So, in a few weeks, months, year or maybe even decades when we look back upon the year of 2020, what will we remember? Will it be a case of us remembering that a flu-like virus brought the world to a standstill? Will the future generations learn about it in school like they learned of the Plague in this current generation?

Will it be noted that we as humans had apparently lost the concept of basic hygiene? -washing our hands after we do things. Well, let us hope it is not remembered for something like that!

Let us remember for years and even decades the leaders of the world sat around tables discussing the impact we as humans have on our environment. But all these discussions ended up being were just discussions, with no real action taken. Why? –  because each one had their own hidden agenda, thinking only about what was best for them and not what was best for the planet. All talk and no action.

Mother Nature had to step in herself and push the reset button. It does not need eco warriors to save the world, but rather each one of us to play our part. Maybe we will remember 2020 as the time where the balance between death and birth rates were reset as the impact of our growth had become too heavy for Mother Nature to support.

This may well be remembered as the time when we had to isolate ourselves from friends and family because we did not want to spread the virus. Because of that isolation, we have been missing that quality time spent face to face with each other. Perhaps this will teach people, however, to reconnect with people and learn to talk to each other again. Maybe this will teach us to spend time with our loved ones now, not waiting until they have died to say, ‘if only I had spent more time with them.’ Maybe this is our opportunity to celebrate life now, and not create shrines to our loved ones when they die.

Technology has been wonderful during these times, showing us ways of connecting to people when we can’t see them face to face. It has shown businesses that there is no need for people to be driving all over just so they can be in an office, or a meeting. It has shown us that many people can work from home – and that does help us with family /work balance so we can spend time with the people that are dearest to us.

There are so many opportunities right now for us to spend that quality time with our families. Parents can teach their kids to cook from scratch and teach them about healthy eating. We can plan meals and shop for only what we need instead of being driven by a consumer society. The opportunity to go for walks together is fantastic. We can teach our kids life skills, so that they will not make the same mistakes our generation has made.

Technology can be used really positively, as we are seeing at this present time. It’s a way to connect with people, research useful things and help to ease the physical isolation we’re facing. We need to take the positives and let our grip loosen on the negatives. Maybe one of the biggest things we will remember about 2020 is that God can bring good out of every situation.

Lessons To Learn

When we look back on 2020, I think there will be important lessons for us all to learn:

• Respect people from all walks of life – the ‘key workers’ may have been looked down on in the past, but if this teaches us anything, it’s the importance of everyone’s roles and jobs in a society which needs us all. Maybe this will stop us taking people for granted and really learn to value everyone. God’s word tells us that ‘you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.’ (1 Cor 12:27) We as Christians already know that we all have different parts to play in the body of Christ and we should respect each other at all times; maybe now we can see that in every area of our society and get a more balanced view of work (including pay!)

• Re-evaluate our priorities in every area of life. That means valuing our relationships more and learning to look after each other with tenderness and compassion. Ephesians 4:32 says, ‘Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.’ 2020 may well be remembered for the panic buying and the greed and selfishness of people, but let’s pray it will also be remembered for the kindness and compassion of people to each other. There are people who need our help every day – maybe this will be remembered as the time when neighbours re-connected and the elderly were cared for, as God wants us to do every day. Maybe as a church, this will be the time when we really learned to connect with each other outside of our church building, because we couldn’t meet inside it!

• Learn the importance of eternal priorities. We’ve become a society where a whole generation seems to want to be a celebrity or a famous person. May this be the time when people understand the value of hard work and think about priorities from an eternal perspective. Paul says, ‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’ (Romans 8:17) We need to see life through God’s eyes and let go of our selfishness and short-termism.

Conclusion

So, when we look back, let us remember that every now and again we need to push the reset button.  Countries and world leaders can work together towards a common goal. We each have a role to play in the preservation of the planet for future generations. And for now, in the middle of it all, we can spend quality time with people, looking after each other, talking to each other, using technology wisely and most of all re-establishing the rhythms of life that God wants us to have.

