Faith pulls weeds.

I want to tell you about the ministry here in Edinburgh. I think you should know about the spiritual side of why I am here… it is why I am here. I want to tell you the absolutely amazing things that God is doing and the challenging things we are facing and the ways we are seeing prayer and fasting and outreach make a real difference in this city.

So here is one story.

Crossroads Church Edinburgh currently meets in the Eric Liddell Centre, which is great. But just like any church, someday we would like our own building.

And we know what building we want. 

Down the street from where we currently meet is a dilapidated nasty old church, built some time in the 1800s. Pigeons fly in and out of the shattered windows and the doors are completely stripped of paint. There is no where to park and the back garden is chained closed. There are weeds and plants growing up through every crack in the sidewalk. No one has met there in at least ten years and you can tell. It’s an absolute mess.

And we want it. Real bad.

I can’t tell you why, exactly. There is just something about it. Something about the way we feel when we pray for it. Something about the strategic location. Something about the way I can close my eyes and see it restored, with our banner hanging outside and kids running around, and the doors being open and inviting and people strolling in and the sun is shining.

I can see it.

And I think God sometimes gives us pictures for us to say  “God, I pray THAT becomes a reality.”

So our team is praying.

We are praying that God would make a way for us to have that building. We are praying that those who own it [and do NOT take care of it] would sell it or lose it. We’re praying that God would provide all the finances necessary. We’re praying for the growth of the ministries that will be in that building.

Hundreds of years ago, some men that I do not know worked day after day to build that church. Their prayers, I’m sure, were that God would be honored and glorified in that building. That building was made for a purpose and it is not living that purpose.

I want to pray with them, those men who laid stone upon stone. I want my prayers to mix in the bowl where their prayers have been held. And I want to be part of the answer to their prayers.

So a few weeks ago, our team decided that not only did we want to pray, we wanted to pull weeds.

[Just to give you an idea, this was after about 25 minutes of work… yes. The weeds and overgrown plants are unbelievable.]

No, it’s not our church, but we are believing God that it is going to be. So we pulled up the weeds.

[James is like, “And over here is something important and I’m going to keep talking even though you are taking a picture… blah blah blah.” You remember James. He makes haggis.]

We didn’t pull up the weeds because we want to be congratulated or we want to prove something to the world. We didn’t clean up the church because it will give us the upper hand in any way.

We took our Saturday to pull weeds because we love that building. And we wanted to take a step of faith. Together. A step that says, “God, not only will we pray for this, we will believe You for this, and we will walk in it.”

What if we are wrong? What do we lose by improving the look of the city? What do we lose by praying and clinging to faith? There is no consequence if we are wrong.

The bigger question is- what if we are RIGHT? What if God is burning this on our hearts because He is going to do miraculous things to make it happen? And what if we didn’t walk in faith and believe Him for it?

I hate missing miracles, so I’d rather walk by faith and look foolish and believe for a miracle and clean up someone else’s building.

[This isn’t our whole leadership team, by the way. We are nine all together.]

So I am here in Edinburgh to clean up the weeds in front of a church building we do not own, watching and believing that God has a plan to make this house His home again.

Will you pray with us today? That God would give us this building so that we can restore it to the purpose for which it was built?

Then all of our prayers will fill the bowl, mixing with those of the men and women who have worshipped in this place for generations, and the bowl will overflow, and the spillage will be miraculous.

. . . . .

What are you believing God for?

What steps have you taken/could you take as an act of faith?

[because I want to pray for you too]

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