New Year's message from Chris Cartwright

As we enter a significant year of both considerable challenge and immense opportunity for the Kingdom of God, Elim's General Superintendent Chris Cartwright shares a message with everyone in Elim.

This greeting will be shown in Elim churches at the start of the year and is available to share across our media channels including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Chris Cartwright's message

I bring you greetings at the start of a New Year from Elim's National Leadership Team.

We're living in extraordinary times, but we believe that they are exciting times. The challenges of these last few years have revealed to us just how urgent it is for the people of God for followers of Jesus to come into not just this next year but this next season with a real sense of renewed faith as we reset local churches and our local church communities around the priorities of the Gospel of Jesus.

We are so stirred by what we believe that God wants to do.

I want to just bring to you a few thoughts as we start the New Year in all of our churches right across Elim UK and those hearing this further afield. And I want to encourage you today - reading from Ephesians chapter 5.

Paul writes to the Ephesian church this extraordinary letter of deep theology and precious revelation about Jesus and his work for us and his Gospel of Salvation.

And in the midst of it he has this to say - quoting from the Old Testament scriptures, he says, "Awake o sleeper and arise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise making the best use of the time because the days are evil."

It's no exaggeration to say we're living in challenging times in so many ways. Economic hardship, the recent pandemic and so many challenges to wider society and to every local community and indeed every family.

So this is a time not for triumphalism but for tenderness. We are feeling, continuing to feel actually, more vulnerable may be weaker than we have and yet in the midst of such times the word of God comes to tell us that we are to make the best of the times.

Now how do we do that? I want to suggest to you three words that are really stirring in my spirit, in our movement right now, that can help us to do that.

The first one is the one that Paul quotes from the Old Testament scriptures. A prophetic word saying awake! I believe that for Elim people all over the nation and every local church and community, it is time for us to awake. And that the Spirit of God is starting to wake us up, familiar places, familiar things, but with the freshness of faith. It's not coming from just our programs and our plans. Certainly, those have been interrupted more than we could have ever expected, but it is coming from a deep sense that God is working and moving.

Remember in Matthew 24 and 25 when they asked Jesus about the future he did give them courage and hope that he was in charge of the times and he told them that tough times were coming. How we know that that is true in today's season and times.

And yet he also said don't be afraid, don't be surprised. Tough times are coming and will continue, but those times will be harvest times.

I am amazed as I go around our churches and have the privilege of being in local healing churches week by week that the stories that there are of fresh awakening. People personally awakening to the love of Jesus to the power of the spirit in their own lives. Local church communities seeing people awakening to faith.

Whether it's through the Alpha course or whether it's through personal evangelism or outreach activities, it seems like things are moving and people are responding with glorious stories of Salvation and transformation.

Families coming into our churches. Prodigals returning. And it might seem like it's a small thing, but in the midst of a tough season there is an awakening.

The second word that I'm really gripped by at the moment is alignment. Awake and align. Awake o sleeper - the word of God says in Ephesians chapter 5. And Paul begins to put that in the context of where we are right now, There are so many ways after the pandemic that we've been seeking to realign, to get things moving again, but there's a deeper real-life meaning that the spirit of God is doing.

I know that in your community there will be others who love Jesus too and your church may be partnering with other Elim churches but also with others from other networks and other ministries. And these are going to be days of more and more alignment and partnership in the kingdom of God. We need one another together in the local church. We put aside many of our differences, and we overcome obstacles. And we learn to love one another and to pursue Jesus together because the spirit of God and Jesus is calling us to do it.

It's against the grain. It takes work and effort, and sacrifice and forgiveness and Grace and a generosity of spirit and a faith beyond the immediate but God is calling us to alignment.

And the third word is Advance. There is something for us in Elim. A few years ago before the pandemic we were already advertising and speaking about our desire to advance in a decade of mission. We have the banners and the promotional materials. We have the conference materials that began to share our four priorities of making disciples and developing leaders and growing churches and reaching nations, to advance in the years ahead.

I still believe those things with all my heart but the interruptions and disruptions of the past couple of years of course may be some sense of frustration in us all. And yet we are entering a new year where over the next decade many many movements and missionary organizations and Christian churches around the globe are starting to awaken to what God might want to do with us together in the years ahead.

2033 we'll see a 2,000-year anniversary of the Great Commission of the Cross and the resurrection. And many are saying let's commemorate that let's work towards that with fresh faith to reach every person on the planet with the gospel.

To translate the Bible into every language where it is not yet available. To move together in breakthrough prayer for every nation, every community, every people group. And also to help every nation and unreached people that have not yet heard the gospel to have that opportunity. To plant churches in those places.

And I guess for us in Elim in our corner of God's vineyard that we are feeling that calling, awakening not just to our own plans and programs but to the biggest story of the spirit of God and of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So I want to ask you to begin this year - whether you're a volunteer in the local church a new member, an attender perhaps recently come to faith In Jesus or an established long-serving veteran of the local church. Whether you're a minister, an evangelist, moving in worship ministry or prayer, I want to ask you to step into this year with us with a sense of expectancy and renewed commitment.

To encounter Jesus together, we're looking for times of encounter this year across our movement to say let's be open together to the spirit of God. Let's receive him afresh. Let's be empowered afresh by him and let's pursue him with all our hearts.

I want to ask you to be looking to align your heart, your passion, your gifting. Not just in terms of the local community but with a wider church as well, as you pray, as you believe, as you reach out.

And finally, I want to ask you to join us in advancing together. These are times when we feel less strong and able than perhaps we once did. But actually, in that reality moment, we are being called to align ourselves with what the Holy Spirit wants to do through real people, real places, going through real things through the church, through Elim, through your local church and through the movement and movements of which we're apart together.

Hey! God bless you this year. Let's invest our lives in these times. In eternal things. In the Kingdom things. Because Jesus is moving right now in our nation, in our communities and in our times. And we long to see what else He's going to do with us, in us, through us.

God bless you!

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