It Takes Time to Heal
As a teenager I was a keen footballer, and though I say it myself, not a bad player. When I was 14 I broke my right leg while playing in a Saturday league match. It was extremely painful and it took many months for the bone to heal and muscle strength to return. I had to content myself with watching football for some time before I was able to go back to playing matches. I suspect if you were to look at an x-ray of my right leg now you could still see where the bone healed.
When Covid hit in 2020, King’s was probably the strongest it had been since we came to lead the church in September 1995. Our 21 days of prayer in January 2020, when hundreds of people turned up night after night to call upon God, had been a high point, the like of which we had never witnessed before. Many of our key indicators were revealing signs of health.
Covid took a huge toll on churches everywhere. As progress was made with vaccines and treatments and restrictions were gradually lifted, King’s re-emerged slowly. As we did so, some were wondering if we should re-evaluate our philosophy of ministry. Was this a moment to question the ways in which we’d operated before? Was this an opportunity to do some things differently? It is true that Covid revealed our areas of weakness more starkly. However, I did not believe that meant our underlying philosophy was wrong. I appealed for time and reminded everyone that recovery from something like this will take a while.
When a body is injured, it needs time to heal. When I broke my leg, I couldn’t shortcut the healing process. It was frustrating and occasionally disheartening. There were moments when I wondered if I’d ever return to playing as I had before. But once my leg had healed and I had completed physio, I was back. At King’s the recovery from Covid has taken around three years, but there are now many encouraging signs. Touring round the sites on Sunday, I saw that many of our venues were full and extra chairs were being put out. There are numbers of visitors coming along - I spoke to 25 new people over the course of the morning. Our week of prayer last week was fantastic. (In fact, I’m wondering whether to go for another 21 days in January 2024!) Financial giving is encouraging, despite the challenges in our economy at the moment. As always, I am both grateful and amazed by the continuing generosity of King’s.
There is no doubt these last years have been hard, but God has been with his Church through it all. I am seeing many signs that health is returning to the Body. Let’s keep moving forward, knowing that God is the ultimate healer.
