Overnight, I have been thinking more about the restoration of the church, for I see two patterns, and both are indivitual and collective.

The first pattern is one of restoration of those who repent. Those who are rescued: Gomer was bought out of slavery by Hosea: he paid off her pimp and took her home and placed her under his protection. The second pattern is one of continual attack. Gomer was drawn to using her sexuality as a weapon and means of income. The church continually falls into error. There are always false teachers.

We will show our relevance by being holy. Of course, that means we will be called irrelevant. By the wolves who would rend us.

Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you the inheritance among all those who are sanctified.

(Acts 20:26-32 ESV)

“And in that day, declares the LORD, you will call me ‘My Husband,’ and no longer will you call me ‘My Baal.’ For I will remove the names of the Baals from her mouth, and they shall be remembered by name no more. And I will make for them a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the creeping things of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety. And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.

(Hosea 2:16-20 ESV)

We need to have our witness down. We have to be restoring the broken. We have to hold ourselves to accountability and at times pull away from error. Hillsong once dumped a song because the guy who wrote it lied about having cancer. The musos thought the song was cool: they work on emotion. The leadership needs geeeks whoa re going to check the provenance and theology of… everything. Because ravening wolves. Hillsong gets hell in Sydney from the Rainbow left, and it is worse in the states.

“Why would I ever make a Christian rock film?” the director, who was raised Catholic but is now closer to agnostic, said. “You could have told me it was about ISIS or Satanism and I would’ve said, ‘Sounds edgy and cool — let’s go!’ But you say ‘Jesus’ and I’m like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, no thank you.’”

Yet it took only one Hillsong service for Mr. Warren. 43, to overcome his knee-jerk prejudice, if not quite convert. Moved by the youth, diversity and emotion of the congregation — plus the disarming pop songwriting — the director signed on for what would become “Hillsong — Let Hope Rise,” a slick, stirring concert film out Friday that details the sound and mission of the most impactful group in evangelicalism.

Hillsong United serves as the public-facing flagship of a three-pronged music empire, which also includes a more church-centric division (Hillsong Worship) and a youth-focused arm that develops talent (Young & Free). Together they have sold some 20 million albums, dominating contemporary Christian music; the recent smash “Oceans (Where Feet May Fail),” a tear-jerking nine-minute ballad à la Coldplay’s “Fix You,” has spent more than two years in the top five of Billboard’s Hot Christian Songs chart after more than a year at No. 1.

With Mr. Warren’s secular lens lending outsider credibility, “Let Hope Rise” attempts a delicate balance — glorifying the band onstage and off to please its faithful (potentially millions of ticket-buyers) while not coming off so uncritical as to alienate curious nonbelievers.

Hollywood is not going to turn up with its skills to glorify God. They would rather glorify degeneration or Islam (which is degeneration). They do not see faith as edgy.. And they will minimise good. Spacebunny and Vox (Mr and Mrs Beale) show us how it is done: They wore ridiculous constumes to raise money for Crohn’s disease. The more given to charity, the more ridiculous: in the end it was Spacebunny who suffered more because it was run yesterday, my birthday, and it was cold.

But they did good. We should support them.

Let us not score holiness points. Let us, instead, encourage each other to do good. The wolves want us to be ultras, to fall into a holiness spiral, and become ineffective. We must isntead encourage all to improve. Every day.

So this year, let us stand together. Let is restore. And let us accept correction for our errors.

Lest we converge.