What does charismatic renewal bring to the Church?
Christopher Landau is existence commissioned as the new Director of ReSource, formerly known every bit Anglican Renewal Ministries, on Midweek 8th September. I asked him near the organisation, his own experiences, and renewal in the Church today.
IP: What is ReSource? Where did the arrangement come from, and what has been its office recently?
CL: One way of expressing Resources's purpose is as a call to remind the church that the renewing work of the Holy Spirit is for every kind of church building, in every kind of context. It can be too like shooting fish in a barrel to call back that 'charismatic' equals large gatherings, contemporary music, little or no liturgy, and an accent on networks rather than local geography. I think ReSource has an important office in helping churches—peculiarly English parish churches—come alive in the Holy Spirit regardless of any particular 'tradition' label they might ain. Then nosotros work in local churches, and online, providing preparation and retreats aslope a suite of courses and other resource. A particular recent focus is the 'Saints Live' grade, and nosotros are about to launch the Alongside scheme, providing prayerful mentoring back up to clergy and other church leaders.
The history really begins with a central London curate receiving a frankly unexpected spiritual awakening in the early 1960s. Michael Harper's conclusion to get out his curacy at All Soul'due south Langham Place, to launch the Fountain Trust, was a pivotal moment. The Trust provided a focus for charismatic renewal throughout the 1960s and 70s, both within and beyond the Church of England. When the Trust was dissolved in 1980, a group committed to seeing that work of renewal proceed within Anglican contexts formed Anglican Renewal Ministries (ARM). Resources continues the work of ARM and was launched in its current shape in 2004, bringing together that renewal history with a focus on mission, inherited from the Springboard initiative.
One critique of charismatic movements is that they can become focussed on religious experience at the expense of everything else; I think ReSource's focus on the piece of work of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of mission helps avoid that. When a Christian is filled with the Spirit, his or her organized religion ofttimes comes live in a new style; when this happens to several within a church building it tin can transform their corporate engagement with a local community. Mission in all its forms is and so inspired past this outpouring from God, rather than but being the best humanly-originated ideas of some people of goodwill.
In that sense Resource is called constantly to highlight the spiritual realities at the center of the Christian faith, inviting people to see the fullness of God's presence – enabling them to do then in ways that are sensitive to their electric current context and understanding.
IP: Why were you drawn to beingness involved in the organisation? What do y'all see as its potential?
CL: Nosotros desperately need more bridges and fewer walls within the church. I know of as well many people who have, in result, close downwardly the possibility of whatever kind of unprompted or unexpected personal meet with God—perhaps because of how they perceive 'charismatic evangelicalism', or perhaps considering of previous negative personal experiences. I remember ReSource is well-placed to share some of the insights and riches of what can be called 'charismatic renewal' with the wider church, in ways that recognise the hurdles some face but ultimately rejoicing in the kinds of encounters with God which were undeniably cardinal to the growth of the early on church in the first place. We also support churches that experienced something of the charismatic renewal of recent decades, just are looking for a new injection of life.
ReSource ofttimes emphasises that its work is with 'little, local and ordinary' churches—jubilant each of those characteristics rather than seeing them equally issues. My curacy was in 2 ordinary local parish churches in inner London, and I came across the piece of work of ReSource while looking for an organization to lead a parish weekend. Subsequent conversations with the electric current manager Kevin Roberts (formerly archdeacon of Carlisle) led to my working for Resources for nine months later on my curacy, leading a review of the ministry building'due south purpose and helping to discern its hereafter management. What fascinated me during those months of conversations with other churches and agencies working for spiritual renewal was that they could all come across the valuable purpose of a ministry building that championed the work of the Holy Spirit in recognisably Anglican contexts, unafraid of liturgical prayer or traditional hymns, and thus delighting in the variety of the church building.
With all the electric current fence nearly the future of the parish organization, I feel Resources has an important role to play in helping ordinary parishes see what is possible in terms of renewal—not only for personal spiritual development, but so that mission to a local area is enlivened. There is something of import and even prophetic about begetting hope for even the smallest and perchance nigh overlooked parishes. I very much hope we can be a particular source of inspiration for those heroic clergy responsible for increasingly large groups of churches.
IP: What has been your ain experience of the Holy Spirit at different stages in your Christian life? How will these experiences shape your approach to leading ReSource?
CL: Having grown up in a traditional Anglican market town parish, before a choral scholarship reading theology in Cambridge equally an undergraduate, I so attended an HTB plant in London and saw my organized religion come alive in the virtually unexpected of ways. I received the souvenir of tongues while saying Evening Prayer aloud in a hotel room in China on my terminal foreign assignment as the BBC World Service'south religious affairs correspondent, before beginning ordination training.
I absolutely empathise that some aspects of 'charismatic' religious experience mystify or fifty-fifty concern some true-blue Anglicans. I promise, under God, I am able to engage in a ministry of translation betwixt those of different traditions and backgrounds. In essence I think much of the church in the due west has a profoundly impoverished view of the Holy Spirit, and Resource can help churches capeesh and experience the dynamic living reality of the third person of the Trinity.
