What If Survival Isn't The Only Option?

Like many of you, when the COVID-19 pandemic began, my first thoughts were all about trying to buckle down and get through it until restrictions start to be eased and life someone gets back to normal. However, with no real end in sight anytime soon, it became apparent that simply trying to survive wasn't and isn't the most hopeful nor best strategy.

In a lot of ways, our pandemic situation seems analogous to how the Church in Western culture has viewed the world in our current cultural moment. We seem to be simply trying to survive the supposed inevitable decline of faith. Trying to find ways to stay faithful as our numbers, influence, and perhaps even our religious freedoms dwindle.

People are walking away from faith in droves, so it seems anyway. So let's do our best to survive, pray that some people might experience the goodness of Christ and turn their lives to Him, and hold on for whatever bad things the future holds.

Just like the coronavirus pandemic, we just want to get through this. "Survival" is all we can hope for.

What if survival isn't the only option?

In his book Reappearing Church: The Hope For Renewal In The Rise Of Our Post-Christian Culture, Mark Sayers speaks to the rise of secularism and how the Church might respond.

We are all taught never to expect realities beyond what is empirically evident. Because God doesn't or can't exist in any meaningful way in a secular worldview, we are left to whatever current statistics and trends tell us about the future. Which makes it is easy to forget that God is not bound to our predictions. Sayers writes,

"We must examine the possibilities of renewal through God's unlimited power rather than through the limitations of a post-Christian framework, which views the world through a narrow and simplistic materialistic lens, triumphantly expecting the demise of religion and inevitable victory of Western values."

It can be hard to not feel defeated when looking at the hopelessness of our culture today. However, this pandemic is revealing that money, sex, and power can't stop us from experiencing pain. We are all seeing the none of us are in control of what happens to us, regardless of how much positive thinking and self-expression we pursue.

Now more than ever before in our lifetime are we realizing just how much hope we have have to offer in Christ.

It's not about the numbers

David Hyde knew well that spiritual renewals come from commitment, not numbers. In his book, Sayers shares the story of Hyde coming to faith in Christ while editor of The Daily Worker, the newspaper of the British Communist Party. By 1948 he no longer believed that communism could save the world. So he left the political movement and joined the Church.

Upon becoming a Christian, he was completely shocked by what he found, saying:

Coming straight, as it were, from one world to another, it astounded me that there should be people with such numbers at their disposal, and with the truth on their side, going around weighed down by the thought that they were a small, beleaguered minority carrying on some sort of an impossible fight against a big majority. The very concept was wrong. Psychologically it was calamitous.

Sayers then gives context of where Hyde was coming from by writing,

"Hyde had left a political movement that, although only containing forty-five thousand members, never saw itself as a fragile minority. Instead, it saw an exciting challenge in their minority position to be leveraged. Hyde then came to a church, which, although a minority, was for more substantial and better resourced, yet saw itself through a lens of fragility and defeat."

All of us can relate to this attitude and feeling of defeat. From cultural wars to the ever-increasing normalizing of fallen behavior, it seems we have no choice but to accept defeat and hold on as best we can.

The future can look different

Based on what we saw from David Hyde then, to a large degree it seems that our expectations determine our commitments. If we think we are going to "lose" why even try? There isn't much we can do anyway.

But if we re-examine the possibilities of God's unlimited power rather than through the limitations of a post-Christian framework that incorrectly believes God is powerless, we can have hope.

If our expectations of what God can and wants to do is properly elevated than it ought to change our desire from trying to survive to seeking the renewal of God in our communities and in our world. Renewal, Sayers writes, is essentially realignment with God's purposes and "the resumption of our God-given purpose to partner with God fully, participating in His plan to flood the world with His presence." From which revival comes, which Sayers describes as "renewal gone viral" and moves from localized pockets of renewal to larger geographical areas experiencing an increase of God's work and presence.

What if we worked, prayed, and sought renewal instead of survival? How would that change our attitudes, desires, and focus?

Renewal starts with us

My hope is that those of us who are followers of Christ would see this moment in time as an opportunity to shift our focus. Instead of holding on, what if we worked toward a move of God that brings the hope that our world desperately needs?

But before we can impact those around us, we must start seeking for God to impact us. Corporate renewal starts on the individual level. You and I first must align our hearts and our habits to seek after God, and here are five practical ways you can do that during this time.

I don't have an answer or a plan of what spiritual renewal can look like. But I do know it begins with us, how we pursue God, and what we expect of Him. God is not hiding in a corner, afraid of a world that wants to abandon Him. He is on his throne inviting us to partake in what he wants to and will do.

So let's not hope to survive, let's ask God to first bring renewal to us as we pursue pockets of renewal in our communities. And as Paul writes in Romans 12:2, let's not "be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God."