If your church is like mine, conversations are taking place about how quickly full services can resume. This includes live worship, singing in the congregation, new roles for people, and putting back in place some of the structures and teams that have been fallow for over a year.

There will be pressure amongst church leaders to want to demonstrate just how quickly their train “the congregation” can get back up to speed – “it only took us 2 weeks to get 4 services a week restarted, plus all the new digital streaming, launch a new building project and giving soared.” I don’t think so…

Join with many other church operations personnel and administrators as they unpack Sharon Clark’s new book on the topic of church administration.

Everything in the right order……God, people, task – a reminder we may need from time to time!

In less than one 24hr period, two friends and a bible daily reading App had all independently sent me the same verses of Scripture:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths”.

Proverbs 3:5-6, NIV

That was such an encouragement because there were significant and challenging work decisions looming that I needed a reminder to trust God in, and with. But I almost went ‘thanks that’s encouraging’ and moved on. Then a third friend sent me the same verse the next day saying, “I think the Lord wants to highlight this for your Jules”. That made me take time out to sit, read the verses, think about their context, and ask God what he was trying to get my attention on.

This month we’re talking about our staff. In Exodus 17:11 we read:

11 As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage.

Here we have a picture of Moses being instructed by God to uphold his staff as he surveyed the battle before him. It was a physical sign of Moses being visible, watching, and prayerfully upholding the Israelite army before God. Moses’ role was not to be fighting, but to be looking out for the men who rallied to his call. It was a spiritual relationship between a team and its captain; between crew and pilot; between a community and its leader who was following God.

“It is hopeless”; “We’re never going to be able to recover from this”; “I can’t see the way through”

Even if those are words you haven’t actually uttered out loud over the last 12months, perhaps you - or others you work alongside in your team - have silently listened to those thoughts surface in minds and hearts.

God is used to it when his people get to this place. Sometimes, it is ONLY when we get to this place that He can step in and transform a situation and transform us. If we cannot see the answer or the next step forwards, it means we’re finally trusting completely on God rather than being ‘god’ of our own plans.

Have you considered that the church is in captivity at present?

Compared to this time last year, we have been uprooted and taken to a foreign land, been prevented from gathering for worship and being community together, and have had to adapt to a strange socially-distanced, infection-resistant way of living that we yearn to leave behind.

The book of Daniel follows the positioning of a faithful follower of God in the midst of enforced captivity.

This is a very timely message to us right now.

On behalf of UCAN, please can I wish you a Happy New Year.

How many times have you received this greeting so far this year? It’s the common opener to emails and the initial sentiment to most phone calls. My 2 young boys have taken great delight in saying it to passers-by on our daily walks since 1st January. Happy New Year – But perhaps this year, more than most, you receive this with a sense of hesitation or questioning – will it be a Happy New Year?