Malcolm Potts July 3rd 2016 ~ Road Trip

Following the wedding - my middle daughter was married recently - my mother-of-grand-old-age stayed on with us in Cottesloe for a further week.  We all love having her around.  Mum is finding negotiating airports, bags and busses a bit much these days, so she and I flew her home to Geelong via Melbourne airport.  I stayed on for four days and we had fun together.It's an immense privilege to say you can have fun with your 88 year old mum.The substance of fun with mum usually involves road trips, lots of stops, and minor country roads.  We set off in a direction that we would not normally go and try and go on roads we have never been on before.  From time to time we confront obstacles - like this one in the Otway Ranges.But mostly we discover all sorts of things, often very close to home, that we did not know existed.  Historic things, pubs, roads that connect to other roads that we had always wondered "where that came out?" and people, of course.This week James and I had a meeting with the Archdeacon of Perth to wonder where different ministry models, thoughts and ideas might lead. Roads, if you will.  Dear friends, we need to get off the Christian church highways and start exploring the back roads.  We have to keep learning how to navigate life by compass not just hope old outdated road maps will get us there.This is what Acts teaches us.  People filled with the Holy Spirit follow God and all manner of things happen.  It can be tough but it is only as you look back that you can see the pattern and the plan.My old mum cannot drive the car and lug the bags and negotiate the airport ticket machine that well any more.  But what mum can do is sit in the passenger seat, pay for the petrol, buy lunch at the pub and say, “Isn't this interesting, I wonder what is down this road or that road.”  Just be curious with the next generation.One of our 400km road trips took us north and east from Geelong and into the Victorian alps.  We then dropped down into Gippsland and spent several hours in Drouin with the beautiful Spalding family.  They are well and send their love.  After six months they are about to begin an intentional ministry with young families.  Kate is very excited.Their biggest challenge is that they have inherited ‘road map’ not ‘compass’ thinking in their church.  We have always done it this way! The church building they have inherited is huge and has just had over a million dollars spent on an expansion.  The outcome of a random bequest.  Dean lamented that in all the planning and spending the new design did not have one intentional element in it that sought to develop ministry to children and families.Are you up for a road trip?  Do we have to stick to the major roads?  There is not a lot to be learned there.BlessingsMalcolm