Am I alone in thinking every time I see one of those photographs of the Prime Minister and his or her cabinet sitting around that big meeting table at Downing Street and let’s face it that photographer has been pretty busy recently with all the ministerial changes – what a bunch of misfits?!

A lot of my friends and former work colleagues tell me after a long management career, I should enjoy watching the TV series “the Apprentice” which I generally avoid. I wonder why? A bunch of seeming misfits with huge egos sent out by Lord Sugar into the community to deliver a business venture or task and come back with a profit or not. My ignorance of the fundamentals of the programme may illustrate that I really do not watch it but if I have got even the barest outline of the Apprentice then where might I find an early template for the Apprentice albeit with the profit motive replaced with a missionary one? Well here it is from 2000 years ago in Matthew 9 and 10. If you were choosing a team of missionaries would you really have picked fishermen, tax collectors, political activists? Would they be the perfect fit?

When I went to Uganda earlier this year, I travelled on the same plane as a vicar I know from Stamford who was leading a mission to Rwanda. As we arrived at the gate waiting to board our flight there was Canon Martyn doing short first-time interviews with members of the team who in a few hours, he would send out as a mission team. Now I am not suggesting these people were misfits – I am sure they came with many skills and qualities but in the limited time they had in Rwanda how could they best be used for Jesus in the harvest? It actually was harvest time in Rwanda but this was a different harvest – a harvest of souls. Meanwhile I was waiting to board wondering what God would call me to do during my visit - well the answers are found in my presentation on our Church Near You website details on your pew sheets if you have not yet seen it. Might it have been better if that Rwanda team had x skill or y qualities? Might it have helped if I was better equipped for whatever I would be doing or if I too had a team? Probably but God uses us. We may feel like misfits but God uses us and works with the skills we have and the gifts God gives us. How often do I hear across our 6 churches that there is so few of us and we are struggling to cope or wish more people would come forward? That same prayer was going up in 1st century Galilee because Jesus commanded people (chapter 9 v.38) “So pray the Master of the Heaven to send more workers to harvest his fields.” I suppose we need therefore to ask the question – are we grumbling or are we praying?

One commentator I read observed of this passage that the writer of Matthew could have just recorded this incident in a few words or even ignored it completely but chose to set out the detail of what the disciples were to do when sent out, which places to visit and not to visit, what to take or not take, what research to do, how to approach and how long to stay. The reason that commentator gives for such detail is because it is good practice for all of us for all time and I think that is right. I remember attending Canon Martyn’s church some years ago and hearing a young student who had gone from their university with another person they hardly knew. All they took was their passport and were given a return flight ticket. They were flown to Romania I think and taken to a university in a remote city. There were no Christians there. They had no money and spoke no Romanian. Somehow, they found someone with some English who knew someone who would put them up on their college floor, fed them and found a venue for a mission and several people became Christians. So, it happened 2000 years ago it has happened in the 2000s and can still happen even in small rural churches. What led those students to the right people and what leads us when we despair at how few people there are? It was prayer and it is prayer accompanied by obedience and being willing to serve. That is why all that detail is there and that is why there can be a solution. Of course if we would rather do it all in our own strength well just look around at how many closed churches there are and then pray to the Master of Heaven. We may feel we are misfits. The world may look at us and confirm we are misfits but God uses us just as we are and shows the way. What a privilege it can be to be a misfit!! Amen