This is the time of year when we as a church review our purpose and vision. Whilst we look back and thank God for His faithfulness over the past year, we cannot afford to remain there, our past must spur us on to greater things in the future.

For I know what I have planned for you,’ says the Lord. ‘I have plans to prosper you, not to harm you. I have plans to give you a future filled with hope. Jeremiah 29:11

There is something special about being a community of Gods’ people at All Nations, we come from different backgrounds, diverse countries, and with a range of interests, but we are each able to bring something unique to the body as we are united through our faith in God.

• What comes to mind when I use the word ‘church’?
• Who are we?  What is our purpose for existing?

In recent days God, has been reminding us that we are ‘People of the Way’ – in other words we are waymakers, a community with power and influence.

In our series on Kingdom principles we have been looking at our identity as King and priests unto God, last week we were reminded of our intimacy, because we have access into His grace.

So often we limit God and ourselves because we don’t fully understand that God has given to us the ‘keys of the Kingdom’.

John the Baptist was a ‘waymaker’. Preparing the way of the Lord, we too as His church need to understand our calling and purpose as waymakers in bringing His light into a dark world – we need to seize every opportunity to see His Kingdom extended in our lives and communities.

As people of the way having influence, by His grace and power in our lives, we can break the cycle of poverty and brokenness.

Jesus only spoke of the church twice, and on both occasions, He described the church as Ekkelesia.

The word Jesus used for church was not religious in nature at all.  In fact, by the time He first uttered the word church (ekkelesia) it had been in use for centuries in both Greek and Roman cultures, referring to a secular institution operating in the market place in a governmental capacity.

Ekkelesia refers to people not a building, we don’t come to church we are the church, people who bring Gods redemptive order back into a broken society.

As Ed Silvoso puts it: ‘The ekkelesia was building-less mobile people movement designed to operate 24/7 in the marketplace for the purpose of having on impact on everybody and everything’

Jesus has given you and I His church the Keys and the secrets of the Kingdom as a present reality, not just a future expectation.

Let this be a year when we as his church understand our identity as ‘People of the Way’! Amen