Church Alive - Learning to Breathe Again

It’s swimming gala season again, which reminds me of an embarrassing memory from school days that my brain would love to delete.

When I was at school, I was surprisingly good at sprint swimming - one length only. I usually won the one-length races, not because I had excellent technique, but because I had never properly learned how to breathe while swimming. My strategy was mostly panic and determination. I launched myself down the pool, held my breath for dear life, and arrived at the other end desperate for oxygen.

Unfortunately, the school interpreted this as “potential.”

So, they kept entering me for the six-length races. By the third length, I was no longer competing so much as negotiating with death. Everyone else seemed to have discovered the useful skill of breathing. Meanwhile, I was swallowing half the pool and wondering whether this was how my short sporting career would end.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder whether the Church can live a little like that: busy, active, determined, still moving, but quietly running out of breath.

We organise, preach, gather, post on social media, serve, and lead - and from the outside, everything can appear healthy enough. Yet beneath the activity, there can still be the quiet suffocation of a people running low on the breath of God:

“Lord… where is your life among us?”

That question is not new. In Ezekiel 37, God leads the prophet into a valley full of dry bones. Not a few scattered remains, but a valley covered in them. Lifeless. Beyond optimism. Beyond strategy. Beyond human repair.

Then God asks: “Can these bones live?”

It is still the question before the Church. Can weary hearts come alive again? Can tired churches breathe again? Can hope return where disappointment has settled? Can those of us who are competent at keeping things running be filled again with the life of the Holy Spirit?

Ezekiel answers honestly: “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

That is where renewal begins: not with denial, but with surrender. Revival is not something we can manufacture. We cannot engineer awakening or schedule resurrection. The valley does not come alive because the bones are better organised.

Structure matters. Faithfulness matters. Leadership matters. But none of them can breathe life into what has become dry. Only God can do that.

And yet God still tells Ezekiel to speak. He cannot raise the dead, but he can speak God’s word into the valley. That remains our calling too: not to imitate life we do not have, but to stay close to Jesus, pray honestly, repent deeply, worship wholeheartedly, speak truth faithfully, and remain open to the Holy Spirit.

Jesus says in John 15, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” The branch does not become fruitful by trying harder. It bears fruit because it remains in the vine. So, the first call of renewal is not to do more. It is to return to the source.

And when God’s people return to the source of life, something beautiful begins to happen again. Prayer deepens. Worship comes alive. Holiness becomes beautiful. Compassion increases. Courage grows. Mission overflows.

Across Webnet, my prayer is that we would become communities where the life of Jesus is unmistakable: churches rooted in prayer, leaders marked by humility and holiness, communities overflowing with courage, compassion, and hope. Not simply busy for God, but deeply alive in his Spirit.

And perhaps this summer allows some of us - individually and as churches - to slow down enough to learn to breathe again: to rest physically, recover emotionally, and reconnect spiritually with the presence of God.

Then Isaiah’s ancient promise to a people emerging from darkness rises again as a call to the Church: “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.”

Arise, because the risen Christ is not finished with his Church. Shine, because his glory is not meant to be hidden. Seek his presence again. Lay down what has become dry, distracted, proud, or self-reliant. Ask again for the breath of God.

For the world does not need a Church that is merely busy. It needs a Church that is alive.

God has not abandoned the valley. Dry bones still live when the Spirit of God moves.

And so, may the Lord breathe fresh life into his people. May Christ be lifted high in his Church. And may his life overflow through us here in Webnet - for the sake of the world.

With hope in Christ,

Lindsay Caplen

Regional Minister