Responding to the crises of our time as an opportunity to pray and prepare for renewal and revival.
Reappearing Church is the sequel to Mark Sayers’ earlier book, Disappearing Church (see my review for that book here). The earlier book offered a critique of our self-centred and escapist culture and of how the church had responded inadequately by focusing primarily on relevance. Sayers also began to suggest better ways to respond – by going deeper in our inner lives and growing in resilient discipleship. In this second book, he develops his reflections on this response even further.
He suggests that our progressive, secular, Western culture is stalling in many ways and this is giving way to a cultural crisis that is actually a moment of spiritual opportunity. The secular culture was based on the idea of progress toward some kind of ideal but it was progress without the presence of God. And yet the presence of God is exactly what our world needs and what it is created for. The book is therefore a call to Christians to seek God for renewal in the church and for revival (which he proposes is ‘renewal gone viral’). Such renewal begins with people who are hungry for God, who experience ‘a holy discontent’ with the status quo. Such people find one another to become a committed core – a remnant – who don’t splinter off to fragment the church even further, but contend together in prayer to see this renewal and revival come.
The priority of the presence of God is shown in the motif of the temple in Scripture, and Sayers explores this and its practical implications for the church in our time. One consideration is that leaders must learn to be a ‘non-anxious presence,’ recognising that their fruitfulness is based less on what they do but on who they are are. Less on their gift and more on their inner lives in God. Another consideration is the danger that our ‘temples’ degenerate into either dead orthodoxy or compromised faith. Either into legalism or license. The world has often reacted badly to dead orthodoxy and the church has often been seduced easily into compromise with the world in order to be relevant, to fit in. But what the world needs is to experience church communities with a real, vital and vibrant faith and that are filled with the presence of God.
In many ways, this is a book on revival but is unlike most such books that I have read. Many books on revival are nostalgic, looking back to past revivals. Some have felt a little desperate and guilt-inducing, and others promise revival just around the corner. Sayers’ book is hopeful but also honest and strategic. Honest about the need for us as Christians to move from being just consumers, or commentators, to being contenders for renewal and revival. He doesn’t suggest that revival is just round the corner, or try emotional manipulation, but actually suggests that we might be called to pray for a revival that we will not see. We may well be praying for what future generations will experience. He is also strategic, not in the sense of coming up with some kind of formulaic plan but in laying out some general spiritual stages, or elements, to this progress toward revival. It begins with holy discontent, and goes on through personal preparation (including attending to the call to holiness), formational practices, contending prayer, remnants and then on to renewal and revival.
Sayers also suggests that we will need both ‘fire and form’. We need to be not only passionate for God and for contending prayer, but be followers of Jesus who are committed to the formational practices of Christian discipleship – both individual and corporate. I am hearing something from Sayers that I am hearing from other Christian writers and leaders who I respect. Something that I consider vital. That is that, after a period of drift and complacency, Christians need to rediscover a commitment to the local church as a formational community. We need each other. We need to follow Jesus together. It is together that we are a temple for God’s presence.
I said at the beginning of the my review of Disappearing Church that both books are still relevant though they were written before the covid pandemic. Some things have moved on. But one such thing is that the processes of renewal Sayers writes about in Reappearing Church is beginning, gradually but definitely. There are people who are finding each other and committing to prayer and to practising the way of discipleship, to both fire and form. Something is stirring and shifting in the West. I don’t want to claim too much for this but there is enough for us be encouraged. Let’s pray for renewal and revival in our time.
I hope this book will help you in that process. If you want a taster of it, or struggle with extended reading required of it, have a look at my summary of the book here.
Find Reappearing Church on:
A Different Kingdom 
Leave a comment