Today is the day Rend Collective’s new album ‘Choose To Worship’ is released. I think their post today (see below) is very apt for us all. Worship is always a choice. Let’s choose to worship (and you can sing along on Facebook Live with them at 7 p.m. tonight – free concerts are brill!)

Til the darkness
turns to dawn
I lift my praises

There are mountaintop moments in all our lives – where we breathe in the goodness of God and breathe out His praises just as naturally and reflexively as our physical breath. Unfortunately the amount of time we spend on this “worship sweet spot” probably totals up to be about 0.1 percent of our lives. So what do we do with the other 99.9 percent? We choose to worship.

Life is hard. Worship will not always or even usually be our default setting. It’s not initially natural to respond to a cancer diagnosis, or the death of a loved one or a major career setback with a song of praise and trust. But like a pilot encountering dangerous landing conditions, when these storms gather over us we have to switch off autopilot, wrestle back the controls and manually, intentionally choose worship. Because God is still worthy in the valley. He is good when life is not. And that’s the anchor of our souls.

We used a labyrinth as our album art concept to reflect the confusing. messiness of life. So many twists and turns, so many little micro decisions, so much uncertainty and doubt, so much fear. In the middle of all this it can be so easy to forgot to make the one choice that ultimately makes all the others insignificant : to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

This album is an invitation into the spiritual discipline that we have been living as a community of building altars of praise in the darkness, trusting that whether or not the dawn comes, worship is still our sacred duty – and privilege.

We hope this album gives you a vocabulary so that you can sing from the shackles, lift an anthem of defiance against  your circumstances  and raise a shout of joy that demoralises the enemy in his attempts to silence you. We hope that that nothing will ever steal your song. We hope that you will join us in choosing worship.

There has been a lot of talk on social media recently following the suicide of celebrity Caroline Flack about the need to be kind. It’s so easy to use our words and actions to criticise, condemn and judge people, and often our words can pierce like swords. We can be careless and callous in how we treat people, often assuming the worst about them and failing to recognise their humanity. We’re very good at putting people on pedestals, but even better at knocking them off those pedestals when we realise they have feet of clay.

We’re living in abnormal times, when human greed and selfishness are evident everywhere. But at the same time, these abnormal times give us further opportunities to embrace kindness.

Kindness is another fruit of the Spirit which we need to embrace. (Gal 5:22-23) We can’t afford to favour one fruit over the other in the way we might like grapes but dislike apricots. To embrace kindness means to think before we speak, to give people the benefit of the doubt, to be proactive in thinking of ways to show love to people. Those ‘acts of random kindness’ when we might give someone a phone call, a card or a present ‘just because’ can be hugely beneficial (to us, as well as to the receiver.) We can show love through acts of service (washing up someone else’s dishes, cleaning up to help someone who is tired, cooking a meal for a friend or offering to buy a takeaway after a hard day at work). All these kind acts help us to connect to other people and to build them up. We might have to be more creative in our acts of kindness right now, but a phone call, text, card or delivery to someone might be just the thing they need. Let’s embrace kindness and stay connected through it.

We have just received the following update from the organisers of the Franklin Graham tour, who have taken the difficult decision to postpone the tour planned for May and June in the UK.

“BGEA is dedicated to pursuing a legal resolution with the venues that were scheduled to host the Tour. They broke their legally-binding contracts with us because we preach a message of God’s love, stand uncompromisingly on traditional Biblical beliefs about human sexuality, and share with all people that Jesus Christ is the only way they can be forgiven of sin and have a right relationship with God. Since the legal process takes time, we have prayerfully decided to postpone the Tour until the issues are resolved and the venues become available again.

Would you continue to pray for the outcome of these cases – and for Christians and churches across the UK? There will be serious consequences if venues are allowed to ban Christians from preaching the Gospel. This is a critical threat to our freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Thousands of Christians here regularly use public halls, schools and theatres for the work of the church. Ultimately, these cases could determine whether Christians are free to proclaim the Gospel publicly or whether our message will be increasingly confined to church buildings.

