Revival!

One of our curate Marion’s more interesting achievements has been to establish an ecumenical prayer group which meets on the second Monday evening in the month. This doesn’t sound like anything very radical, but it’s the mix of people that makes it unusual. It’s settled down into a gathering of Anglicans – coming from a mainly Catholic-side-of-centre church, remember – and Charismatics from various church communities round the area. When it became clear that managing the different styles and expectations presented some challenges, I helped Marion think through it and devise a very minimal ‘liturgy’ to provide the meetings with some sort of shape (basically just a gathering and closing time of quiet and the Lord’s Prayer). Those challenges are still there, and Anglicans who come have to have either a sympathy with noisy, passionate Charismatics, or exercise a great deal of self-control; but the group still meets, nearly two years later.

I don’t have the opportunity to attend very often, but I was able to come to most of the August gathering. I came in a bit late and sat in the circle just as the prayer was at its most Charismatic mode, the attenders from those church communities and one of our congregation who is furthest in that direction dominating the proceedings. The main concerns were that Swanvale Halt church, in particular, should experience revival. Anna, who belongs to our congregation, often chafes about what she perceives as our lukewarmness and reluctance to talk about matters of faith, and mentioned that to God: ‘Lord, please change us so that we’ll be more willing to be open about our faith, and set this place on fire, so that everyone around us says, What’s going on at the church? They’re all excited and talking about God!’ I wondered whether that’s really what people would say, and, further, as I often do, how far God gets a word in edgeways in the Charismatic mode of prayer, and how far it’s more about us than him. Having said that, only to listen and never to speak is also to pray incompletely: you may find that you are not really listening to God at all, merely eavesdropping on your own thoughts. Speech takes the uncertain motions of the Spirit and brings them, or what we take for them, into the open and tests them. Those motions must be named, as they are in the liturgies of the Church, and gain a power as a result: we are physical beings, not mere minds. I suspect I am not as willing as I should be to speak about the things of the Spirit, and it has taken me long years to find even some way to do so in my own voice.

But – ‘revival’? What would ‘revival’ in people’s faith – assuming they require it – look like? And would it really bring the success Christians of a Charismatic (or even Evangelical) bent dream it might? Nearly forty years ago that doyen of Evangelical hymn-writers of a former generation, Graham Kendrick, wrote

Restore, O Lord, the honour of your name,

In works of sovereign power come shake the earth again,

That all may see, and come in reverent fear

To the living God, whose kingdom shall outlast the years.

Restore, O Lord, in all the earth your fame,

And in our time revive the Church that bears your name.

And in your anger, Lord, remember mercy:

O living God, whose mercy shall outlast the years.

Dumping in a reference to God being angry is almost demanded for lyrics that emerge from that stable, but the rest of the words are equally striking. Although the powerful lyric appears to be about God, in reality it’s about us, about our needs and desires, about the desperate yearning to be in charge again, not for anyone else’s benefit apart from our own. And beneath them is a dreadful insecurity. We are in with the boss, aren’t we? So where is he? What’s going on? And forty years of singing this hymn and praying these things later, God still has yet to do it. Instead, all the traffic is, apparently, in the other direction, so much so that you would be forgiven for wondering what on earth God is up to, or whether he’s there at all. But ‘revival’ is the answer. Wave our hands harder, sing louder, and the gays will go away, and the Kingdom will come.

A few days ago I mentioned the survey the Church Army was conducting into the way Messy Church works. One of the questions asked ‘What would be the most appropriate way of measuring discipleship among your Messy Church families?’ and provided some ideas – reading the Bible at home, taking communion, giving financially, ‘using and discovering their gifts in ministry’, changing character and changes in lifestyle. Leaving apart the challenges in quantifying some of these characteristics, I’d be happy for ‘revival’ to be judged in terms of any of these measures.