Christ-centred lives have God’s mission at heart. I wrote last week, “For your family, that will at the very least mean hospitality. Our mission budget must set aside funds for hospitality.”

The budget I was referring to was our personal, family budget.

Hospitality is a great vehicle for mission. Hospitality is a deeply biblical idea. Israel was responsible for the traveller and the foreigner in their land. The early Christians most probably had a meal together every time they churched. In the early centuries Christians provided accommodation for travellers – the first motels! The monks served minestrone soup (from the word ‘minister’ or service.)

Most ministers of the gospel are hospitable. We knew hospitality was important to us because of our children when they were quite small. People would come up to us after church and ask if it was OK for them to come to lunch because one of our children had just invited them.

Hospitality provides opportunity to serve others by saving them the effort of preparing a meal and saves them the cost of a meal. It also gives you time together to relate over a meal. It is no accident that heaven is often pictured as a meal. God is the host, providing hospitality to his people.

Many of our neighbours don’t experience hospitality all that often. Perhaps they are not well-liked neighbours so don’t get invited. Perhaps they are not friendly neighbours because they don’t get invited!

Hospitality and mission go hand in hand. So we need to practise hospitality. So what does it look like?

Well, that depends on you and your family. If you’re living in a retirement village, hospitality might be morning tea. But be prepared for it to stretch into a sandwich for lunch. People like hospitable people.

If you’re retired but living at home, you have wonderful opportunities to explore hospitality.

If you’re living with children, there are more limits but other wonderful opportunities because your children have friends with parents to invite.

If you’re single, then taking people out for coffee or a meal are great opportunities.

But all these cost. They cost time. They cost effort. They cost money. But most of all they cost planning. Planning for hospitality can be frustrating. Lining up others in our busy worlds is not always without difficulties.

So, as always, we need to pray. So often I have found that when I ask the Lord to prepare the way for me and get someone ready for an invitation, they are actually positive.

That’s hardly surprising. It’s God’s mission after all. We are his fellow-workers. He has invited us to share in his work in his world. Asking for his help sounds like a good idea.

Easter is next weekend. Pray, then invite! Even to church and then back to your place.

We sing, “Christ, be the centre of our lives.” What does that look like? And who decides what it looks like?

Let’s look at the second question first – Who decides what it looks like? We are victims. We didn’t have to try to be victims, we just are. We are victims of what the Bible calls The World. The world tries to squeeze us into its mould. And for over 100 years the world has been saying with a quiet ferocity never seen before in human history: “You are the centre of the world!” So the world influences us in countless, unnoticed ways every day to see ourselves as important individuals who have the right to decide for themselves.

We are also victims of what the Bible calls The Flesh. We inherit a whole raft of stuff from our parents and grandparents. Some of it is genetic, some of it learned. Some of it is good, some bad. If our parents didn’t know and honour the Lord Jesus, then… A lot of the flesh tries to walk us away from God. It’s always there, pulling almost imperceptively.

We are also victims of what the Bible calls The Devil. A lot of our ideas about the Devil don’t come from the Scriptures but from the world. In the Bible, the Devil is the deceiver who tempts us to question God’s goodness and love for us. The Bible keeps saying that God is “for” us but the Devil keeps whispering that God might actually be “against” us. The Devil’s power has been broken on the cross so we don’t need to be his victims.

These three – the world, the flesh and the Devil – decide everything for non-Christians. But we follow Christ, so he should decide what it looks like to have him at the centre of our lives. He tells us that in the Scriptures. That’s why we must be people of the Bible, no matter how hard it is to read it regularly! Jesus must decide what it looks like for him to be the centre of our lives.

So then, what does a Christ-centred life look like? If we let Christ decide what a Christ-centred life looks like, then it looks a lot like him. Earlier this year we looked at God’s great plan for his world. We saw how he is concerned that all the nations be blessed through his promise to Abraham and his people Israel.

Paul writes in Galatians 3 that those who believe in Christ are Abraham’s heirs. Every person who believes in Jesus, Jew or Gentile, is a recipient of the promise of blessing God made to Abraham.

Jesus himself was entirely focused on God’s great plan. From the moment of his conception until now, Jesus is entirely focused on his Father’s great plan, his mission. A Christ-centred life is a life focused on God’s mission.

We started earlier in the year to explore what it looks like to have God’s mission at the centre of our lives. For your family, that will at the very least mean hospitality. Our mission budget must set aside funds for hospitality.

I’ll explore this more next week.

What happened at the Annual Parish Meeting last night? We elected Steve Dunlop and Hedley Mooney as Wardens and I appointed Mark Whelan as a Warden.

We elected Andrew Hicks, Paul Wileman and Ben Bolitho as Parish Councillors.

