January 2025
Dear Friends,
As I write, it’s mid-January, we’re planning our Annual Meeting and getting into a new sermon series from the book of Amos, which will take us up to the season of Lent.
Annual Meeting
Technically the main (if not only) purpose of the Annual Meeting is to elect our board (which we call a Vestry, after the old vesting rooms in which they used to meet). In reality, it’s the first party of the calendar year where we gather to eat, reflect on what God has been doing, make plans for the year ahead, and worship.
God has been incredibly generous to us here, and the congregation is in a healthy place. We’ve grown in attendance, repaired the building, and seen quite an increase in committed giving. These “ABCs” are encouraging and are typically things church leaders look for because they can be measured so easily. But Ben and I, as pastor-teachers, have long-felt that there are better things we should be looking for, that are arguably even more encouraging still.
We call them the DEFs of discipleship, evangelism, and fellowship, and we’ve noticed encouraging signs in all three areas.
This congregation growing in zeal to be together, whether in intimate moments like the service on Easter Eve, singing in the lobby by candlelight, or surprisingly large events like the Maundy Thursday meal and the gibbon-house of Christmas Eve.
We’ve noticed an increasing hunger for the word, for example in the launch of several new small groups, and we’ve seen people more keen to serve or share testimonies of their ministries like Chuck recently did on the Podcast.
These, less measurable, more anecdotal, things are signs that the Holy Spirit is moving here. If you miss(ed) the Annual Meeting (where we talk about all of these things), you can still get a copy of the Annual Report from the lobby, providing just a taste of what we’re really celebrating here.
Studying the Book of Amos
With all this joy and positivity, one might wonder, therefore, why on earth we would pick a dour book of doom like Amos and study it from the depths of winter until the daffodils are dead.
There are three main reasons.
One of them is that in his day, people thought they could have prosperity from God without proximity to God. It’s important that we never lose sight, in all our activities and success, that our chief end is to glorify Him, not balance budgets, or grow groups. We can do this in feasts and parties, but we can do this in grief and mourning too. In fact, I often find more tangible comfort from the Spirit in moments at bed sides in the night, in hospital rooms, and in loss, than when all is light and easy.
The second reason is that, like Amos, we too are living in uncertain times. Many perceive a gathering storm, whether it is over-inflated markets, unrest between the nations, divisions in our own land, or a sense that there’s a growing gap between the have nots and the have yachts. We have manipulated media, censorship of speech, even mystery objects in the sky. This might be a time of peace, but it sure feels like it cannot possibly last. Therefore, we need to know the central message of Amos is one of hope: that even if a storm breaks upon us, God will be with us in it.
The third and final reason, is that Amos addresses what we might call “insider smugness”: a sense that everyone else is at fault “out there”, but we are somehow immune to error “in here”. We are not. In many ways we are all complicit in the injustices of this world and as believers, we might even be held to a higher standard than those who walk in the dark. Yet even here there is hope. The central message of the Christian faith is that although we deserve the ultimate storm to break upon us, it won’t. In fact it can’t, because God in His grace ensured it would break upon himself when he hung under condemnation on the cross, and burst out from the grave guaranteeing life and love to all who would turn to Him.
OK, I admit, Amos is a pretty heavy way to prepare for Lent. But it’s a great way to prepare for Easter.
Love in Christ,
Rev’d Alex