After twelve years of ministry in the same church I have been doing a
lot of reflecting on the process of renewal and the ongoing work of building a
vibrant church. The journey has been filled with some overwhelming
challenges that taught me to lean deeply into my Creator for wisdom, strength,
and assurance. It has also been filled with amazing times of joy and
fulfillment as we have watched God transform many lives and the church he chose
to partner with in that transformation. It has
been an incredible journey thus far.
I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days with a sister church
in a neighboring community to share with them a few of the lessons we have
learned on this journey of renewal. Over the next few weeks I want to
share with you some of the principles I have found in God's word about
renewal that I believe have proven themselves time and time again along
our journey and in many other places that have experienced vibrant renewal.
Principle #1: Burden Gives Birth to Vision
One of the books I return to often when teaching and preaching on
vibrant church renewal is the book of Nehemiah. There are so many ways
that the process God took his people through mirrors what we have experienced,
and as we read in Nehemiah 1:4, it all begins with a burden for the
city of Jerusalem and the people living there. When Nehemiah heard that
the walls of Jerusalem lay in ruins it says, "When
I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted
and prayed before the God of heaven." Nehemiah is overwhelmed with a
heavy burden for all of Jerusalem.
One of the things I find so interesting about Nehemiah is that at this
point he had never been to Jerusalem. Nehemiah was born in
captivity following the fall of Jerusalem at the hands of
Nebuchadnezzar around 587 B.C. He had grown up in Babylon and it begs the
question, if Nehemiah had never been to Jerusalem then why would he be so
burdened for the city and those who lived there?
Assume for just a moment that Nehemiah grew up under the teachings of parents
who were devout Jews. In that case, he likely grew up on bedtime
stories that retold the history and adventures of his Jewish culture.
Stories of heroes, like Moses, Joshua, King David & his mighty men.
Many of those stories included stories of Jerusalem…like when David
killed Goliath, cut off his head and carried it through the streets of
Jerusalem! Those stories have a way of sticking in the minds of young
boys, and even though he had never been there, Nehemiah had developed a passion
for the city of Jerusalem…the city of his people…the city of God.
And so when some of the Jews had been given permission to return to
Jerusalem and rebuild the city…Nehemiah had high hopes of a new day for the
people of God and the city of God. I’m sure somewhere in the back of his
mind he hoped to visit there someday and to see the city in all of it’s
splendor in a way that would glorify God. So, when Nehemiah gets word
from Hanani, who is traveling from Jerusalem, that the city he loves is in poor
condition he is heartbroken; he is overwhelmed with an enormous burden.
Before we move on to how this enormous burden gives birth to a God-sized
vision for the city, lets not be so quick to move on from the place of
overwhelming pain for the condition of the city of Jerusalem. We
love to talk about vision, but how many of us are willing to spend some time in
a season of brokenness in order for that vision to truly be rooted in a passion
to see God transform our cities?
Our American culture does not deal well with seasons of pain and
brokenness. We do everything we can to ignore it, deaden it,
self-medicate it, or prescribe it away. Christians and church leaders are
just as guilty as anyone. We run from pain and as a result we miss
what it means to wrestle with God through the pain and to hear His voice
gently leading us out of that place of darkness and into the future that He
desires for us.
It was during such a season of pain that God would begin to speak to me
about the steps to take that would lead to the renewal of Springfield First
Church of the Nazarene (now One Life Church of the Nazarene). I had been
the pastor for a little over three years and while we had experienced marginal
growth we had just gone through a staff transition that was painful to me
personally and had caused several young couples to leave the church.
It was in the midst of this painful season that I found myself crying
out to God. I was heartbroken over
the current condition of the church. I was grief-stricken about our
inability to make a significant difference in our city and our inefficiency to
reach it for Christ. I had a choice to make. Would I run from it
and move on to another church? Would I ignore the pain, try to deaden it?
Or would I remain in it until God used it to give birth to a vision
that would renew and restore. I chose to remain in it and for the next
several months I brought that burden before God and listened to his voice.
Nehemiah didn't run from the pain of the burden he had for Jerusalem.
In fact, before Nehemiah ever did anything; before he ever cast a vision
or made a request of anyone for support he spent 5-6 months fasting and praying,
wrestling with God. It was out of that season of pain that a vision,
a dream for the future of the city of Jerusalem was born.
Here is the lesson for us today. We will never accomplish anything
of significance where God has placed us until we are first
willing to be overwhelmed with a burden.
Let me ask you a question. If Nehemiah was burdened for a city he
had never been to, how can you and I not be burdened by the decay of the
cities, schools, and neighborhoods that we are surrounded by each and every
day? It is out of this deep pain that God-sized visions are born.
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