The other day I was scrolling through facebook and this image of small beginnings caught my eye.

The stump of the old tree is dead but the tiny shoot is well and truly alive.  It will grow from the old tree into a unique plant; not a replica of the parent tree, but with the same DNA.

Many of our small churches are in the process of releasing the old way of life in order to embrace the new.  The new ways are small and fragile, yet they are alive and they will slowly grow.  The new ways involve different means of communicating the gospel  but they share the DNA of the parent church.  This DNA, the essence of the gospel message, remains the same, viz that in Christ, the old life is transformed into the new, hate is transformed into love, evil into good. It is just the methods and the medium of presenting this amazing truth that changes as our Australian culture changes.

These beginnings of transformation are often fragile and slow.  In our society we praise the fast growing, big successful enterprises but we feel very uncomfortable in the presence of smallness and fragility.

“Lovely Service last Sunday, don’t you think?”.   “Umm, how many were there?”

Zechariah was a prophet who encouraged his people to have a hopeful attitude in times of great hardship and change.  Around  520 BC  the people had been released from exile in Babylon and were returning to their native land in dribs and drabs.  They faced the daunting task of rebuilding their homes, businesses and above all the temple.  Many were discouraged because the work was so slow and arduous. They worried that the task ahead was impossible.  In the face of much discouragement, Zechariah writes,

“Do not despise small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin.” Zechariah 4:10, New Living Translation

Let’s take heart from Zechariah’s words and rejoice with the Lord that the new work in our churches, however small and tentative, is beginning.