Paul Gibbs, founder of Pais Movement, shares why working with Ian has been profitable and the importance of Kingdom Thinking👇
One of my biggest questions is why do we spend so much time, energy and resources inviting people when Jesus spent so much of his getting himself invited.
So I’ve had the privilege of knowing Ian for many years when I first started as a school’s worker in Manchester. Ian was one of the champions of youth ministry. He was like a guru and he was talking to churches about the importance of engaging with their communities and that was really inspiring. In more recent years, Ian’s really helped us to just think a little bit bigger and help us make connections around the world as well. So I think, knowing Ian and working with Ian, has been really profitable, for the work that we’ve done is we’ve engaged with churches and denominations all over the globe, and it’s been a real blessing. He’s always been an encouragement.
The first Christian message I ever heard, when I was 14 years old, was about seeking first the Kingdom of God, and for me, that has radically affected everything I think about. I think the problem is that when we lose sight of the Kingdom of God, we settle for much less than we could really settle for. The way I can explain this is, if we’re ‘A’ and we’re aiming for ‘C’, we may only get to ‘B’, but if we didn’t have ‘C’ to aim at, then we would just settle for ‘B’. For me, Jesus’ message about the Kingdom is the ‘C’. He’s encouraging us to pursue the Kingdom being advanced in our communities. But when we lose sight of that, we settle for ‘B’, which is just growing our local churches, and as important as that is, that’s not the full calling that Jesus has for us. So for me, Kingdom thinking is important because it stops me settling for less than Jesus knows we can achieve.
Kingdom Thinking affects the questions we ask! One of my biggest questions is, ‘why do we spend so much time, energy and resources inviting people when Jesus spent so much of his getting himself invited?’ and that question has driven me to reach young people, not simply by trying to invite them to a church building where, maybe, I could reach and teach 50 or 60, but instead, get out into the community and we are now reaching tens of thousands of young people all around the world because we realise that when you get yourself invited, it’s so much more impactful than when you simply invite people.
That question motivated by the Kingdom, has transformed everything we do and allowed us to transform far more people than we would have.
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