The renewal of the church will not come from human plans or resolutions from General Assembly. Human beings and General Assemblies can gesture towards signs of renewal, but renewal will not come from places of power and authority; rather, renewal will come from the edge, the outside, the places no one pays attention to.
In the late 200s, the church was renewed as God called out men and women to go live on the edge, between the desert and civilization, in North Africa. There they prayed. No one thought these desert fathers and mothers were the future of the church, but they were. In 1204, the heir to a fabric empire walked into the town square in Assisi, Italy, and literally stripping naked, left behind his status and security to follow God; and the name Francis of Assisi still reminds hearers of the power of following God unreservedly.
Wittenberg, Germany, was an insignificant town with a two-bit university, where an unimportant monk nailed 95 debating points to the door of the village church. It was not the way human beings would plan a Reformation, but it was God’s way. John Wesley, educated in elite schools, was forced out of the established church because his preaching and pattern for church life did not fit the established model.
Preaching to the poor and working classes in open fields was not how humans would have designed a plan to call a country back to God. But God used it to transform the English-speaking world. Azusa Street Church, the birthplace of the Pentecostal movement in North America, was a burnt out warehouse/stable in inner city Los Angeles. Could any good come from such a place? In God’s economy the answer is, “yes.”
Told this way, renewal sounds simple and straightforward. None of the transitions described were easy. Renewal is messy, full of questions and uncertainty. Yet the truth remains; the renewal of the church will come from the edge, the outside, the unexpected.
Where then are we to look for the renewal of the church? Where we least expect it. Could renewal be coming from a small rural church the presbytery wanted to close? Is there a new movement of the Spirit in an inner city congregation that had been given up for dead? Is a small group of the congregation’s misfits meeting together and finding new depths and heights in faith?
Those may be the types of places where we see signs of renewal. Or from some other corner of the church. God is involved in renewal; we can be certain of that. God is doing unexpected things in unexpected places. Part of being open to renewal is for leaders, for people who have authority, to have the humility to not be at the centre of the renewal God will bring. Leaders are called to be willing to let the Spirit take leadership from their hands and give it to those who are outside, on the edge, from places no one pays attention to.
