’

I feel like for so many of us, we go through the motions, we’re tired, we’ve been up, faithfully, all night long, fishing, trying hard with the best we’ve got, with little or no fish to show for it. It often feels to me that the Church, or my little part of it, doesn't know how to do this anymore, because we don’t ever see it happen. The thing we used to be renowned for. Salvation. Our middle name. And so we get disillusioned, mission looks more like service and justice than evangelism, because maybe it's easier to sleep at night if we actually see some results and feel like we're achieving something. If we measure something different, then we still get some results.

Then Jesus comes along, and says, 'throw your nets down to the other side'. Start fishing again.

Do we dare to try again? Can we muster enough faith to see him answer the prayers and longings of our hearts? That what he’s done for us he can do for others, that people might actually want to encounter this Jesus who has meant such Good News in our lives?

We're grateful for the friends and churches we get to work with on pulling in the nets, that mean we don't go under.

If we carry on at this rate, we won't have to wonder what new programmes to put in place. It'll be discipleship, discipleship, discipleship as we build these new believers up, and service,service, service as they get stuck in to what God is calling them to do.

What does it look like for you to throw down your nets? Who does Jesus want to save through you? Today is the day of salvation!