Thanks to Oscar Romero

who inspired this liturgy we used in a school training day.

It helps now and then to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom in not only beyond our efforts;
It is even beyond our vision
We plant the seeds that one day will grow

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying
that the kingdomn always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings wholeness.
No programme accomplishes the church's mission
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects
far beyond our capabilities.
We water seeds already planted.

We cannot do everything,
and there is a sense of liberation in realising that.
This enavles us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for
the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.
We water seeds already planted.

We may never see the end results
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
We are prophets of a future not our own.