We elected Bill Farrand as auditor for the next year.

And we elected John Laing, Peter Hall, Steve Dunlop, Bill Farrand and Jann van’t Spyker as Nominators.

But we also listened to the Bible and prayed together.

Furthermore, we heard from three of our ministry staff. Leah reminded us of her three goals she spoke about last year and how they were working out. We heard about The Cage, our new group for years 5 and 6 and how these young people now transition more fruitfully into Club Reg. She reminded us of the goal to help parents disciple their children and the value of the Growing Faith Conference.

We heard about the growth in all our children’s ministries and young teenage ministries and about the need for more adult leaders in most areas. Leah asked us to pray that our Heavenly Father would raise up more leaders, especially adults.

Our newest staff member, Blair, talked about reflections on NAC through the eyes of a newbie. He told us he appreciated the warm welcome. He talked about the place of the word of God in the life of a “good church.” He spoke about seeing preaching the word as central to our parish life. He recalled a conversation in which one of our members encouraged him to use the REAP Journal because he wanted Blair to do what we’re doing. He was encouraged by our commitment to the Bible and its place in our lives and warned us how easily such confidence in the Scriptures is lost in just three generations.

Mike spoke about church planting in our national history and how it is now the default position on evangelism adopted by most Sydney Diocesan churches. He gave five good reasons for church planting and reflected on WHAC four years on.

Mike’s talk was encouraging in light of our present position across the parish. Three of our congregations are comfortably full. There’s room for some growth but not much. I spoke about the fact that our 9.00am congregation could really only fit in because a large chunk of our members are away each week. 9.00am has over 200 members and if they all turned up on the one Sunday morning we’d have about 50 standing.

So it’s clear that planting a new congregation is in our immediate future. We’ve done it before and we need to do it again. The reasons Mike spelt out are all relevant to us and encourage us to move ahead.

So, start praying about planting a new congregation. Ask our Father to give us wisdom as we begin to talk together about where and how and what time and all the questions that we’ll need to think through. Start chatting about how we might plant a new congregation, to each other and to the staff and leaders.

Ask God to give us big dreams and big ideas and hearts big enough to match the dreams he gives us. Of course it’s going to cost us in so many ways. It’ll be painful for those involved. But seeing more lost people saved is worth it all. Just ask Jesus.

I would love my family and friends to come to Christ. I assume you would to.

Last week I wrote about Personal Bible Reading. The link between PBR and church growth is well established. But the church will grow if our friends come to Christ. So there’s a clear link between PBR and our friends coming to Christ.

It might be that another Christian who reads his Bible tells the gospel to our friends and they come to Christ. It might also help if Christ is formed in us more and more as we read his word. Then our friends will see the changes in us and that will help.

But we also have great opportunities to let our friends hear about Jesus. WHAC is holding their Freedom Mission in late March/early April. You can check out the details in Prayer Matters or on the NAC website. All are great opportunities to invite family and friends.

Now, I’ve tried to like jazz. I’ve even done a jazz-appreciation course in a vain attempt to help. But it didn’t. My family loves jazz, but it hasn’t rubbed off. BUT, I’d walk over hot coals to hear Con Campbell. Con was invited to play with Australia’s foremost jazz trumpeter, James Morrison. He is an amazing jazz musician.

Then he went to Moore College, trained for ministry, worked in some churches and is now back on the staff of Moore College. He’s still an amazing musician and many of us have friends who love music. So, invite them to hear Con. They also hear about Jesus in an environment and a way that they will appreciate.

In the past, every time we’ve had events like this some people have regretted not inviting friends. This time, aim to have no regrets. Invite your friends/family to come along to hear one of Australia’s leading musicians and to hear about the world’s most significant person.

If you love coffee or have friends who do, there’s a night for you. Neil Atwood is also a minister of the gospel who is a coffee nut. He’s also good at talking about Jesus.

If you have children or know people who have children, then there’s a night for you. Roger Stonehouse is a leading psychologist who is widely respected among his peers. His experience is almost unmatched in dealing with children and adolescents. Invite your friends to benefit from his wisdom.

Here are three brilliant opportunities. All of us want to be missioning among our neighbours. So invite friends and family. Remember, this time, no regrets!

WHAC is hosting the Freedom Mission and invite us to share in it with them. We could just turn up and enjoy the events. I did that last Sunday night. Bill Hybels was preaching at a church near our home. I turned up to enjoy what they had prepared. Bill spoke about just talking to lost people. I came home wanting more than ever to talk to lost people about Jesus.

All I have to do is be ready to put my hand out to those God puts in my path Some people, our friends and family, God puts in our path all too often. If you struggle with words, invite them to listen to someone worth listening to. WHAC is giving us the opportunity. Let’s have no regrets.