Welcome to the new year of 2024. Every new year is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on what has been and consider where you want to be. It is a wonderful time to analyse the activities you are involved in and make decisions on whether to continue them or not. 

This analysis is for all activities, not just those you deem lightweight. It also includes any you do as part of your walk with Jesus.

In September 2010 I was on holidays and took the down time to reflect on something that had been on my mind for some time. Starting a Christian blog. The catalyst was the situation my husband and I found ourselves in with the church we were attending and the impact it was having on our children. 

We had realised our children were being turned away from God by the unChristlike behaviour of people within that church. There were cliques that, despite our best efforts, had proved impenetrable. My daughters diligently attended all youth activities for more than a year. They were still ignored and excluded by the young people in the church. My sons went to the Sunday School and couldn’t connect to anyone there. They saw little evidence of God in the church, only at home. So we made the difficult decision to discuss with our children our future with that church and any other church. 

This church was one in a long line of churches we had attended throughout their lives that had been more invested in unChristlike behaviour and exclusion than on God. 

When we held our family meeting our children were unanimous in their desire to not attend church any more. That church or any other church. 

It was a scary decision, but we stuck to it. I spent the holidays that September reading the bible and writing down my thoughts about whether we needed to attend church. I drew a lot of inspiration from Chip Brogden and The School of Christ. I also read a lot of John O’Donohue’s writing and researched Christian leaders from the past such as Hildegard of Bingen. What I learned from all these people was that the churches we had been attending were not following God. 

Some people I deeply respected reacted badly to our decision, but ultimately it was our decision. I had learned through the research and time in prayer with God that I needed to focus on my relationship with God and teaching my children the same thing. They had been taught that, but I saw that the churches we attended had taught them other things that were pulling them away from God. 

My first blog was posted on October 10, 2010. I have now been posting it for just over 13 years. I have explored what the Bible says about attending church (which it doesn’t). I have explored how to worship God. I have gone down some strange rabbit holes and learned how wrong I was (I am thinking in particular of a post I wrote about Elijah from Kings 1:19 and commented he had been wrong by running from God – I have realised with further prayer and study that was wrong).

I have explored Revelation and come up with the only message it gives. God is in control. It will all work out in the end.

I have explored attitudes expressed by extremists in churches. I have explored Social Justice. I have explored many more things.

I have spent the past few years studying the impact the Western church had on the First Nations People of Australia. I have been horrified at the attitude that the measure of one’s faith in God was living a Western Lifestyle! Jesus didn’t live a western lifestyle so why should anyone else? I have explored my own learning through life and realised this attitude impacted anywhere the Western church went. Those missionaries left a trail of destruction in their wake. 

I have realised this Western church that fails to represent God is not something I want to be part of. As a result I have been studying the spirituality of other cultural groups and found more evidence of God there that is in line with my own experience of God. The God that is also found in the writings of John O’Donohue, Hildegard of Bingen and others I have studied.

I am on a journey of great learning and transformation and I don’t know when it will end.

As I have contemplated over the past few weeks what my blog was to be today I realised it wasn’t.

One church I attended long ago had a review of all the activities in the church. I remember the minister saying that just because an activity had been running for years didn’t mean it still should be running. Sometimes something has run its course and God has other ideas of what He wants instead.

At the moment I am pausing my blog and having a break from it. I don’t know if I will continue after a break, or if I will stop. That is not my decision and that decision will, at the right time, be communicated to me.

Thank you for reading my blog. It is still there on my website and I will keep the Facebook page for the time being. 

I may be back. If the decision is to not come back there will be another blog to communicate that decision.

May God guide your steps. 

May God be your constant companion.

May you learn to trust Him, even when it looks like He has abandoned you.

May your life be blessed and may you be able to see and acknowledge those blessings.

May you know the true God who created the heavens and the earth and all that is within them who is above all culture and ideas of difference. The one who is first and foremost Love.