We need to live connected lives the whole time. We need to be fully aware of our need to be connecting with God and with each other as church, all of time. That’s what we will be focusing on over the next few months – our need to keep “Connecting with God” so that when we describe ourselves as “church”, we’re always totally aware of what that means and how it is we can rightly describe ourselves like that.
The starting point for our “connecting” has nothing to with what groups, activities, or programmes we have in place, compared to the church down the road. And it has nothing to do with the style of our worship, the age of the songs we sing, how impressive our stage lighting is, or how professional our livestream and social media look.
We always need to start with how we’re “Connecting with God”, and then everything else flows out of that as our heartfelt response of worship that motivates us, energises us, and empowers us into all those other things. If we get so distracted by the things that are driven by our own desires and emotions, things that we haven’t first of all been “Connecting with God” about, then we’ve moved into a dangerous place. And when we realise that we’ve been moving into that unhelpful direction, we need to stop, and get back to “connecting with God” as our first priority.
As we spend time “Connecting with God” – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, over the coming weeks, we’ll stop asking questions like, “What’s in it for us?”, and be asking instead, “Lord, where are you leading us next because we’re ready to follow”.
We need to pray our way into all of this. The timing of our prayer & fasting day on 22nd January is intentional, but praying for the commitment we need together to be “Connecting with God” fully and passionately, needs to start now.