Many years ago, a friend of mine was speaking about how deepening our faith was really about growing our relationship with God. He spoke of becoming a ‘weekday friend, rather than a Sunday acquaintance’.

When we think of faith, church, and Christian leadership, many of us think only of Sunday, or of those roles which are visible at the front. But being a Christian, and leadership within the Christian community, is not limited in this way. Being a disciple of Jesus is to be someone who is learning the way of Jesus in their context at this moment. And leadership is a part of that discipleship – not just being a positional leader, up the front on Sundays, but even more crucially being a relational leader, someone whose love, care and wisdom exercises influence in the church, the workplace and daily life. Whilst ordained people are generally the ones called to be the positional leaders, the role of lay people as relational leaders is vitally important, and without them our whole community is the poorer.

For we gather on a Sunday to be refreshed to go back out into our daily lives, taking with us the joy and peace that we find in Jesus and in our church community, and working together as God’s people in the world so that the whole of creation may be transformed and restored and healed by God’s love.

May we all in our daily lives be a blessing to others, being the kind of relational leaders who do bring God’s healing love and compassion to those around us Monday to Saturday. And may God give us the grace to see our daily lives, not just Sundays and church, as a time of discipleship and faith.

Revd. Talisker

Photo by Gabriel Lamza on Unsplash