The Cost of Renewal

For any church to begin to live a corporate life defined by the kingdom of God means that its patterns, activities, and ways of being will be fundamentally transformed and renewed. This is not simply high-sounding rhetoric or idealistic vision. Traditional churches, fellowship groups, chapters of religious orders, house churches, and residential Christian communities are tasting the radically new life which descends when they are gripped by the vision of Christ's lordship, and are empowered by the Spirit to live accordingly.

An intense personal hunger and thirst for God, and for his righteous reign to be extended in the world, lies at the heart of genuine renewal. This knowledge of our personal hunger is accompanied by the realization of our brokenness. There is no need for that which we think is whole to be transformed by God.

Nor is it possible for a renewed church to be the human product of leaders with exceptional skill, talent, and intelligence. God's gift of community can never be given as long as we self-sufficiently believe that it can be manufactured.

Renewal finds its roots in the sharing of our weakness, and in the discovery of a common hunger. And that remains the most steadfast basis for Christian community.

Inevitably, renewal brings pain. A friend said to me, "You expect a whole army to stand up and follow. And it never happens. Perhaps there are only one or two others." The transformation of a people into a spiritual family, living as a sign of the kingdom of God, never comes without cost. Those who experience this hunger, and set forth this vision, never fully see the suffering, the broken relationships, and the hurt which lie ahead of them.

But this is as it should be, for all is overshadowed by the longing to experience life in the fullness which Christ promises, and to know its joy. Through those times of pain, struggle, and despair, these pilgrims find themselves sustained by the response first uttered by Peter: "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).

In church circles today, various new forms and experiments embraced under the label of renewal are basically no more than fads, programs to attract new members, or injections of some creative excitement. Continually, the temptation is to think that new vitality in the church comes through gimmicks, via consultants with church growth programs, from better preaching styles, or by replacing small talk over coffee with encounter groups.

All of these efforts presume that renewal comes without cost, that what is necessary is to discover the right formula. It's all reduced to a technique. While new techniques may increase the number of people coming through a church's doors, they have nothing to do with the renewal of a people by God's Spirit.

The sign of the Spirit's coming is the emergence of a common life. An openness to one another seems to be given by God, and sharing in each others' lives becomes the normal pattern rather than the exceptional event. Worship is redeemed from mere ritual--not by new experiments, but because it comes to express the movements within the community's life, and to celebrate what is known to be sustaining grace.

Lives are laid down for others. And in that environment, despite the intensity and very real pain, each person knows a peace and a security unlike that given by the world.

I know of no story of renewal in the body of believers which has not been accompanied by disagreement and dissension. That includes the book of Acts. Yet the paradox is that the work of God's Spirit is to create unity, to bring about what the New Testament calls "one mind in Christ."

Such division is not created by the Spirit of God. More often the coming of his Spirit and the openness which it breeds unveils the existing barriers, differences, and resentments within a fellowship. Further, the more those entering into this shared life open themselves to one another, the more likely it is that their own wounds will cause hurt in others.

To believe that the mere honest sharing of feelings in a fellowship creates love is a myth. Rather, the foundation of koinonia comes from the individual and corporate sense of belonging to Christ, from finding our identity in his love for us, and from being willing to extend his forgiveness to each other seventy times seven. This sacrificial, costly loving, a loving of others as Christ loved us, unleashes the power of his Spirit wherever two or three are gathered.

All of us fail at points in extending this love, and live with individual wounds requiring God's continuing healing. Thus, not all disagreements and broken relationships which are brought to the surface in the midst of renewal are reconciled. And God's call to some in an existing fellowship may even lead them to places where others seem unable, for whatever reasons, to go.

Then it is crucial that an emerging community of believers, especially its pastoral leaders, are in authentic mutual submission. Together they must undertake a corporate listening for the beckoning of God's Spirit, rather than attempting to program the shape of renewal with their own agendas or own needs for control. A prayerful listening enables each person to set aside particular expectations and securities.

The risks then incurred are very real, and the price often seems too high. But this abandoning of ourselves to God's purposes is at the center of any authentic renewal of the church.

Our Lord taught us to pray for God's kingdom to come, and for his will to be done on earth. In defining our corporate life according to the kingdom of God, we experience the final cost of renewal. God's family is called to lay down its life for the sake of God's purposes in the world. This call presents a direct clash with the world's system and values--a conflict based in the sharp disparity between the values of God's kingdom and the realities of society.

Recently I spent some days with a small group of pastors who all have been touched with a biblical vision of renewal in the church. The impact of our shared time together was to deepen in all of us our concrete hopes for the coming of God's kingdom. We sensed the deep connection, all too often ignored, between the renewal of the church and encountering the evil in the world's system with the power of Christ's love.

The boundaries of God's coming kingdom stretch beyond the confines of renewed communities. But the reign of the principalities and idols of this age is overcome when God's Spirit breaks into our lives, creating a new humanity committed to giving its life to extend the rule of God's kingdom on earth.

When we discover in our hearts a hunger and thirst for righteousness, this is the work of God's Spirit planting within us seeds of the kingdom. Opening ourselves fully to this hunger leads us onto the costly, life-giving path of renewal in the body of Christ.

Wes Michaelson was managing editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.