Welcome back as we rebuild together!

Over the past three weeks, we’ve been considering the story of Nehemiah and God’s people rebuilding the broken walls of Jerusalem. Rebuilding the walls was not simply about security or status. The city of Jerusalem and its walls was a symbol of God’s presence with his people. Rebuilding the city walls, after years of exile, was a joint activity of renewing the faith and hope of God’s people.

The impact of the pandemic in Melbourne does not compare to Jerusalem’s destruction at the hands of the Babylonians in 586 BC. Yet we are embarking on a process of renewal and rebuilding as we learn what it means to live and work together again as God’s church. In returning from lockdown, we need to rebuild the patterns and structures for our life as a church community. Our faith in God and hope for the future have been impacted by isolation, disconnection and fear.

Today, you will be invited to participate in a shared activity as we entrust the ruin of our own lives to God. Our relationships, sense of belonging, mental and physical health, and many of the other important things in our lives lie in some sort of ruin. Pandemic or not, we all experience some kind of ruin or breakdown in our lives. But God wants to rebuild us in Christ, as we prayerfully turn to him in faith and hope together.