Emma Miles Writes:
In lockdown, 2020, Re-Store was the only ministry operational at Christ church as we sought to serve the health and the wellbeing of our communities. I remember that summer, it was very hot, and we had a queue of people outside, lining up for a food parcel. I vividly remember several men in line each week, they looked malnourished, with their tops off, bones on display, Addicted men, not hungry for food necessarily, but hungry and desperate, none the less.
It was during this time that God highlighted to me a verse in the song ‘Revival’s in the air’, with a picture of these men and their bones rattling as they queued in line.
‘Oh, I can see a valley of dry bones,
Rattling, moving, bone to bone,
You breathe a breath of life into our lungs
And marching on our knees, we march to love.’
I knew for sure; this was prophetic.
The following year, we launched The Hope Hub because Jesus told us to build loving relationships with broken people. Our vision, at that stage, was to share authentic hope with people, who have resigned themselves to hopelessness, waking with them at the speed of love. We partnered with a variety of agencies from Christian rehabs to health inclusion agencies, all for the benefit of seeing people become whole and free, but it all started with relationship.
Margaret Dye and I always prayed together before each session, on a Monday and Wednesday, which then became a circle of prayer that just kept growing.
At the beginning of this year, we introduced worship and teaching to this prayer time and ultimately launched The Hub Church. We felt the vision had now shifted and The Hub Church was to be the main focus, with refreshments at the back of church. We share communion once a month and a faith community is growing. People are learning about Jesus, praying together, worshiping together, and serving together.
None of those original faces are in our community but those that did join us were hungry and desperate faces, nonetheless.
People have, and still are, encountering Jesus and his love, and they know his presence is at work in their life.
Committed volunteers who have learned to be reliable in both service and church. Women and men are experiencing the hope of following Jesus as he moves to take up the space where shame has lived.
…They have still got a way to go, but hey, haven’t we all!
We celebrate the shifts people make towards The Kingdom.
The big things, the subtle things, the things that sometimes look like ‘2 steps forward, 2 steps back’, the showing up, the praying in a group, the joy in worship, the way they cuddle each other when they hear their favourite worship song, the way they are sharing Jesus with their children. The hunger, the questions, the thirst.
We see the shifts because we are in relationship with the people having them.
And we celebrate every single one.
Melissa Helser, says of her song, especially the words in the chorus:
‘Revivals in the air
Catch it if you can’
She says that God reframed the familiar word ‘revival’ for her when her addicted brother said he was ready to make the call to get help.
She said, Jesus said to her:
‘Don’t you realise you are experiencing the truest form of revival, when prodigals come home, when addicts decide to get help, when families are being restored, when our neighbourhoods and churches are full of compassion and grace and mercy and when our towns are getting flipped upside down with the love of God.’
Jesus told Melissa to open her eyes and see that he is in every single decision and every single shift a person makes towards freedom….
…. He’s not just in the pretty and polished article… He is in it all….
…Catch it if you can!
The Holy Spirit is doing the inside work. It’s God who does the reviving work within a person, he just lets us join in.
At The Hub Church we just aim to create a safe space, a welcoming place, an open space, for people to encounter the God who welcomes home the prodigals and sets the captive free.
God is breathing his breath of life into people’s lungs…people who have been without breath for generations. If you are looking for perfection, you will not see it. Our God works slowly and intimately, and He is not afraid of the mess in the middle.
And neither should we be…...!
Revivals in the air….