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The work of the Holy Spirit defies human expectations with constant surprise. The work of the Holy Spirit in the Federated Church in Millbury, Massachusetts is one of those gems of God’s glory easily missed. My first trip to this UCC/Methodist congregation in the center of an aging Mill city forgotten by time, reinforced every image of the tired historic church. Finding it inauspiciously wedged without property on the Main Street between commercial buildings, I parked next to the overflowing dumpsters in the back, and walked up the alley to find two doors. “Ring for WIC” one said, so I went for the other down into a dark hall to the pastor’s office where a modest leadership team in worn, overstuffed furniture and folding chairs was in prayer.

As we met, Pastor Cliff shared how he had once been very engaged with the work of denominational renewal, but now for the last 18 years, he had simply served this people faithfully with the love of Christ and the truth of the Bible. There was a room full of used clothes for those in need, a food pantry, the smell of AA meetings lingering in the lower hall, and a nursery school. We spoke of the annual short term God’s Builder mission trips he loved and the center city block party. The setting seemed so familiar I have to honestly confess I was not expecting the power of the Holy Spirit in such a disguise.

My first inkling of unusual Holy Spirit activity came when I walked in to lead the all church retreat at the UCC Conference Center in Framingham. There I found an amazingly diverse group from pony tailed men in their twenties, to sharp, mission focused women who could have been their grandmothers. Three generations in various styles meshed with unusual ease, mixing fluidly to form small groups for response and prayer. Praying came naturally. A passion for Jesus Christ was palpable. As I listened, I heard a common refrain. Each of these people had in some way found themselves on the edge of life and had been drawn by a sincere and unpretentious acceptance into a transformational experience of God’s love and power.

“People here really accepted and cared for my kids, and my kids convinced me to come and I’ve been here ever since,” one said. Another said, “They laid hands on me and I was healed, I mean healed of mental and physical illness. God met me here. This is my place.” Another observed, “A lot of people here seem to have been here once before, like when we were kids or something and we came back when our lives were a mess.” The very effective leader of the Alpha ministry came to the church because she needed the food pantry. As we worked through the VISION ONE Institute on discipleship it became clear that they knew where they had been when God found them, and who still lived in that place. They were hungry to know how to be the disciple makers Jesus wanted them to be.

Some weeks later I met with the core leadership team on a weeknight. What struck me was that they were not a committee by another name. In fact each person in the room had their own ministry team in the church. Inadvertently, humbly, in the course of conversation you learned that they were aware of their call and gift and each had a deep commitment to what God had given them to do. They owned their call and the people they worked with were precious to them.

When I stepped out into the hall to leave them to their business and prayer, music drew me upstairs to the sanctuary. There a band was rehearsing worship. Actually they were engaging in worship. This was no ordinary church praise team. You could tell almost immediately that the guitar licks and vocal style had been learned in secular venues. Their “O For a Thousand Tongues” had a real original hard rock edge even as their passion for Christ came across with power. They worked together seamlessly without the usual dynamics of rehearsals. They were listening to each other. Their vocal harmonization was moving. They were really good!

Finally I went back downstairs just in time for the final amen of the leadership team’s prayer. “Why didn’t you tell me about this group?” I asked. “They are truly amazing!”. “I’m glad they are doing well up there”, Pastor Cliff responded quietly, “That’s our backup band, and they’re on this Sunday.” “What else don’t I know?” I asked incredulously, but Pastor Cliff only smiled his sparkling eye smile while the team chuckled. As I pulled out of the alley , I noticed the group of young teens freely skateboarding up and down the wide stairway from the church door to the street in the warm spring night. Somehow I knew and they knew, they were allowed.

What’s next? Millbury Federated has unusual street cred in their city. They have relationships that web the community. They have a pastor who is trusted. With a growing awareness of the power the Holy Spirit has given them to make disciples more intentionally, and an awakened understanding of their gifts and opportunities, what will happen next? What is the Holy Spirit about to do that none of us expect?

