Now when John heard in prison about the deeds Christ had done,
he sent his disciples to ask a question:

“Are you the one who is to come,
or should we look for another?”
Jesus answered them,
“Go tell John what you hear and see:
The blind see, the lame walk,
lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear,
the dead are raised,
and the poor have good news proclaimed to them.”

[Matthew 11 .2-5]

When Jesus walked this earth he meant business: the business of completely transforming lives. That was his aim, his purpose, his objective. Which explains why, when John the Baptist asked whether or not Jesus was indeed “the one to come”, rather than giving a verbal “Yes”, Jesus simply pointed John to the evidence of countless lives that had been utterly transformed and made whole. You could tell Jesus was in the life-transformation business, not by his words, but by the fact that lives were made whole. Which got me wondering: If people were to look at the effect that we have, would they be able to tell that we were in the Jesus’ business?

As a minister I get to sit on all sorts of interesting business meetings: in the community I share in school governing bodies, charitable trusts, and youth-work management; in Thornton Methodist Church I share in all sorts of meetings to do with leadership, finance and pastoral care; and in the church beyond Thornton I share in the work of the North Fylde Circuit, the North Lancashire District, and the national Connexion. The common thread that runs through every one of these various meetings is the desire of ordinary people to make progress, to move forward, to achieve good goals, aim at proper purposes, and accomplish honorable objectives.

As a connoisseur of business meetings, I have learnt that the true value of a meeting should not be judged by the exchange of fine words, the presence of convivial company, nor even the quality of the minute-taking. Instead, a meeting’s true value should be judged by what is actually achieved because of it. Like a good sermon, at the end of a good meeting we will know the point of it. The question “So what?” will have a clear answer. We will know what it is that we have to go and do.

The business world has long understood the importance of effective meetings, and has developed easy-to-remember tests to help make meetings as productive as possible. For example, in the early 1980s business project managers began to measure their objectives against the so-called “SMART” criteria. Invariably, they found that the most effective objectives are those that are:

Specific;
Measurable;
Attainable;
Relevant; &
Time-bound.

On the basis that there is no more important business than God’s life-transformation business, these SMART criteria are now regularly used when objectives are being agreed within the business meetings of the Church.

One of the best business meetings I attend is our annual “Next Steps” day at Thornton Methodist Church where – at the beginning of each New Year - we agree our Priorities for the coming twelve months. A copy of our Priorities for this next year is enclosed with this magazine. The objectives contained in this document are not only SMART but soaked in prayer. Indeed, the week before our Next Steps day we held our first ever 24 hours of prayer, and elsewhere in this magazine you will find the testimonies of some of those who participated in that remarkable time.

I am very grateful that so many of you are already working very hard to achieve our Priorities, but there is so much to be done that we really do need everyone to play their part. So please do prayerfully read through our Priorities and consider how YOU can help us to achieve our shared objectives.

I have little doubt that as we achieve these things Thornton Methodist Church will become ever more effective in doing the Jesus’ business. .As we faithfully get on with the work before us I pray that this community of Thornton will know that we are indeed in the same business as Jesus, not simply because we say that we are, but primarily by the fact that all around us lives are being made whole.

Every blessing.