In a recent conversation with our founding directors, James and Denise Jordan, I commented that lockdown was causing us to lose momentum around the world. As I spoke, I was visualising groups of people on different continents, those amongst whom we have had the privilege of sowing spiritually. In my mind’s eye, as we had returned year after year to plant, tend and water, I could see those groups flourishing. We were initiating and sustaining momentum; sowing, watering and caring for the seedling plants as they emerged and thrived. But then came my comment, and with the current crisis curtailing all of our travels, I was imagining those same groups of seedlings wilting and watching all that momentum nose-dive.

My wife Nia is frequently the one to call me out, and that morning was no exception. As I expressed my conclusion to James and Denise, she immediately added, “At least that’s what you think!” Although I turned and gave her a long quizzical look, she didn’t justify herself or expand further, she simply allowed her words to hang there in the atmosphere… After a short pause and a dismissive shake of my head, I quickly steered our conversation with James and Denise in a new direction.

In the days that followed, Nia’s words continued to gnaw at me like an irritating stone in my shoe: “Losing momentum – that’s what you think!” Gradually understanding began to flow, and I could see that my perception and conclusion were actually utterly ludicrous and tiny-minded. I had carried a very narrow expression of so-called Christian leadership into my now expanding experience of God. I was trying to force the vibrant wine of Divine love into the dry, shrivelled wineskin of my previously orphaned heart.

Christian leadership is often experienced as creating momentum towards a common measurable goal. The goal is one that inspires and captures the hearts of others, binding them together in pursuit of a collective ambition. Once this goal is achieved, a fresh and equally inspiring objective emerges, often in January when the new year’s vision and goals are articulated from the pulpit. In this way momentum is established and sustained, not just in terms of direction, but also relationally, moving the community forward with common goals and values. Such an approach can appear highly productive due to the extensive activity it creates, but busyness rarely equates to enduring spiritual fruitfulness, nor does it consider the many human casualties this grinding treadmill leaves in its wake. Such an approach is ultimately exhausting and deeply disenchanting for both leader and followers. Many years can pass before its futility is finally recognised and confessed.

I’d always seen my ability to inspire, create and sustain momentum as a God-given spiritual gift; a capacity to initiate, to pioneer and then to establish and sustain. I considered it a gift that might be applied in the context of new ministry expressions, new locations or nations, or in the pursuit of relationships and partnerships. The potency of Nia’s concise comment that morning, pulled the rug out from underneath my self-serving delusion. It was all the thinly veiled effort of a little boy drowning in isolation, tussling to prop up his own sense of self-worth, trying to forge his own destiny. Ouch!

It’s not that momentum itself is wrong, the issue is the source and motive of genuine momentum. If the creation story of Genesis chapter 1 is synonymous with the event scientists call the Big Bang, then we have some means to measure God’s power to initiate momentum. At its core, a hydrogen bomb generates temperatures of 100 million degrees Celsius and the force of its destructive shockwave passes through the atmosphere at 300 metres per second. In contrast, cosmologists believe the Big Bang’s creative force burst forth at 300,000,000 metres per second (the speed of light) and that the temperature of the entire cosmos was 1000 trillion degrees Celsius at just a fraction of a second after the explosion. Now that’s the power to initiate!

And God said, “Let there be…” For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible…[1]

By comparison, my tiny-minded efforts to initiate a fresh endeavour or pioneer a new program are positively miniscule. What would it mean to relinquish my isolating self-effort, instead entering into harmony with God’s capacity to originate? What would it be to co-create with him, leaning into his unlimited ability instead of relying on my own meagre efforts? Is alignment of heart the avenue through which mountain-moving energy is unleashed with mere mustard seed-sized faith?

But don’t stop there…

In him we live and move and have our being… He is before all things, and in him all things hold together… he is sustaining all things by his powerful word…[2]

What does is require to sustain all the rhythms of life, the momentum of all of creation? What is necessary for the sun to rise, march across the sky and set each day? For the global transition through the seasons from spring, to summer, to autumn and winter? How do you sustain the intricate beauty of the Milky Way’s 1000 million stars, or the beating hearts and the breath of nearly 8 billion people? What would it mean to rest from my ability to sustain and maintain in favour of the flow of divine life and momentum? The solar system is careering forward, not towards an inevitable end, but towards an inevitable new beginning – now that’s momentum!

Nia and I have a dream to relocate to Cornwall, in the South West of England. A few years ago, we travelled there for a vacation and fell in love with its quaint villages and peaceful rugged beauty. Now, each time we return and walk the cliffs and the beaches, we tangibly experience creation calling and beckoning us. About a year ago, I was relating our dream to my cousin, and his response lodged in my heart: “Don’t try to make it happen Richard, allow the River to carry you there in due time.” The irony of genuine momentum is that it flows from a place of rest, that genuine fruitfulness is a product of humility and surrender, not forcefulness and strength.

Momentum is not merely an issue of source but also of motive. In one of his visions, Ezekiel sees a river flowing eastward from under the threshold of the temple, ultimately touching the Dead Sea and invoking super-abundant life. Initially the river is ankle-deep, then knee-deep, then waist-deep, then “deep enough to swim in, a river that could not be passed through,”[3] a river that folds you into and sustains you within its divine flow. The Apostle John draws upon Ezekiel’s imagery in Revelations, but he steps across the threshold into God’s presence. It is from this vantage point that he witnesses the river’s source – a flow of overwhelming abundance pouring forth to the nations from within the relationship between the eternal Father and the eternal Son,[4] a torrent of Paternal Love and purpose.

There is a swollen river of God’s intention, it courses with unstoppable momentum from his heart into all of creation. It has been flowing from the beginning. We might lose interest in him but his interest is continually flooding towards us. To surrender to this river is to be united with that which pours forth from the very substance of the Trinity. It is a river of perpetual transition, transition that will only cease as he carries us forward into his Fullness. In the river I no longer have to pursue illusive positional identity or productive destiny. Instead I am found. Aligned with the unfolding beauty of his purposes rather than the limitation of my own, fruitfulness becomes the natural expression pouring forth from within him. Whilst the momentum we create with our own self-effort is usually measured in terms of outward productivity, the enduring fruitfulness of divine momentum breaks forth from inner tranquility.

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[1] Genesis 1:3, Colossians 1:16

[2] Colossians 1:17, Hebrews 1:3, Acts 17:28

[3] Ezekiel 47:5

[4] Revelation 22:1