Spiritual preparations
Spiritual transformation and renewal is God’s business. We don’t transform or renew anyone; God does in God’s own sweet time. When it comes to spiritual renewal, all we can do is call upon the Lord in prayer and do whatever we can to clear the way for the Way Jesus Christ to come. This takes patient and diligent hard work — the work of ministry — by doing the following.
Pray
The premier way in which spiritual renewal occurs is through diligent prayer. Before all else, pray, pray, pray and keep on praying!
Get suggestions for prayer preparation teams.
Worship
One of the most important things we do each week for the renewal of the church is participate in each Sunday’s service for the Lord’s Day. Getting people to anticipate meeting God in worship is something you can do right now to promote spiritual growth. Use the following resources for worship.
Prepare for worship
Understand what we’re doing in worship
Participate fully in sacramental living
Study
Some people are hearing God call for a solemn assembly. You can learn what a solemn assembly is through studying the following materials:
Biblical and Historical Background on Solemn Assemblies
Fasting in the Bible and the Reformed Tradition
Prepare for a special renewal assembly
There is more than one “right” way to go about planning a solemn assembly or spiritual renewal service. In some ways the preparation for the service will be just like the preparations made for any other worship service in the congregation’s life together. It could be, however, that you sense the Spirit’s leading to hold a service that is intentionally set apart from anything your congregation has done before. It could be that your congregation wants to plan for this service much like you might make preparations for a spiritual retreat or conference. Perhaps you will want to invite a guest speaker or plan special music.
If you sense that God is moving you in this direction, the next step is to meet with your pastor and/or session and form a prayer team. This will be a group of people willing to make extra time and invest greater energy into preparing themselves and their congregation(s) or presbytery for the service. You might want to design a time line such as the one we’ve created. Adapt this schedule according to the needs and interest of your congregation or presbytery.
In addition to working out practical details, you may want to invite participants to do some spiritual groundwork leading up to the solemn assembly. Choose one particular spiritual practice that the whole congregation can agree to do together in the weeks preceding the solemn assembly.