As BGEA tries to reach a resolution with the venues, Tour events—including Christian Life and Witness courses and prayer meetings—will resume once we consult with government and health authorities and determine it is safe to hold meetings again. We will provide additional ministry tools for churches online, such as Sharing Hope in Crisis. We are continuing to operate offices in the eight cities where Tour events are planned, and we are grateful that people from more than 2,300 churches are working with us and praying for the evangelistic outreach. Over 6,500 individuals participated in our first wave of training programmes, and we hope to schedule additional courses in the upcoming months.

In the meantime, as many of our neighbours are living in fear and experiencing an increasing sense of anxiety and hopelessness due to the coronavirus, let’s remain focused on helping people in need and sharing the hope that is found in Jesus Christ. We understand that we are in a spiritual battle, but we know that the victory and the harvest is in God’s hands. He has allowed us to be here ‘for such a time as this’. We ask you to fervently pray that the Lord’s Name will be lifted high during this pivotal period in history and God will be glorified!”

We will be livestreaming two services on Sunday at the usual start times of 10:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Please bear with us as we try to introduce songs into the service – we hope shortly to be able to share Communion together as well, but it is quite a steep learning curve fitting everything into 30 minutes or so and learning how to use the new technology.

In order to allow other people to share God’s word as would be the case in a normal service, we will be using the Zoom technology for these two services.

29th March Sunday morning service link (10.30-11.00 a.m.): https://zoom.us/j/431651853

29th March Sunday evening service link (6.00-6.30 p.m.): https://zoom.us/j/130670058

Please let us know if you need help connecting in any way or want to share thoughts/ prayer requests beforehand.

Don’t forget that we will be livestreaming a prayer meeting tonight (Thursday 26th March at 7:30 p.m.) using Zoom technology. The link for the meeting is https://zoom.us/j/620046949

You can log in to the meeting using this link on phones (if you have downloaded the free Zoom app) and on laptops/ tablets/ computers. Hopefully we can all see each other and there is the possibility of others talking/ praying via this technology. Please let us know any specific prayer requests during the day and we will pray for these tonight.

Sometimes it can be hard to know how to pray or what to pray, especially during these chaotic times. As always, we return to Scripture: when the disciples asked Jesus ‘teach us to pray’, He gave them a framework for prayer we call the Lord’s Prayer (see Matt 6:9-14).

• This framework acknowledges our relationship with God: He is ‘our Father’. We pray not out of duty or from a distance; we pray to a loving, heavenly Father who doesn’t change like shifting shadows (or Coronavirus updates!) and who gives every good and perfect gift. (James 1:17)

• We pray to a God who is in heaven, who is above all, who is reigning and ruling and still in control. ‘Hallelujah, for the Lord our God the Almighty reigns!’ (Rev 19:6)

• We pray to a holy God who is not tainted by sin in any way. Everything He does is good and right. (Ps 119:68)

• We ask for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth, as in heaven. We long to see people bowing the knee to Jesus. We long to see God’s reign and rule evident in the way people live. We long for revival and for people to see their need for God.

• We can ask for God’s daily bread in our lives: not only for the practical things that form such a big part of life, but we can ask for that spiritual food which will satisfy our souls. God’s interested in our daily lives!

• We can rejoice in the forgiveness we have from God and can live in forgiveness: ‘keep us forgiven and forgiving’. Whilst we may be separated from some people, the daily strain of close proximity to others may test our patience, grace and love. We need to keep on forgiving and heed the advice in Scripture not to go to bed angry, so that we don’t give the devil a foothold in our lives. (Eph 4:26-27) Some versions talk of debts, and at this time of huge economic uncertainty, we can pray for wisdom and help in dealing with financial debt as well. We can pray for the Government as it attempts to help people who can no longer work at the moment and for our economy.

• We can pray for protection from temptation and deliverance from the evil one. Ultimately, life is a spiritual battle. This is not just about a physical virus. The enemy is seeking to sow chaos, fear, trepidation and disorder into the world and we need to be aware of his tactics. God is not like that. We need also to be aware that Jesus is coming again and we need to be ready. (1 Thess 5:1-11)

• The Message version of the Lord’s prayer ends like this: ‘You’re in charge! You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty! Yes. Yes. Yes.’ True prayer will always start and end with God.