If I did a survey of the Christians I know, I'd guess that the great majority of them would say that they would want to see revival. Really though? Do we really? As staff members at a church, we periodically dream of the "church the way we'd love to see it"! We ask ourselves, "what if revival took place?"

What would it really take to achieve what some call an "open Heaven" and see God's outpowering of power and grace?

The word renewal can also be used for this picture of the Church completely surrendering to God's desire for us -- you know, His desire that might be uncomfortable, that might entail mass amounts of confession, that might come in a way that doesn't look like we thought it would or meet our "theological criteria".

I read this statement in a book at lunch today:

"Renewal offers not so much an answer as a question: Why have we been awakened, and what are we prepared to do about that?"

Interesting, isn't it? If renewal came; if we became renewed individuals; if our church expereinced renewal...Why? What is God's point and how would we respond to this "new thing" that God was up to? I doubt that God simply wants us to create a "hipper version where we are now".

Ultimately the answer may be found in the fact that we will meet God most profoundly in the TRANSFORMATION of our own inner life. Then and maybe only then, will a deeper "revival/renewal" come our way!

Let's just ponder that together for a while, shall we.