John Lee, 20s - 40s Team Leader, writes:

I can’t help looking forward to ‘getting back to normal’. But what bits of normal do I really want to get back to?

When some of the Multiply Ministers were licensed we asked them to choose symbols that stood for what they were trying to do. One of the first choices was a blank sheet of paper. It stood for a new start in a new place; new possibilities and new hope – and some excitement too.

We’ve taken that image into many of our discussions about Multiply. So we’ve asked clergy and churchwardens, synod representatives and deanery leaders to imagine what they would do if they had a blank sheet of paper. I’ve even said …

‘Imagine if you shut your church this week; what would you start again? Are there things that you do now that you wouldn’t begin again? What new things would you start to do? Would there be new and different ways in which your community would use its energy and resources? Who would you set out to reach that you don’t reach now?’
I suppose I was really asking ‘If your calendar was suddenly empty, would you hear Jesus calling you into something different?’

It was an invitation to imagine an unlikely scenario – the sort of thing you might do on a PCC day away. Now it is reality. It feels painful; another blow to communal life and more distance from people who we love and treasure. Church is family and so this is not a game – it is sorrow and heartbreak. But could it also be a very significant opportunity?

Whatever we don’t have, some of us do have time. Time and space to think, to pray, to read, to talk together [there seem to be lots of conferencing apps I never knew about!] perhaps time to begin to imagine some different ways to move forward together.

Let’s not get back to normal; let’s get back to the future that God is calling us into.