Taking his daily walk along the sandy white beach, a man catches sight of a young boy feverishly occupied.  From afar it appears as though the boy is caught up in a balletic dance; he stoops, he rises, and then he arches his back and then in one almost violent movement propels his right arm toward the sea pauses and then repeats the manoeuvre.  

As the man approaches he sees that the area where the boy is standing is literally carpeted with starfish.  Moreover, he sees that the boy was not dancing at all but was carefully one by one throwing the starfish back into the sea.  The man stopped and observed this relentless ritual for some time.  As he cast his eye along the beach he saw that there were starfish as far as the eye could see.   He called to the boy: There are stranded starfish all the way along the coastline What possible difference can you make by throwing a few of them back in the sea?   Without looking up the boy stooped again, lovingly picked up another star fish and threw it back into the sea. I guess you re right but you know I made a difference to that one.

If there is one thought that the Lord seems to be keen to impress upon us at The Grace Project right now it is the need to make a genuine difference to one another by emotionally rescuing each other from our stranded starfish moments .  We all have them from time to time.  Moments, circumstances and events that leave us beached, washed up on the shore unable to save ourselves.   It is at moments like that that we so desperately need the loving touch of authentic fellowship; the hand of grace to pick us up and place us back into the river of life.  

Grace must lead us to the final frontier authentic community.  It is exciting to me that the Lord has been bringing back to my remembrance the truths that The Grace Project was founded upon.  One of our early mantras and something that has not been a prominent feature of our work presently was our original strap line Healing hurts and building dreams.    What we have learnt is that healing is more a matter relearning.  Changing out paradigms and perceptions and many of us who gathered in those formative days are substantially healed. We have exchanged the calculating self-getting-self with the real Christ-in-me-self. The context for the healing essentially occurred through our teaching, but the real earthing of our wholeness is to be found in community the place where we call the hidden treasures out from one another.

As we motion towards 2007 it is with a real sense that the Lord wants to both expand the teaching base of the Grace Project [we are in discussions about planting a new Grace Project in another part of London] whilst at the same time deepening the community aspects.  We are also in discussions about reordering the West London work both to release Hayley & I to Christ Plant but also to create House Church] 
Watch this space & take your place .

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