The months of the year ahead

‘On the first of every month, present to the Lord a burnt offering.’Numbers 28:11
There’s a rhythm to meeting monthly as a church. The year ahead can feel like a gift waiting to be unwrapped, month by month, like layer after layer of bright wrapping paper being torn off a pass-the-parcel prize. Or like a soup bubbling away with ingredients added one by one, subtly altering the flavour and texture until you look back after twelve months and realise it’s a very different soup from how it started. Or the year ahead can feel like a baggage trolley that gets added to month by month, becoming so heavy, intractable and bulging out in all directions that it’s impossible to push around any longer.
Think back to your first Messy Church in the church you belong to now and to the person you were when you started it. How has it changed? How have you changed? How has your wider church changed? How has your attitude towards this Messy mission changed? Does it seem to you more like an infinitely unwrappable gift, an ever-mutating soup or an unbearable burden on wonky wheels? Ask God to lift whatever it is that makes it burdensome and to free up those wheels. And thank God for the memories, the progress you’ve made together up to this point and the tastes, twists and turns still to come.