UK politics is the gift that keeps giving at the moment. Leaving aside the travails of Keir Starmer, and the wider implosion of the Labour Party, there are the specific issues facing the country that appear to be on the back burner. The Times reported that Rachel Reeves is planning to scrap a 5p fuel duty increase.

In a sense, the story isn’t all that important. It is an attempt by the government to mitigate the ongoing cost of living crisis in the wake of the Iran and Ukraine wars. The Times report:

Ministers have become increasingly alarmed by the economic impact of the war with Iran. The Bank of England warned that inflation could reach 6.2 per cent at the start of 2027, while food prices could rise by as much as 7 per cent this year.

Prices at the pumps have soared, from 132.9p per litre for petrol and 142.4p a litre for diesel before the conflict began to 158.2p for petrol and 186.8p for diesel last week.

Reeves is separately drawing up plans for a targeted intervention on energy bills, which will come into effect in the autumn. The package, which will focus on low-income households, will be announced later this year.

Two things seem evident. Politics is becoming increasingly reactionary. Rather than presenting a positive vision for people’s lives, tinkering around the edges of the existing system to ease fluctuations seems to be the norm. Second, rather than fixing the underlying problems and seeking to make the necessary changes to stop these issues arising, we seem happier to offer measures to mitigate ever increasing costs. With a leadership contest not far away, somebody offering a clear vision to address the underlying problems rather than reactive tinkering might go some way to winning support.

Church life can fall into a similar kind of trap. Rather than offering a biblical order for the church and an appropriate contextualised vision for growth, we can end up being similarly reactive. We have the system that we are presented with and we tinker around the edges if and when it doesn’t seem to be working. Rather than fix any underlying issues and driving the church forward in a way that would resolve the problems, we often just react to fluctuations, tinker round the edges and end up a hostage to these things over and over.

We can end up reacting to the relative success of any given outreach. We can end up reacting to pastoral issues. We can end up reacting to turnover in our membership. It often isn’t managed very well at all; it is just reactive. Rather than simply reacting to each matter as it arises, we would do well to address the underlying matters that lead to these things (so far as we are able) so that the church might be less inclined to suffer from these things as they fluctuate.