I'm taking a break this week from my regular communication of all the Ren opportunities. Hopefully you know what's happening by now. If not, go back especially to my last email when I shared about the small groups, Refresh prayer, Q Commons event, young adult Bible study, the smaller Sunday 5pm gathering, Family Nights, Ren Youth and so on.
As an aside, I wanted to also share that what we presently have on our "Ren menu" of happenings is not a fixed menu. There is a diverse planning collective made up of about 20 Ren folks that meets monthly to create the menu. We are working hard to provide opportunities that will strengthen every part of the church. For the months of Sept-Nov we are easing up on neighborhood outreach after going really hard in the summer. But please know we are actively praying and dreaming of ways to serve the high school students, homeless community, families, the local artists on the West Side, the seniors in the high rise buildings, the young professionals downtown and the thousands of college students who have recently flooded into Providence. Our hearts are burning to share this Glorious Gospel that brings life!
That said, wow, the Refresh prayer gathering last night was epic. Now every prayer gathering is really good and we always walk away feeling refreshed (hence the name). But last night God really stirred us. About 30 of us came together and I gave the group a sneak-peak of my message for Sunday on the gift of the outpouring of the Spirit that God is eager to give. I felt my own heart deeply stirred and it was as if a fresh faith to believe God for the impossible was imparted. Prayer seemed effortless last night, like rushing streams flowing through the heart. Reflecting on all this it made me think of how God's pleasure is very much on this idea of pouring out His Spirit.
While good things are happening in our city the reality is that we are in a spiritual drought. I've labored here in the Providence area about 20 years and have seen very few deep conversions to Christ. I've seen prodigals come home and Christians grow stronger and the nominal become serious. But few conversions. I'm talking about agnostics and atheists and addicts and arrogant skeptics being hit by the power of God and awakened. I'm talking about people who are spiritually dead and totally uninterested in Christ coming alive and entering into a life of abandoned devotion to God. I just have not seen it. Perhaps that's why Providence has been called the least Bible-minded city in America. The ground is hard. People either scoff at Jesus or they have a dead form of religion. Most of us live in a joyful little Christian bubble and don't really grasp just how dark this region of the world is. Sometimes it feels like living amongst the walking dead. The overwhelming majority of people around us are steeped in ways of thinking that are a million miles from knowing Christ. And it can feel impossible awaken people. It almost feels like it would be easier to go to that ugly graveyard between Broad and Elmwood and raise people up out of the graves than to turn people in Providence to Jesus Christ!
But God has been bringing hope and telling us that He is the God that can cause dry dead bones to come alive. He created the universe and he can change the hearts of people. What I've been feeling God saying so strongly is that we can't depend on our powers of persuasion, our innovation, our cool space, our skilled musicians or anything else to raise people from the dead. These things have their place in attracting attention and excellence can be a reflection of God... but dead people are not raised by anything less than the power of the Holy Spirit.
We desperately need an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in our city and in this generation. I've been a Christian for 26 years and have been praying actively and fervently since year one for a mighty outpouring of the Spirit similar to what happened in the New England Great Awakenings or the Welsh Revival or the early church, as recorded in Acts. While there have been times of refreshing, my gut (really the Spirit within me) is telling me in so many words "you haven't seen anything." It's almost as if the best I've experienced in the last couple decades is a light mist, a rain so light you almost don't even know it's raining. What I feel like God is saying is that He wants to send torrential rains upon the earth.
There is an outpouring that is exceedingly abundantly beyond what we ask or imagine. There is an outpouring that turns cities upside down and results in thousands of deep conversions. There is an outpouring that will cause churches across denominations to overflow. There is an outpouring that sends people with fire to the nations to spread the Gospel. There is an outpouring of the Spirit that God is eager and willing to pour out that will cause the name of Jesus Christ to become famous and revered in our land. There is an outpouring that will transform hearts, including our own.
God has poured out His Spirit throughout history in all different regions of the earth. He promises that He will pour out His Spirit upon those who hunger and thirst for Him. This thirst seems to be the only part that is on our end. History gives us countless examples of a handful of old ladies, or a small group of college kids or some little motley crew of ordinary folks who fuse together and set their faces toward heaven and cry out to God day and night until the Spirit is poured out. There is an element of sovereignty to the timing of the outpourings and God is no doubt the fuel and initiator of the thirst. I'm not suggesting that we can just choose to have an outpouring. But the good news is that God is eager, burning, desiring for a people who will hunger and thirst for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon their generation. He says, "Ask and you will receive." Those who seek and keep seeking will find. It can happen!
I believe with all my heart that the Lord has a special call upon Ren Church to be a house of prayer for all nations. To be honest I'm not exactly sure what this will look like. What I've been imagining lately is the Ren community being consumed with the spirit of prayer. Not just young adults who may have lots of free time or retired folks but moms with 3 kids and dads working 10 hour days and the brand new Christian. I'm imagining Christians who have been Christian for 16 years and have had a tremendous struggle to pray at all, suddenly moving into a place where prayer becomes like a groaning in the spirit. Suddenly the "average" Christian who doesn't even consider himself or herself that "spiritual" is touched by God and empowered to pray with Spirit fire. I'm imagining a community of people who enter into a current of grace and supplication and become insatiably thirsty for Christ in ways they never have. Oh God, break our pride, wash away our sin and create this thirst in us!
–Pastor Scott A.