Reflecting not just on the Quiet Revival report but on anecdotal responses, one of the leaders in our group of churches commented recently that it feels as though something is happening, that summer is here.[1] He was talking about knowing the times and seasons. If we are in the summer time, then the kinds of things that we are doing now will look different to what we were doing in the winter.
I think the helpful thing to say here is that the key thing about summer time is that it means you begin to see the fruit ripening, getting ready for harvest. Indeed, if we are in the early stages of summer, then we may be wanting to watch, assess and cultivate fruit but we probably still are a little way off from harvest. In the analogy, I think that harvest would mean significant numbers of conversions and at that stage we need to be ready for lots and lots of baptisms!
I thought in the light of that, that it would be helpful to have another look back at what has been happening and what we have been doing. I keep coming back to my observation that there was already a growing hunger and interest from outside of the church. I’ve served as a pastor/elder over the past 15 years in the West Midlands and my observation has been that during that time, we’ve seen engagement and growth. My constant refrain has been that we have learnt to talk about communities as hard and closed to the Gospel but too often it has been churches that have been closed to communities. As soon as you just start being available you begin to see that people are more open than you thought. We’ve seen that a little bit more widely as we’ve participated in the 2020 Birmingham (now Birmingham Collective) initiative. The result of that project has been lots of new churches planted or old ones revitalised and replanted.
Part of our “knowing the times” means starting to think about what has changed, what has been the difference and what might be the root factors in the good things we are seeing now. Now, the obvious, simple and crucial answer is that the Holy Spirit is doing something different, that the Lord of the Harvest is choosing in his sovereign will to change hearts. It’s important to say this so that we don’t get drawn into pride or back into rushing after gimmicks. One of the beautiful things about what we are seeing right now is that it isn’t focused on a few people or a specific community and church. That may feel like it has its downsides, perhaps some of us look back at history and we think about revivals and awakenings associated with people and places, we long for the kind of intensity of those moments. We don’t seem to see that and perhaps that’s why people are adding the adjective “Quiet”. It’s helpful to remember that whilst those experiences cause a lot of joy, they are not the end in themselves. So, if we haven’t got people booking coaches or flights to head off to other cities to catch the fire, or inviting specific people to come hoping they will bring a blessing, then I’m inclined to see it as a good thing. It will encourage our dependence on God. In summer, the sun comes out and we enjoy its radiance first hand. We don’t need other sources of heat and light.
However, we also need to see how God continues to work through normal, every day means. I think this is important too because it protects us from being dismissive of some of the things people were doing in winter. I’ve written in a previous article about how we can be tempted to see that people are coming directly into more overtly “churchy” things and then wonder if we really needed some of the things we’ve done in the past, the café style of messy church approaches being two examples. However, you see fruit in summer because people were busy digging, planting and cultivating through the winter. We are missing some data here. We tend to be hearing stories of people just turning up at church and perhaps for a good number, God has just prompted them out of the blue. However, sometimes we may not be seeing what has gone on beforehand. It’s worth observing that whilst we tend to think of Jesus’ disciples responding instantly to his call, the Gospels show that they had already had significant contact with him before he called them to leave their nets. My own observation is that when we saw people coming along to our gatherings at Bearwood, a little time with them began to show that they had had Gospel contact before such as a Grandma who too them to church as little kids, a friend who invited them to a weeknight club etc. My wife’s own testimony was that she was taken to holiday clubs as a younger child, they would then feel obligated to go to church for a Sunday or two after but then it would tail off. However, when she was a teenager,a friend invited her to a youth event and she put her trust in Jesus that night. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that a bit of further research will show that many of those coming now will have had contact in the past through such events.
I said that we needed to observe and think about “what changed?” I think there has been tewo things that happened. First of all, COVID. I keep coming back to this. If we can talk about a Quiet Revival, then I think we already saw it in lockdown as churches were forced to do obertly spiritual stuff, worship, pray, study the Bible out in the open, where people could see and experience it on Facebook and YouTube. Secondly, COVID caused a pruning of many of our programmes and events that kept us busy but perhaps did not make us available with the Gospel.
Now, if there were things we did which were “winter” things then do we stop doing them? Perhaps in some ways and indeed, maybe we already have in a lot of cases as COVID pruned our programmes However, I think there is a case for keeping going with some things for two reasons. First because you keep preparing with an eye not just on this harvest but the next. You don’t stop planting, tilling, pruning, watering etc. Secondly because I think that in summer time you can expect to do similar things but the effort is less and the results are exponentially greater.
This leads me to a final point about what we should be doing differently? I think the answer is that if we have faith for a harvest, then we should be preparing for that. This means having capacity for more. Are you ready to multiply small groups? Might you need to multiply worship gatherings? What about church planting? 2020 Birmingham sought to plant 20 churches in 10 years by 2020 and saw that happen. Currently, the Birmingham Collective aims to see a further 30 churches planted by 2030 and the desire after that for each to plant once more at least, meaning the aim is 100 new churches (20+30*2). Yet if that vision came in winter time, what impact does summer have? Shouldn’t it increase our vision, shouldn’t we dream more? What if we were at least to double that. If that’s how we are thinking then we are going to need more worship leaders, preachers, pastoral workers, small group leaders, church planters. Increasing capacity will mean training people and commissioning them for that. Building capacity will also mean encouraging growth in giving too.
And if we are wrong, if we’ve misread the signs and it isn’t summer, if we don’t see the incredible things that people have hoped and longed for but we have done all of that, have we lost anything? I would say no.
[1] I think we may add in reports from the Evangelical Alliance of churches experiencing significant growth too.
Faithroots 