Church renewal

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Church renewal is a concept widely used by theologians and clergy to express concern over the decline or decay of the church and a desire to see the church flourish in the future. In actual usage, the concept is often deployed with reference to decline in church membership and worship attendance, but it can also be used with reference to spiritual decline, to a decline in piety, or to a decline in commitment to practices deemed native to the ongoing life of the church, including worship, prayer, the sacraments, evangelism and mission. Proposals for what needs to be done relate directly to the analysis of what is wrong. If decline or decay is understood principally in terms of loss of membership, then proposals for renewal will often focus on ways to attract new members or to encourage persons to attend worship services more faithfully. Similarly, if the decay or decline is understood as spiritual or sacramental in nature, then proposals for renewal will focus on ways to renew the church in sacramental or spiritual vitality.[1]


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[edit] Cognate Terms

There are a wide range of cognate terms used in roughly similar ways to the term church renewal. These terms include but are not limited to revitalization, reinvention, and restoration. An older term that tends to focus on the renewal of spiritual or sacramental vitality is revival. While some advocates for church renewal spend a great deal of time discussing etymological differences between these terms, the terms are highly similar at the conceptual level. Persons use these terms to indicate that something has gone wrong and that things therefore need to be set right. Alternatively, they use these terms because they believe the church is in decline or decay in one way or another and that action must be taken so that the church will flourish once again.

[edit] Church Renewal and Christianity in the Modern West

Theologians and other scholars often deploy the concept of church renewal in close connection with a wider concern about the state of Christianity in the modern West. Generally speaking, there is widespread concern that Christianity in the modern West is in serious trouble. Among other factors, low church attendance in Western Europe and the decline of mainline Protestantism in North America are often behind this concern. In both Western Europe and North America, a wide range of church renewal movements have sprung up whose primary objective is to determine the causes of the decline of Christianity in the modern West and to develop and put into practice strategies for reversing the situation. For example, dozens of renewal movements have emerged within mainline Protestant denominations in the United States.[2] Moreover, one mainline Protestant seminary is now featuring a Masters of Divinity degree with an emphasis in church renewal.[3]

[edit] Church Renewal and Christianity in the Global South

Most recently, many theologians and scholars of religion have begun to look to Christianity in the Global South for hints and suggestions concerning the renewal of the church in the modern West. There is a growing awareness that Christianity is flourishing in many countries in the Southern Hemisphere. Thus clergy and scholars alike are increasingly looking to churches in places like Africa and South America for help in the quest for the renewal of Christianity in the Northern hemisphere, most notably in the North Atlantic.[4]

[edit] Church Renewal and Pentecostalism

While many clergy and scholars are turning to the Global South for assistance and ideas, some clergy and scholars have begun to take seriously the worldwide Pentecostal movement.[5] At this stage, it is difficult to determine the extent to which leaders of mainline Protestant churches are prepared to turn to the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements for help. By contrast, the Charismatic movement has already made significant inroads within the Roman Catholic church.[6]

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ For a range of proposals about what has gone wrong and how to put things right, see William J. Abraham, The Logic of Renewal (Eerdmans, 2003).
  2. ^ For example, see Thomas C. Oden, Turning Around the Mainline: How Renewal Movements are Changing the Church (Baker, 2006). Also see Donald Miller, Reinventing American Protestantism: Christianity in the New Millennium (University of California Press, 1999).
  3. ^ See United Theological Seminary or go to [1].
  4. ^ See especially Philip Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The coming of Global Christianity (Oxford, 2007). Also see Lamin Sanneh, Whose Religion is Christianity? The Gospel Beyond the West (Eerdmans, 2003).
  5. ^ See especially the work of Harvey Cox, Douglas Jacobsen, and David Martin.
  6. ^ See Catholic Charismatic Renewal.