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GOD LEADS IN THE DANCE OF RENEWAL, YET WE MUST BE GOOD PARTNERS

One of the great questions that swirl around renewal and revival concerns God’s sovereignty. Do they occur only at His will and whim? Or is there anything we can do to make them happen? I believe that God chooses when and where He will move. I also believe that God is looking for a people amongst whom He can dwell. His kingdom comes to those who hunger and thirst after His righteousness. Therefore, throughout history, we observe a pattern. When we cry out to Him, when we repent of the ways that we have ignored Him and pursued our human-driven plans of renewal in our own strength, when we take a posture of contending for His kingdom to come with power—we see that He moves.  

We don’t get to choose how He moves, yet the biblical record and church history prove the words of God in 2 Chronicles 7:14—that He moves when His people humble themselves, praying and seeking His face while turning from their sin. This illuminates a fundamental renewal principle. 

Therefore, when it comes to renewal, God leads the dance. He controls the significant elements of renewal—the pouring out of His Spirit and presence with power and force, the wholesale transformation of communities, cities, and nations. Yet God did not create us as robots, but rather as partners. For we can prepare for the dance, making ourselves ready to be led. We can ensure that our feet don’t get in the way, or that we don’t try and lead the dance.

We cannot create a program or campaign for renewal and revival. For in the history of the church, this has rarely if ever had success. Instead, we can humbly align ourselves with the pattern that God uses to renew us and our systems.

We discover in renewal that God gives us freedom and latitude to instigate small changes that create an environment in which He enjoys to partner with His children.

PERSONAL RENEWAL LEADS TO CORPORATE RENEWAL

Trace a revival back to its origins and you will inevitably find a person or a handful of people moved by God. People who God took on a renewal process that first changed them before it changed others. They experience a microcosm of revival. Usually this process happens to people who are not necessarily the leader everyone is expecting to be used powerfully in a move of God. Instead, the process of renewal remolds them for God’s purpose. Almost always this renewal will occur in hidden places of obscurity, in a period of isolation, in which deep roots are grown for the influence that is to come, and resilience and perseverance built for the resulting challenges.

All of us are called to walk the process of renewal called discipleship. Stepping into the personal renewal that God wishes for us is the surest lever for influencing a church, a family, or an organization toward His purposes.

RENEWAL ALIGNS US WITH GOD’S SOVEREIGN TIME

There is no guarantee that if we follow God’s pattern, a large-scale revival will break out. The pattern is not a guaranteed formula. While I believe that we must obey God’s pattern of renewal, which will see the production of kingdom fruit, there is no promise that by aligning ourselves with it, we will see spectacular growth. Dismayed by the affluence and the lack of faith in my hometown of Melbourne, small groups of Christians began to pray for my city in the late 1850's. They persevered in prayer until God began to move with power, and thousands came to faith.

The origins of the church I lead can be traced back to this revival when the American evangelist R. A. Torrey, D. L. Moody’s ministry partner, came to Melbourne to conduct a series of evangelistic meetings. Yet this breakthrough did not occur in its full strength until fifty years later, breaking with full force at the beginning of the twentieth century in 1902. Many of those who prayed fervently for Melbourne to see revival never lived to see the results of their prayers.

We accept that the role He has for us might be to contend for a move amongst a future generation. However, we also contend and pray that He will move in our time, submitting to His will and wisdom as to how He wishes to move.

WE WILL FOCUS ON BUILDING A FOUNDATION FOR RENEWAL

Therefore, strategically, I am not going to spend much time discussing elements such as missional practice, social justice, church planting, or cultural engagement, which are components that many readers will see as essential to the renewal of the Western church. This is not because I do not believe that these elements are crucial to renewal. I believe in them all. Over the last ten years, I have seen countless incredible kingdom initiatives suffer and fail as leaders and disciples, with hearts for God, fall into error, sin, stagnation, heresy, religiosity, or all of the above. Why?

Big Business, Big Data, and Big Porn’s ability to reshape our inner worlds is unparalleled in human history. I have cried enough tears while seeing amazing initiatives for God fail as the disorder of our human hearts, exacerbated by our cultural scripts, shreds good intentions and eviscerates holy dreams. Therefore, the next Great Awakening, the next renewal, the coming revival, must be centered on our hearts being changed by God. It must begin by replacing the pseudo-Christianity of lifestyle enhancement with the Spirit-filled faith of biblical Christianity. It must offer the renewal of Christlikeness to those being deformed by our culture in the deepest parts of their hearts.

Our exploration going forward will focus on how God can do this in our cultural moment, for renewal always begins with the human heart. We will explore the process God uses to renew us first, and then the relationships around us.