You know the old joke: the visitor to Dublin is lost. He is trying to find his way to Croke Park for the rugby match, but can't see it anywhere. So he stops someone in the street and says "can you tell me how to find Croke Park?" Famously, the local worthy replies "Oh, if I was going to Croke Park, I wouldn't start from here!"
What are your hopes and aspirations for life? We all have them and some are more ambitious than others; some of us perhaps long to have a particular job, all we've ever really wanted to do, but have not achieved that yet. Others' ambitions are for your family or for other personal goals and targets that you want achieve in life. Some have hopes and aspirations for Church life and anyone who is in Church leadership of any kind should have hopes and aspirations for Church life.
No matter how high and grand your ambitions are for yourself, for others, for Church, here is the very simple thought behind this blog today. We have to start where we are. That might be stating the obvious and if you're going away shaking your head, disappointed that there's nothing more profound than that, sorry! But the truth is, we need to start where we are. It's no use wishing that we could start somewhere else; it's no use wishing that somehow we could turn the clock back to the way life was before, or turn the clock forward a few months to have another starting place because we are faced with some hard choices now.
We have to start where we are. That means we start to fulfil our ambitions in the circumstances in which we find ourselves today; that we make choices and decisions in these present circumstances; that we work with the skills and talents and abilities that we now have, even if we want to learn new ones in the future; that we make the best use of our present resources rather than wishing we were millionaires!
In developing Church life, we have to fulfil our hopes and aspirations from where we are on Dec 4th 2009. The challenge for us is to make the best use of the resources (people, finance and building) that we have and make choices and decisions based on this starting point.
Where these choices and decisions will lead you, will lead us as Church, I don't know, but God will guide you and will honour these steps we make in faith.
