The beginning of the new year can be disorientating. You may, like me, feel like it is hard to remember what day (let alone date!) it is between Christmas and early January – this is compounded if you are on holidays.
By the beginning of February, however, we are expected to have pulled ourselves together and to scowl if people still utter ‘Happy New Year’ to us. Yet, there is a newness that comes with each year – as artificial as January 1st is as a day to mark beginnings – that we should not be in a hurry to forget nor sweep away that sense of newness.
In Isaiah 42:9 we are reminded, ‘See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being, I announce them to you’.
New things are coming. As we enter 2023 in earnest now, we have almost come to dread new things. What new things? Another new variant of the pandemic? Another shift in our social fabric? Another new way of working, socialising or being?
It is during a season of new things that we can often see the fingerprints of Jesus upon us.
Here at GMP, we are starting a new season as we welcome our new EO, John Lamerton. We are looking forward to seeing what new emphases he will bring, what new shoots will emerge, what new things will grow from the foundation that has been laid these past 15 years and, indeed, well beyond that.
So, John, it is good to have you on board and we look forward to walking 2023 with you. You are part of the GMP family now and we welcome you with open arms.
We hope that you sense not just a newness at GMP, but in your lives, too. We have emerged from some difficult, difficult times.
May 2023 be a time of new opportunities.
May 2023 be a time where you experience Jesus anew.
May 2023 be a time where old wounds no longer ache.
May 2023 be a time where God’s voice announces goodness, wholeness and hope into your life.
We look forward to your partnership as we seek to work with our partners to transform lives this year.
Craig Brown
GMP Deputy Executive Officer and ICP Director