A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article, with pictures from the Renewal Day, appears below. Jack Mills is the minister of Fairview Presbyterian Church, Vancouver. Eugene Peterson, speaker at the Renewal Day, is pictured on the cover. He will also be the speaker at the 1994 Annual Meeting in Cambridge, Ontario.
Eugene Peterson is presently James M. Houston Professor of Spiritual Theology at Regent College, an imposing title for an imposing task. But it was as a pastor of almost thirty years at Christ The King Presbyterian Church in Maryland, that he spoke to some eighty people gathered from the greater Vancouver area and other parts of British Columbia at a Renewal Fellowship Conference in First Presbyterian Church, New Westminster on April 24, 1993.
Dr. Peterson spoke from his personal experience. He was only four years old when he became a Christian; in a godly home, it was second nature to him. When he grew up, it was not his first choice, he became an associate pastor. In due time he had his own small congregation. He “fell into” the Presbyterian way, loved its theology and orderliness, but after a period of time, through doing all the right things, was coming up dry, not experiencing what he taught and preached. The time had come to think things through. He recalled the vibrant, living faith of his passionately Christian mother who cared about God and people, and who had taught him the faith in song and story. Where was that passion now? He had not lost his faith, but God was not central as he always was in Eugene’s mother’s life.
Renewal came, not as something new, but as something rediscovered. It was always there, but he’d lost sight of it.
Renewal is not a new idea, not some new doctrine, not even a new person, but rather a recovery of what is always there… digging out the wells that for so long have been stopped (Gen. 26).
Dr. Peterson suggested that the people who had turned up for this renewal conference were there because they cared. But it’s not enough just to care. They have to do more. They have to pray, just as the New Testament Church a generation after Pentecost had to pray in order to be renewed. Prayer is where we recover passion, and it is through prayer that we plan renewal. Using Psalm 110 as a basis for thinking through renewal he pointed out that it is the Lord who has to be in all of this process; it is he who speaks, extends, is present and will judge. The Lord is in everything.
Reiterating his opening remarks, Dr. Peterson spoke of how often Christians start out acknowledging God in everything, but so many times get to the place where they themselves are working in their own power and strength in everything. So believers need to return continually to the source, this is renewal; and if they do then, as the psalmist discovered, so in their day they will rule, will become willing, will receive the dew of their youth, and will be priests forever.
The speaker illustrated from a boyhood experience just how God calls people with huge gestures. His stem Norwegian-born neighbour farmer had a huge John Deere tractor on which this young lad badly wanted to ride. One day the farmer beckoned him over with a huge sweep of his arm. Misinterpreting the gesture as a sign to go away Eugene failed to respond. The neighbour asked him the following Sunday at church why he had run away when he had been called over to the tractor and the lad replied something like, “I thought you were chasing me away. I would have expected you to indicate with a small gesture with your finger, not a big sweep of your arm.”
“Little Pete,” replied the Norseman, “that’s piddling. We do things big on this farm.”
God does big things in and for his church… huge gestures, and rather than being intimidated by them, Christians need to learn to respond to each one of them. It’s a sin to be anxious about the world; it’s not a sin to be anxious about the gospel. Believers need to recover a sense of holy boldness, confidence in God. Prayer is the only action large enough to keep them in touch with the largeness of God.
Basing thoughts also on Psalm 108, Dr. Peterson spoke of how, in answer to prayer, God promises his people the materials to do the work. Speaking of how difficult it is to work and witness locally. God’s people nevertheless need to pray faithfully for renewal of energy, and for continual perseverance. They need to recover their perspective of the whole world and its needs, and of time also.
If God’s Church can become God-centered instead of man-centered, the opportunities in his ever-changing world will be obvious. For renewal to take place, Christians have to realize that now they are living in a reality which God defines and not they themselves. Thus, as Psalm 108 points out, the help of man is worthless, with God we will gain the victory.