Considering of this personal history, I bring with me a genuine understanding of, and respect for, the breadth of the church. I certainly empathize the suspicion some have of big charismatic churches and ministries; I know (and complaining) the levels of mutual mistrust and the ways in which we and so hands erect barriers betwixt those of unlike church traditions. I may be unique, for example, in having trained at (the liberal catholic) Ripon College Cuddesdon and afterward having been licensed to (the charismatic evangelical) St Aldate'south Oxford. In Anglican contexts, people often seem to react strongly to one or other of those! But I do genuinely dear the church building as the helpmate of Christ, and believe Resource can be one system among many that prompts the church to live in its full potential.
IP: What do you lot run into as the master needs for renewal in the Church today?
CL: I think we need a recovery of hope. There are and so many obvious means in which the institutional church fails—and then function of our challenge is to be reminded of the unshakeable promise of the kingdom, and endeavour to receive that as a gift that shapes the life of the church building… not because of our own striving, but because of our willingness to be open to God being and so much bigger and more extraordinary than our ain all-time efforts.
Someone at Christ Church Oxford told me after my last sermon at that place this summer (as an honorary cathedral chaplain) that in the week earlier, they'd had to type my name into a number of rotas and orders of service. Instead of 'Christopher' they'd kept typing 'Christhoper'. I rather like that—and took it every bit a prophetic encouragement. It's easy to spend a lifetime criticising the church (and equally a religious affairs announcer I was sometimes accused of exactly that), but I practice believe that I personally, and ReSource as a ministry building, are both called to hold out the promise of life in Christ to a church building that can get overly distracted by its own internal affairs, and forget the glorious relationship betwixt us and God that should underpin everything else.
IP: You accept written recently virtually disagreement in the Church building, and how nosotros can handle this better. Where do y'all call up nosotros have gone incorrect in the past? What are the opportunities here to learn to handle our disagreements meliorate?
CL: Nosotros take become and so quick to 'other' fellow Christians, and information technology seems to me that nosotros are particularly poor within the Church of England at recognising that Anglicans with different convictions remain part of the one Torso of Christ. If this is true, it surely has an impact on how we seek to engage in disagreement, considering the person with whom we are in discussion is a brother or sister, a part of the vine, one whose anxiety I might exist called upon to wash. There seems to me a item irony that some Christians apparently discover it easier to beloved a foodbank customer of some other faith, or a homeless person without faith, than they practise to love a boyfriend Christian with whom they disagree on an issue like sexuality.
A cardinal point I brand in my book A Theology of Disagreement is about the work of the Holy Spirit—in particular, whether we are willing to see the fruit of the spirit as a paradigmatic text for how Christians relate to one another. If a 'fruit of the spirit' test were practical to Anglican interactions on Twitter or at General Synod, for example, I believe the manner of our arguments would be transformed.
Sometimes it actually is as unproblematic every bit asking, am I visibly loving my Christian neighbour with whom I disagree? And do they run into and appreciate at least my attempt genuinely to love in this situation? That doesn't mean abandoning the pursuit of a singular truth that sets united states complimentary, or indeed removing the possibility that in that location may exist grounds in future for a separate or schism. Just information technology does mean taking seriously what it means to love our fellow Christians and give real consideration to how conflicts might be transformed, were there agreement about the importance of what I characterise as loving disagreement.
IP: What do yous hope ReSource's main contribution to the Church volition exist?
CL: A core conventionalities for the states is that no church is too minor, likewise old, or too isolated to experience spiritual renewal. The Hebridean Revival is a adept reminder of that, and I call back Resources is called to encourage hope and expectation of who God is, and what he can do through his church—including the local parish churches of England. Too much church life risks condign functionally atheist, in relation to actual reliance on the prompting and presence of God to shape how we choose to spend our time or coin.
There are so many church communities which are ageing fast, and where it really isn't articulate where the next generation of worshippers is coming from. Of grade i option is to plant something new. Only I believe Resource has an important role in the side by side decade or and so to remind us all what is possible for the God of the impossible, seeing existing churches revived and renewed, and serving their local communities.
IP: How can we pray for you in this new role?
CL: For wisdom from God about how best we can serve the church. We want to run across clergy and other Christians where they are, and provide resources and input that genuinely serve their presenting needs. Of grade similar all such ministries nosotros pray for the financial back up to maintain and expand the work.
Please pray too for the expanding team of Resource Ministers who carry out so much of our work with churches and individuals—and that in all this, more Christians in this country would know the joy and promise that comes from a religion that is alive in the Holy Spirit.
Christopher Landau is the incoming managing director of Resource for Anglican Renewal Ministries. A former BBC World Service religious diplomacy contributor, he has a DPhil in Christian Ethics from the University of Oxford, published this summer as A Theology of Disagreement (SCM Press). He was previously an acquaintance minister at St Aldate's, Oxford. He is married to Carolyn and they take three immature children.
His commissioning service, including a sermon from Resource's Patron Marking Tanner, Bishop of Chester, is at iv pm on Wednesday 8th September. The service volition exist circulate alive online here.
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