God is doing deep things in my heart in this season. I can feel a beautiful shift happening and an increase of hunger and thirst. I'm eager to go out into the deep waters of God. The picture that came to me recently was that we've been in shallow waters. Refreshing and real and good but shallow. And now God wants us to push out into the deep and envelop us with His glory. The plethora of promises of fullness and greater works and abundance are so alive to me right now. I just sense God drawing us into something greater.
Again, it's not that what we have is bad. It's not. I see so many wonderful things happening at Ren and the presence of God has been with us in measure. Lives are changing. Relationships are being restored. Many are learning how to be fruitful disciples. Our finances are good. We are growing numerically. We have a great leadership team. There's unity. I rejoice in all of this and am so thankful for the fruit we've seen over the years!
But there's more. A lot more. I hear God saying that we aren't even scratching the surface. That we are like 5 watt bulbs and He wants to bring us to be 1000 watt bulbs. We are carrying Dixie cups of His anointing but He wants us to trade our Dixie cups for massive containers of His presence. I'm deeply convinced that He is not just vaguely willing to give us more but that His heart is burning to release the Spirit in and through us in ways we've never experienced. The vision He's giving me is of a strong tangible manifestation of His presence that profoundly changes our lives and impacts greater Providence!
Talk is cheap. Trust me at 50 years of age I am just so sick of revival talk. There's so much frothy hyped up talk and preaching about revival or awakening or renewal or whatever you want to call it. Everyone gets easily inspired when a dream is cast for a new kind of Christianity that is marked by supernatural power. A Christianity where conversions and healings and transformation are the norm. After 28 years of seeking an outpouring of the Spirit on and off I cannot bear to just talk it up and get everyone excited for like a month. What God is doing in me is different. What I'm feeling is a renewed call to develop a culture of prayer at Ren.
Before I explain what that means I want to remind us all that prayer has always been what has preceded historic revivals and outpourings and missionary movements. From the early Christians in Acts to today there's always been extraordinary prayer before God breaks forth in power in tangible ways. We see this across all denominations in all places and times, whether Scottish Presbyterian or Chinese Pentecostal or New England Congregational or deep American south Baptists or frontier Methodists. It may look slightly different in expression but you always find insatiable thirst as a forerunner to these outpourings of the Spirit. I'm afraid there are no shortcuts.
In 2009 in the 7th year of the church we experienced the beginnings of a move of God. Out of a season of 40 days of prayer and fasting the Lord begin to break us and ignite a deep hunger and thirst. The fires of prayer began to burn. The presence of God increased. Miracles happened. God called us to move into the heart of the South End to be more accessible to more kinds of people. Finances increased and the church doubled. Over and over God spoke to us about being a house of prayer for all nations (Isaiah 56). He said that if we'd consecrate ourselves and seek Him with all our hearts He would pour out His Spirit in ways beyond what we could imagine and use us to change a city. This wasn't something we thought maybe God might have said one day in prayer to us but weren't sure because, well, maybe it was just us wanting that. No. It was confirmed over and over and over and over. The Spirit made it so clear not only to me but to many others who were in the current of prayer.
What I believe God is telling me is that while things are good, we have veered away from this call to be a house of prayer for all nations. I'm not sensing at all that God is mad at us but, rather, that He's joyfully wooing us into the things He promised. It's clear that what God wants to do cannot be done apart from extraordinary prayer. The vision God has given us for Ren simply cannot be done apart from earnest night and day prayer. And it's not enough that just I pray much or a handful of precious prayer people pray much. God is saying it's going to take all of us. We have to shift the ethos of the church toward prayer.
What is the point? I’m not just wanting you to come out on Saturday for a one hour prayer meeting. Yes, that would be great if 100+ would come every Saturday and cry out to God for an hour. But I'm talking about a transformation of the culture of Ren. That we’d become a people who love prayer. That we’d love to come together and worship. That our small groups and leader meetings and dinner parties and outings would include all sorts of praying. That we would in our personal lives make more room for God. That we'd become a people who above anything this world has to offer would love the place of prayer and view it as a well of living water. This is where God is leading us and I'm following and I'm asking each of you to come along. The Lord is about to do something new !!!
Scott