Discipleship in Action: Being A Renewal Church
Discipleship in Action: Being A Renewal Church
Come Holy Spirit, come like a fire and burn. Come like a wind and cleanse. Convict, convert, and consecrate our hearts to our great good and to your great glory. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. -- Fleming Rutledge
Spiritual renewal is in Messiah’s DNA. This is a Renewal Church, a Holy Spirit Church, a Day of Pentecost Church. That is what Messiah is known for, and how Messiah sees itself. But here’s the thing about Renewal Churches, and as someone who grew up in a Pentecostal Church, I know this history all too well. An era of renewal tends to last three generations before the soil is prepared for another era of renewal, or the renewal ends.
From John Wesley’s Methodism to the Pentecostal Revival of the early twentieth Century, to the Charismatic Renewal in the mainline Churches in the 1980’s, they all had a shelf life. Messiah is in the second generation of the renewal that swept through this Church almost 40 years ago now. The current generation are inheritors of this renewal. Messiah tended and cared for the fruits of that renewal: the praise music, the healing ministry, the intercessory prayer, the house groups, and other signs and wonders. Messiah has been faithful. And, just like all Churches, conflict happens. Even in eras of great conflict, Messiah has known what NT scholar Wes Hill calls, “the comforting presence of the Spirit,” that has kept this Church going and from collapsing under the weight of it all.
Messiah Episcopal Church is the last of the Charismatic Renewal parishes in the Episcopal Church in Minnesota, filled primarily with those who grew up in Evangelical churches. When asked by Rector friends what one thing I most value about serving here, I half-jokingly reply that I am free to preach without an “Episcopal Decoder Ring;” in other words, that I am free to preach exegetical, biblical, and lectionary-based sermons. Messiah’s commitments in its Mission Statement are clear: The Worship of God; the Lordship of Christ; Renewal Through the Holy Spirit. And its values are biblically inspired: Following Jesus through Christian Formation, Spiritual Renewal, Human Diversity, Evangelism & Biblical Justice. And yet, even a congregation with these commitments can grow stale.
After a year of some growth in 2024 that included Messiah’s largest Confirmation Class—of youth and adults—in living memory, the Church seemed to have stalled in 2025. It was challenging to develop a welcome ministry here, with few taking advantage of the gift of the Alpha course to invite friends and neighbors to meet Jesus.
There has also been the challenge of new folks feeling welcome, of being able to join existing ministries, or, more importantly, of being discipled. All of this led to the discernment by parish leaders to participate in RenewalWorks.
Why RenewalWorks? Because it came highly recommended by friends of Messiah elsewhere in the Episcopal Church and its commitment to “help churches grow in love of God and neighbor within their unique contexts and needs”.
Over seventy households responded to the RenewalWorks survey, and a team of lay leaders—from a diversity of backgrounds—worked through the data set applying it to Messiah. Beginning at our Annual Meeting we began rolling out these findings that have begun to shape this Church’s future. Simply put, we have learned several things, including that most adults at Messiah take being disciples of Jesus seriously, and that most respondents read Holy Scripture daily. And yet, there was a deep dissatisfaction with how their Church helped them as disciples. We also learned from those here five years and less that there was no clear pathway for them to become part of this community.