Mark Carey Writes

Rebuilding Momentum

I find that this time of year is an opportunity to reflect on the state of things – maybe because Christmas is just around the corner followed swiftly by New Year.

This time last year we were trying to work out what Christmas was going to be like. We entered a long period of ongoing restrictions and lockdown as Covid-19 rates of infection soared. Much of 2021 has been about a slow recovery from the effects of the restrictions - a period of time that has affected our movement and momentum.

As a church network we have returned to in-person gatherings for worship and decreased the amount we have been online. This has been in many ways exploratory and tentative – we had lost the momentum of regular times together physically, our habitual ways of connecting with other followers of Jesus have been changed, challenge or even broken. We’ve actually had very little time to get our momentum going – only restarting things as we entered September. I was talking to someone in the Hope Hub who talked about the way in which the things he was involved in, that kept him focused on having faith during his daily life, had just not worked very well through the last 18 months. We agreed that half the battle was recognising this and from there it is best to simply join in with something to get yourself re-connected again. I wonder if that has happened to many people?

My point is this: we are in the process of regaining momentum – forward movement – across a number of areas of life including our life as church together. I have had two thoughts in relation to this:

Nothing we are doing is as it will be – we’ve just got started again – getting back into the good habit of being physically around other Jesus people is not as easy as we expected. We’ve just made decisions to get something going again and keep adjusting and adapting as we go. Please be patient and give all that you can in encouragement, serving and giving as we build momentum again.

Nothing has changed about God’s faithfulness – the pandemic has not stopped the kingdom of God advancing – God continues to be good. He has continued to do his works of rebuilding, renewing and restoring through us. He has supplied our needs, kept us safe and been our good shepherd through this time and will continue to do so.