I was sitting looking at a container full of tomatoes when a thought struck me.

Expecting an early frost, Elaine had picked all the tomatoes she could find on our plants and put them in the container. At first, all of them were green. After a few days, there was a twinge of red in a few of them. Now some are red, some are heading that way and lots are still pretty green.

I know that may not represent the basis for an earth-shaking revelation, but this is the thought I had.

For most of us, perseverance is not our favourite word. And that for sure has been the case this year. It has been one long drudgery with, as yet, no end in sight.

It’s one thing to be going through a difficult time personally, it’s another one entirely to be living in an entire society going through it.

It’s an introvert’s paradise, but everyone else’s nightmare.

I wish I had a hundred dollars from every occasion someone asked me what makes a great church. It happened again several times this week. And I always give the same answer.

Before I reveal it, let me hasten to say there are all sorts of Biblical ingredients that go into making a church what it should be. You could write a book on the subject, and many have.

But what if we could boil it down to something everyone could understand, remember and repeat — In other words, a short but accurate summary?

Here’s my contribution. There are three things a church absolutely must have if it aspires to meeting Biblical norms.

What is freedom? And what is freedom in Christ?

I spent six years (in the midst of church planting) trying to explain the latter thought in my PhD dissertation at Durham University.

The subject has resurfaced lately with the renewed emphasis on the historical wrongs of slavery. And if you understand slavery, you understand freedom.

When faced with a difficult situation, we all want that elusive magic answer. How much easier it is to press a button and see the solution instantly appear. Yet how rarely the Lord allows us to walk that way.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death God is with me. That was David’s comment on more than one life crisis he experienced. Paul took a similar view when he said God is with us in the midst of tribulation.