The Ashes start today.

That might not mean much to you. You might not even know what The Ashesare. You might have absolutely no interest in cricket - let alone Test cricket, the most inaccessible form of the sport that can go for five days and still have no winner at the end. So a game of cricket between Australia and England, two countries you may not feel particularly invested in, might not be such a big deal.

But today is a day that has been eagerly anticipated in our house for over a year.

Birthdays have a funny way of making you look in two directions at once. You look back at photos, memories, moments you forgot you’d forgotten. And you look forward, wondering what the next season might hold.

Last week, as I was preparing for our Birthday Service, I ended up flicking through some photos from our very first Sunday in 2015. We were small, chaotic and full of optimism. Ten years on, the hairlines have changed, the kids have grown, and somehow Adele still looks exactly the same.

But the thing that hasn’t changed is why we’re here as a church.

Yesterday I had some minor COVID PTSD as I joined a Zoom call with ministry apprentices from all over New Zealand. We gathered online for the last time this year to reflect, share, and pray together. It was such a joy to hear from other apprentices, some finishing up and making plans for study, others only a year in and reflecting on how they’ve grown so far. We also heard from future ministry apprentices who will be starting in the new year, sharing their hopes and fears about beginning their apprenticeship.

Christians aren’t called to be “nice” people.

Sounds controversial, but would you agree?

We can often reduce the fruit of the Spirit, or the marks of someone following Jesus, down to just being nice. You know, being polite, smiling, not disagreeing, not saying anything that might make someone uncomfortable.

But “nice” isn’t actually a biblical category. The word “nice” isn’t even in the Bible!

When I was at Bible College, one of my lecturers told our class that whenever he met up with men from his church, he would always ask about three areas of life: grog, girls, and greed. From his experience, most men struggled to honour God in at least one of these.

From my own experience, the one people are most uncomfortable talking about is greed. Many will readily share their struggles with alcohol or lust, but few will open up about how they are seeking to honour God with their money and possessions. A retired pastor once told me that in decades of ministry, he had heard confessions of almost every sin under the sun (even murder!) but never once had someone come to him seeking help with greed.

We’ve just returned from a holiday in Sydney, where we caught up with some dear friends from the church we left when we moved to Wellington to plant City on a Hill. It was wonderful to be reminded of the things we had asked them to pray for all those years ago. And even more encouraging was to see their joy as we shared what God has done in answer to those very prayers.

God has been very good to us as a family and as a church whānau.

But it got me thinking about the subtle difference between God’s goodness and his faithfulness.