Glass half full

I tend to have a glass half full attitude. I know that sometimes doesn't come across here, but I try to be optimistic. I also have a nothing ventured, nothing gained sort of mentality.

Yes, I am away from home for the summer (again), but I look at the positives of gaining valuable experience and having the chance to live in a truly beautiful area.

I have been involved with many things, both before and since I began training for ministry, where the church meets people where they are, serving their needs and commecting with their lives. That may not have led to more 'bums on seats' on a Sunday morning, but that, for me, isn't the point. It's about taking the good news of God's love to people. It's about sowing seeds. How they will be received and grow will differ, but who will sow them if not us?

So, I get a bit twitchy when I constantly hear moaning that one church or another (usually, it's a small number who do all the hard work and the moaners have little or nothing to do with the poject in my experience) is doing this or that in the schools or through holiday clubs, but there are no more coming to church. I usually refer them to the parable of the sower. But I also womder if those in the communities those churches serve pick up on the pervailing attitude of the congregation and that puts them off. It certainly would put me off.

I know it takes a lot of effort and time and, in many cases, money even to do things outwith the church's walls or over and above the Sunday service. But does God not bless a cheerful giver? Will not God, in his own way and in his own time, feed and water those seeds, so they may grow in his light and love? A light and love that only his body - the church - can take into the world.

So, wherever I am called, I pray it's to a glass half full and give it a go sort of place. After all, that's who I am and I believe that's where God is calling me.