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The July edition of Journey magazine is now available in PDF. You can download this edition and all previous editions back to 2005 on the download page.
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You know that feeling you get around the beginning of July? A creeping realisation which suddenly hits with a bittersweet epiphany—the year is half over! How did that happen?
The previous six months might feel like they’ve flown by, but there’s so much more to do before the end of year break. How do you keep the zeal you had at the start of the year when everything was shiny and new?
Church can feel this way. There’s been a lot of effort put toward aid, evangelism and social justice, but sometimes it’s hard to see the results. The enthusiasm fades and it can become a real grind. On page six we talk to some social justice activists about what has fuelled them over so many years of passionate work.
Sometimes we run the risk of thinking of the church primarily as a service provider or social justice watchdog. But church is much more than that: we are a worshipping community.
On page ten we talk about community and church with John Green, the author of The Fault in Our Stars. Recently John made a YouTube video about the poetry of Sylvia Plath. In it he talks about an ineradicable hope available to everyone: we are called to attentiveness even when it is painful.
Things happen which seize the attention of church communities and drive them to activism, and working towards a promised end can sometimes be painful. What sustains our work and our community through this pain? It is an even greater hope—the hope in the promise of God.
Rohan Salmond
Cross-platform editor
Journey July video editorial:
