Unleashed - by Liz Carter

I’ve been watching some of the Spring Harvest Home livestreams this week. There’s some brilliant stuff on there for all ages including worship, teaching and drama. One of the things I’ve found most exciting about it is the theme - ‘Unleashed’. This theme was decided upon over a year ago, and yet somehow slots so beautifully into the times: a church unleashed, a church ready to go, to get out there into the community and into the world. A church unencumbered by the building. A church where the Holy Spirit is unleashed to move powerfully, to do the work of comfort and assurance and encouragement all over the world. And here we are now, a church unleashed, out of the building, finding ourselves faced with the challenge of how to let the gospel message loose outside of the church grounds and into homes under lockdown.

It got me thinking about writing, too, and how it is possible to see this time as a season of unleashing in our writing; a season of freedom from all sorts of things that keep us from exploring the full extent of the gift we’ve been given. Perhaps as churches become bolder in their sharing of good news online, so too can we as Christian writers take courage in these dark times to share things that will build up, inspire and challenge.

I’ve been reflecting a little on this verse from Isaiah this week:

How beautiful on the mountains
    

are the feet of those who bring good news,


who proclaim peace,
    

who bring good tidings,
    

who proclaim salvation,


who say to Zion,
    

“Your God reigns!”    

(Isaiah 52:7)

I was pondering on what it means to have ‘beautiful feet’ and how we as writers so often have the power of proclamation: this proclamation may not be an obvious shout-it-from-the-rooftops account of God’s love for humanity, it may be through the subtleties of a poem about lament or a story that explores grief. We may proclaim peace through in depth Bible studies or through gentle devotionals. We may bring good tidings through sharp wit or through a thought-provoking piece of flash fiction. We may proclaim that ‘your God reigns’ through a scripture retelling or a YA dystopian fantasy with underlying kingdom themes. In all of the ways we write and all of the genres we write in we can listen to the gentle challenge: are we speaking good tidings? Are we proclaiming peace? Are we bringing a smile to the face of a hurting world? 

Not all our writing has to contain an ulterior motive, of course, but this is what I am challenged with at the moment. I am challenged to unleash any chains that have bound my own writing and my sharing of this greatest story, and to push the boundaries I have placed around myself. I am challenged to take my writing outside the building I’ve often kept it in and fly freely, seeing where the wind takes me. 

In these times people are more than ever searching for something more, for glimpses of hope and life, and I am hearing so many stories of people turning to online church groups and livestreams for something of this, and seeing this among my own friends. People need to know there is more to life than this. So many of the walls we build around ourselves have been kicked down; walls of comfortable consumerism and offline social networks, walls of relativism and empty spirituality. All around we see people’s worlds suddenly exposed and stark, with no anchor point. Even some homes feel like a threat rather than a haven as lockdown carries on with no certain end in sight. Now, more than ever, we have the opportunity to offer words which build up, words which represent the greater narrative, words which set free. 

Words are powerful, and seem to carry even more potency around times of great crisis. Think about some of the poetry that came out of the two world wars, how it spoke so profoundly of the experience of war, and how it continues to speak now. Scripture streams through the bonds of time, unleashed in its raw power, drawing people anew in every generation and every nation, and we as writers can ride the wind of its sheer force, as we retell and dig in and allude to and exhort and study. And in this time of so much hurting, we can use our words for good - more than ever.

Today, I long to have beautiful feet. I want to shout good tidings over the mountains, to proclaim of God’s deep and abiding love and great triumph over death. I want to shape my words to reflect the depths of peace and the widths of grace and the lengths of salvation and the heights of praise. I long that my words are unleashed to bring freedom to captives and release to prisoners. I want my words to say to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’. 

An unleashed prayer

Father,

May we know the unleashed power of your gospel in our lives.

May we know that even though many of our anchor points have been wrenched from under us,

That you are here. 

That you are the great anchor in these times and in our lives.

Give us strength and inspiration to write of your love

To unleash our words and release them,

To shout from the rooftops and sing through the valleys

To whisper with nature and bring good tidings over the mountains in our lives

Fill us anew with your Spirit

Fan into flame the gifts you have given us

Unleash your church, Oh Lord,

Unleash our calling

As we say to our broken world

‘Your God reigns’.

Liz Carter is an writer and blogger who writes about the painful times in life. Her first book, Catching Contentment, explores what it means to find peace when life hurts, and at the moment is half price on Kindle. She's also written a six week Bible study course to accompany the book, which many are finding helpful in these difficult times.