(by David Runnion-Bareford)

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Vineville Presbyterian Church

On Sunday, May 17th, the historic Vineville Presbyterian Church of Macon Georgia, worshiped for the last time in its old life. A congregation which had declined from 600 to less than 60 made the bold and Biblical decision to die to live. The desire of the aging white congregation to reach its now primarily African American neighborhood with the gospel of Jesus Christ prevailed over the instinct to survive. Now in cooperation with a ministry called Campus Clubs, the facility will be rebirthed as Strong Tower Fellowship at Vineville. Campus Clubs is an after school focused ministry whose mission is, “loving kids into the Kingdom, equipping them to live for Christ, and developing positive urban leadership within their communities. We believe that a relationship with God through His Son is vital for the whole child.”

Campus Clubs Kids (Campus Club Kids)

Founder and director of Campus Clubs, Tony Lowden will work with Vineville’s former Associate Pastor in the formation of the new neighborhood focused ministry. The conviction to care for the youth and children of Macon was intensified by a 13 day epidemic of violence last year which claimed the lives of 12 young victims. Click here for information on Campus Clubs US.

Among secular headlines heralding the demise of the church and internal Christian survey’s indicating that church decline has spread from the mainline denominations to the evangelical milieu, why do we believe in the future of the historic churches in North America? Why do we believe that it is these ‘mainline’ historic Congregational, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Episcopal/Anglican, Lutheran, Christian, Reformed and Brethren congregations are a key to God’s future work in our time? Why for instance do we believe that it is the historic church, which will lead the way in such post Christian regions as New England?

Some of our hope is rooted in the revelation of God’s word and the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Some is based on observable assets. The Bible reveals that God is historic in every dimension of his work. The hope for his people in the Old Testament is rooted in their memory of his provision and revelation in times before they were born. In Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of literally hundreds of specific prophecies from Psalms, Isaiah, and the other prophets that unfolded visually several hundred years after they were given. In Daniel we learn that God has empires and epic historic eras designed into his great unfolding purpose. In the opening chapters of Revelation we learn that specific churches have distinctive character, strengths and weaknesses with historic significance. We live in the promise to the church at Philippi, “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”, and the affirmation that “God’s gifts and His call are irrevocable.”

Even while many of us as renewalists confront the most bleak evidence of decline and apostasy, we are also keenly aware that the Holy Spirit is at work in the historic church. In the very liberal United Church of Christ, for instance we have yet to find a congregation that does not have some small remnant of praying believers. Among the 100 largest and most influential congregations in North America, a large percentage are historic churches. Movements such as the Anglican Awakening are emerging from the historic setting. The growing spiritual authority and missionary movement from the church of the global south is penetrating the spiritual resistance of the west through the historic churches to whom they are related. It is no mistake that the ALPHA movement emerged from a Victorian Anglican Church called Holy Trinity Brompton.

At the corner of Main St. in villages, towns and cities across No. America, the historic church offers these opportunities.

Ø We own buildings and other facilities, often strategically located, and sometimes endowed.

Ø We have natural relationships and connections throughout the people groups in our setting, often with significant historic credibility, that offer tremendous possibilities to make disciples.

Ø Historic churches that have been the home of elected officials, youth programs, and social services for generations are more difficult to marginalize, demonize and exclude from community life.

Ø Historic churches can survive in circumstances that will close more recently planted congregations.

Ø There is DNA in the original call, covenants, and mission of the historic church that provides a blueprint for a dynamic, spirit filled future.

So whether God is calling you to pray your church to life with a small remaining remnant, or to respond to his call to ministry, or to bring renewed life to a church willing to seek God’s purpose, or to replant a new church from the roots of the old, we invite you to join with us in a great adventure of the Holy Spirit. Renewal from the roots is a call to God’s future forged from the past in order that he might “do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations,” (Ephesians 3:20,21)