Acorns

Opposite the Cambridge church (nicknamed St A's by the students) where I was minister 1980-1993, Emmanuel College has inscribed words to describe their past students: I have set an acorn which when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.  When the new minister, Simon Cragg, was inducted a couple of Saturdays ago at a full and joyous service he reproduced this quote with a picture of an acorn on the front of the printed service sheet.

I was thrilled that the church was jam packed for Simon's new beginning - in fact they had prepared 200 hot lunches for guests and found 320 stayed. Careful stewardship (!) fed everyone though several, like myself, were unable to stay.  

To my surprise it turned out that the acorn theme proved personally significant. Simon explained in his description of the steps leading to his call to pastor St A's that he had heard Michael Quicke (that mention jolted me!) when he was a child.  Apparently I preached a sermon that struck him as a 5 year old. When he was 15 years old he found a cassette recording (remember those?) of the same sermon in his father's collection. His re-listening led directly to his calling from God into ministry. Wow!  I had no idea that this happened and his father told me afterwards it was news to him.  Simon referred to the inscription, how he was an acorn planted in the church's past ministry and how he shares the vision of many acorns being planted to flourish in the future.

At the end of the service I was met by one of the former students who is now a local Baptist minister. 'You baptized me', he said. Right behind was another former student who told me he was now in Anglican ministry in a church not far away. Talking with them I heard of two more former members of the church who are now in ministry,  One of them remarked how these were all acorns planted in my time.  

We can never tell this side of heaven what God is doing in the lives of others but as you grow older it is one of the greatest encouragements to learn stories like this.