DEBBIE WILLIAMS's Podcast
DEBBIE WILLIAMS's Podcast
A Time for Everything
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This weeks guest is Peter Leveson, the minister of South Norwood Baptist Church, in South London, where he has served for the last 11 years. Prior to that he worked with Baptist Churches all over London, as part of the London Baptist Association team. He is a musician, and creative thinker, who thrives in helping people and churches grow in faith. In this episode we reflect on the fact that there is a time and season for every situation.
Links: https://www.southnorwoodbaptist.org
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Welcome to Storytelling. This week's guest is the Minister of South Norwood Baptist Church in South London, where he has served for the last eleven years. Prior to that he worked with Baptist churches all over London as part of the London Baptist Association team. He is a musician and creative thinker who thrives in helping people and churches grow in faith. Please welcome Pete Levison.
SPEAKER_01Hello, Pete, and welcome to the podcast.
SPEAKER_00Hello. Good to be here.
SPEAKER_01Pete, we all know that time is very precious to us. But what does the Bible tell us about how we should utilize our time?
SPEAKER_00Well, there are lots of different images used. One guy in the New Testament, Paul, he says, make the most of every opportunity, and literally in the Greek language it was written in, means redeem the time, buy it back, use it well. There's another famous passage in the Old Testament in Ecclesiastes. He talks about having different seasons. There's a time for everything and different seasons. So, yeah, there's a lot of stuff about time, even though God's outside of time in eternity. But if you start thinking about that too much, it does your head in.
SPEAKER_01You mentioned that everything is for a time, everything is for a reason and a season. And I suppose in recent times where we have had to deal with things like COVID and climate change, how do these modern day problems relate to what the Bible teaches us?
SPEAKER_00I think in times of COVID, it will pass, the sense of it is a season, and at least the crisis point of it will pass. I know some people seem to be living like the pandemic's over, but the crisis of it will pass. We've seen these things before if we look back in history. The danger of being in the middle of something, it feels like it's the new reality. And I know everyone talks about the new normal, but there will be a different season. It might be shaped by what's gone before, but it will be different. And the writer in Ecclesiastes that I mentioned earlier, that's his observation that there's a time for everything, for good times and bad times, hard times and easier times, and everything comes and goes. And he paints this picture with it that everything that's been has already been. And it feels like we're just going around in circles, but we're not, that God is outside of time and somehow we are heading somewhere.
SPEAKER_01What words of encouragement would you give to those who are uncertain about the future or direction that they should go?
SPEAKER_00One of the things we do, whether we realise it or not, is we make time for what's important to us. And so if someone's unsure of what direction to go, I would think about where do you spend time that is life-giving to you, fulfilling to you. I think God puts things in us that bring us joy and bring us life. And if you can find a path that's linked to that somehow, sometimes we do have to do jobs that feel dead end or meaningless, but we are most fulfilled when we're doing those things that bring us life. And for some people that's doing the garden. I hate doing the garden, but for other people it's doing music or doing podcasts or whatever it is we're into. If you can find a way to monetize and to make a path based around something that's life-giving to you, then I think that is the best use of your time.
SPEAKER_01What does the Bible say about how we should tackle climate change? Because there are a lot of people who do not take climate change seriously.
SPEAKER_00The Bible talks a lot about how we should look after the world right at the start of the Bible in Genesis, at the start of time in the story of the Bible. The first people were told to look after the world. Now the story of the Bible then tells about how they got things wrong and everything got a bit broken. But our hope as Christians is one day God is going to make everything new. It says in the book of Ecclesiastes, God makes everything beautiful in its own time. And we're looking forward to a day when there's a new heaven and a new earth. So we're to look after the earth that we've got. It's not just that we trash it and we forget about it, but actually we should be concerned, whatever we believe, about the planet and about how we look after it. And so I think the Bible and the Christian story actually should be encouraging us to look after the planet and to use it well and not just to mistreat it and to plunder its resources for our own use.
SPEAKER_01We've spoken about how things are here for a season and for a reason, and how we should tackle things like COVID and climate change. What final words of encouragement would you like to provide to our listeners?
SPEAKER_00I think that if you're going through a good time or a hard time, particularly those who are going through a time of struggling, and many people are post-pandemic, and as we're coming out of the pandemic, whatever that looks like, it's not permanent. I have this phrase about hope that it says the way things are is not the way they need to remain. And I believe there is hope available for all of us. And so I just would like to encourage people with that that actually you might be in a difficult season, but it is a season. And sometimes we don't make sense of things until we look back and reflect. And so keep going. Sometimes life is plodding on, but there will be a new day and a new season.
SPEAKER_01Pete, thank you very much for being part of this podcast episode, and thank you very much for your time.
SPEAKER_00No problem. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_02Regardless of your religious beliefs, faith, and what you've been taught, I hope you see the value in what has been shared of you today. If you would like further information about Pete or South Nord Baptist Church, then please follow the link in the show notes.