In Genesis 26:18, Issac redigs wells that had been created by the previous generation but which had become filled up by the Philistines. I’m not a scholar of Hebrew but I suspect the ‘filly-stine’ pun that pops into my mind doesn’t work in the original! Damp jokes aside, it has become a resonant phrase within Christian circles, signifying the recognition that we sometimes need to return to tried and tested devotional practices to refresh our relationship with God.

I have been pondering on this over the past few months since the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK. My part of the country has been out of full lockdown for some time now but daily life – and the corporate life of Christian communities – is far from back to normal. For many, this has been a dry, desert experience – starved of face to face fellowship and, even now we can hold services again, a far cry from the way we had become accustomed to them.

Using some of the time in our Sunday morning services that we’ve not been using for singing, I have recently started a series of short teaching slots for which I’ve seized hold of the “redigging the wells” banner. For the first couple, I delivered them live at church but we didn’t video them. However, it struck me that some of the people who might most need the teaching were those still unable to join us at the church so I’ve started to produce the sessions in video format which can be shown at the church and also included in our online services.

Below is the first in the series, where I give an introduction and briefly summarise the two ‘missing’ sessions (which I might fill in at some future point):