Grand designs

He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.” Ezekiel 37.3

History was made yesterday, with the launch of the Church of Scotland's Faith Action Programme Leadership Team. Apart from being a mouthful to say, it amounts to the restructuring of the way the church is run. No longer are individual councils and committees to be left alone to operate their own fiefdoms in isolation, everything is to be streamlined and coordinated into one operation whose focus will be to resource local churches in their mission and ministry.

Hasn't that always been the church's business? I hear you cry. Indeed but we all know how easily distracted we are and therefore inclined to lose sight of our priorities. And because nothing in this life stays the same, our environment is constantly changing and so must the way we do business, if we are to remain engaged and relevant. In the case of our church, many of its structures and methods were designed for an era in which church-going was habitual and nominal. That is no longer the case.

The Good News is still good news; in fact, it's better than ever. A society which is growing secular to the point of religious illiteracy while its members are confused about their identity and increasingly at odds with one another and our environment, needs to hear that there is a bigger picture, that life has meaning and that the throne of life is not vacant. In Jesus, the Creator entered creation, made it possible to be good again and charted the course between this life and the future where life itself will be good again. Society needs to hear this message and the church is God's appointed messenger. It cannot fail.