The Church is not a building, an institution, a political movement, or an organization. It’s people. The true Church is people who have the Spirit of God living in them and working through them – or at least trying to. We are flesh and blood people who have just been through the first pandemic that has affected every person on the planet – and shut down the world. Because we’re human – it has, in fact, affected us. The mission Jesus started when He rebooted history in 30 AD is still the most important thing going on in this world, because it won’t be over until everything is made new – not just rebooted – but recreated. And most people still don’t know that Jesus made that possible. It’s the Spirit’s transformation of our lives and priorities that makes sense of what Jesus makes possible. Are you in? Or are you same old, same old?

Some of you would describe your reboot – not in terms of a world-wide phenomena – but in terms of a very personal, very difficult – even shattering experience that you may still be healing from. And now you have to start-over. And you’re anxious to start over! There are some start-over people I’d like you to meet – and three really important start-over lessons.

Some of you would describe your reboot – not in terms of a world-wide phenomena – but in terms of a very personal, very difficult – even shattering experience that you may still be healing from. And now you have to start-over. And you’re anxious to start over! There are some start-over people I’d like you to meet – and three really important start-over lessons.

We all know that some websites that we visit in our digital world leave cookies. Actually, they’re more like cooties because they contaminate our spirit our soul and our attitudes… and our relational skills. Think of some cookie cooties that may need to go. Like entitlement, like prejudice, like the culture of complaint mentality, like greed, like the need for attention – just for example, of course! This stuff contaminates the grateful, kind and generous person hiding in us – living on cookies! 

If you read through the Bible – or even skim through it – it is a quick history of the reboot… before that was even a word or a concept.  The phrase we are familiar with is, starting over. The fascinating thing about God is that He seems to always engineer a reboot or a start-over for the persons who lead people through them.In one major season of the redemptive history, He did that with an entire nation. The lesson was a spectacular show of power. The test? Actually, it was a miserable failure. Most failures are based on three myths – and the assumption that God is as committed to our comfort zone and happiness as we are. In reviewing all these reboots and start overs, it’s pretty clear that God originated the reboot – not Steve Jobs or Bill Gates!

Disorientation is the one thing we have in common with the 7.7 billion people coming out of this pandemic. We have new words to use, new common experiences to refer to like, masked, double-vaxxed, social distancing. As guard-rails come down and restrictions are dropped life seems more… normal! Some think, the test is over-lesson learned! But what if COVID was the lesson – and how we act and what we do now is the test?  For 18 months the pandemic changed how we travel, how we shop, how we bank, how we work, how we communicate – and especially – how we relate to people! Where to from here? What lessons have we learned?  Good question! Let’s figure out where we are – what’s changed – and what hasn’t!