11th April 2022<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Church after the first Lockdown<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n (This series of articles was written a year after the first lockdown in March\/April 2021)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Previous articles are still available on the Premier Christian radio website – https:\/\/www.premierchristianradio.com\/Blogs2\/Yeshua-Explored – (until they finally pull the plug!)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n When I wrote Flockdown<\/em>, the first lockdown had just been forced upon us. It was late March 2020 and we had no way of knowing that most of the coming year was going to be much of the same. I referred to this imposition as \u2018Flockdown\u2019, the separation of the real<\/em> church (the Ekklesia, the people of God) from their places of worship, mistakenly also called \u201cchurches\u201d. Without delving too deeply, I described it as an intentional act of God, a revolutionary act to provoke a re-think concerning the sad ways into which the Western church has fallen. Did a re-think happen? Well, we are now a year after those times and the scenarios painted in that first book. So, what of now? <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you haven\u2019t read the previous articles and are unaware of the journey that this author has dragged people through over the last decade or so, then some of it may be a trifle strange and unfamiliar. But be re-assured, the journey has been an exciting one for some of us and the events of the past year have, if anything, put a seal on things and reinforced many teachings. For instance, one persistent theme in our investigation into Hebraic thinking<\/em> \u2013 the mindset of Jesus and his contemporaries \u2013 is the need to break down structures and hierarchies and return to a family-based, individually-empowered and community-driven expression of our faith. This has been a consequence of \u2018the year of Covid\u2019 and came as a revolution (forced upon us) rather than a gradual change in the Church (an evolution).<\/p>\n\n\n\n What had been theory, apparently unworkable because of the fixed momentum of an impervious Church, has now become practice, with even Bishops of the Church of England proudly proclaiming (as if this was a new concept!), \u2018we are beginning to realise that the Church is about the people not the buildings\u2019. <\/em>It\u2019s as if God has the Church by the throat and is trying to squeeze sense into it. Now perhaps you\u2019ll listen to My Word?!<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n May I say, at this point, is that all you will read in these articles have been intended to build-up, not to destroy. Any problem that the Church has inherited is in regard to the systems that it has created, as a result of a worldly mindset. Good people have always functioned despite these systems and any criticism here is not directed towards them. Instead, we should view them as heroes of the faith, who have risen above the self-inflicted shackles and fulfilled God\u2019s vision for their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Book of Haggai (well worth reading now, it\u2019s very short) formed a commentary to what has happened and it is still playing out, particularly as many of its warnings and predictions have not yet been taken onboard by a Church that\u2019s still largely dazed and confused. We will return to key verses as our story unfolds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here we are, a year later and a year wiser. It has been some journey, hasn\u2019t it? Not one that will be revisited by most in some future time with anything approaching nostalgia and sepia-toned remembrances. This Year of Covid<\/em> will go down in history, mostly as a dark troubling time, with severe impact on all aspects of society worldwide, from health to the economy, from mental well-being to financial distress. There have been positives among the gloom, but most people, mourning for the certainties and freedoms of \u2018pre-Covid\u2019, will be hard pressed to think of any. They were quite content with how things were before, with comfortable predictable lifestyles largely unaffected by external restrictions. The very idea of \u2018lockdown\u2019 just a couple of years ago would have been laughable and consigned to a Netflix dystopia rather than an everyday reality that had reared its ugly head three times over the last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Are we really in a \u2018new normal?\u2019 Even those uncontaminated by the various conspiracy theories will be stirred into thought over such things now that we have lived through such a strange disturbing period. Perhaps many who had been lulled into general torpor through previous comforts, have now been stirred into uncomfortable ideas, thinking new thoughts. This may be a good thing and a wake-up call for many, particularly to those who have been forced to look for meanings<\/em>. The harvest perhaps is riper than ever, ready for plucking? Perhaps even some in the Church may also have woken up?<\/p>\n\n\n\n