A new year has begun.

Wouldn’t it be great if this was the year our church communities got serious about being just that - communities! Places where human beings come together and make connections. Not just with God, but with one another. With that person in the pew across from us whom we smile at every week, but have never actually had a conversation with. With the couple sitting shyly at the back of the church who never stay for coffee. With the people we meet week after week and discuss the weather with, but have never actually learned their names, or anything about what makes them tick - the hurts they are quietly carrying or the things that excite them and bring them alive.

When God saw that it was not good for the man he had created to be alone, I don’t think he was just talking about sex and marriage. I think he was thinking across the whole spectrum of human existence. We are social beings - even the introverts among us - and crave connection with others that reaches beyond the merely superficial to something that is meaningful and real. Part of the brokenness of the world we live in is that so often that connection is broken - we are divided by fear, anger, prejudice, self-preservation etc, - and part of the new creation that God in Christ is bringing about is a breaking down of those barriers, a healing of those divisions which enables us to be built and bonded together into a living temple in which he can be made manifest. It’s not about perfect doctrine, or proper liturgy, or meaningful, uplifting worship songs. It’s about human beings being vulnerable and open to one another and allowing God to create a dwelling place for his Spirit, where divine love is made manifest in practical caring. What Matt Mattson calls ‘Cathedrals of Connection’.