Dear friends
I’m writing the pastoral letter this week on Wednesday morning, and I’ve just been flicking through the news articles following the budget which was handed down last night. Big tax cuts, money for infrastructure and incentives for businesses to hire people seemed to be the big news stories – all designed to get our economy going again as we (hopefully) begin to recover from the impacts of COVID.
Of course, the economic recovery is one thing, however COVID has hit Australia in plenty of other ways too. The isolation has affected us relationally. The stats have shown that more and more are suffering mentally (and it was good to see the government put some more money into this area last night). We’ve had to face the reality that lots of the things that bring us happiness in this life are relatively fragile. We’ve had to face the reality of death as we hear about stats like “excess mortality”.
I wonder what it will look like for Australian’s to recover from these deeper things? I guess one option is that as things get more normal again people will try and pretend 2020 was a bad dream and once again start to think less about death and more about their next holiday. Another option, though, is for people to stop and use this time as a chance to really ask the big questions. What is this life about? Is there real hope in this world? Is there a way to have real joy rather than temporary happiness?
It seems to me that if we can encourage people to use this time as a chance to ask these questions it could bring about great opportunities to give a Christian perspective. Do be looking for opportunities to chat about these things. As we think about COVID recovery, wouldn’t it be great to see lots of people coming out the other side with their hope now set on eternity, rather than the temporary things that have been shown to be so fragile?
Matt Winter
Associate Pastor | Trinity Church Brighton
0406 124 006 | matt.winter@trinity.church | Day Off Thursdays