What if revival grows in unity?

Since then, the biggest question I hear from church leaders up and down the country is some version of the same thing: Is it actually true?

Just this morning, I sat down with a friend who leads a national charity working with young adults. Midway through our conversation he leaned forward and asked me directly: ​“What are you seeing in other parts of the country? Are churches really growing or are they still struggling?” He was excited by the stories but cynical and honest enough to admit he hadn’t yet seen the impact where he lives and works.

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It’s a fair question and one that I hear frequently. And after meeting with almost 1,300 church leaders in unity groups across the country over the last few years, I think that the landscape is complicated but hopeful. Perhaps the biggest factor I see impacting churches is one that I rarely hear spoken about. It is the relationship between unity and gospel impact. 

Here is what I’m seeing.

Where there is unity, churches are flourishing

In John 17, Jesus prays that his followers would be one and that through their unity, the world would know that the Father had sent him. He described a kind of unity which exists for a vision beyond itself – Christians who would stand together to reach people who never would have been reached otherwise. As I have travelled around the country, wherever I have seen churches that are flourishing, I have also found healthy, gospel-centred unity. The most exciting stories I’m hearing aren’t coming from individual congregations doing impressive things in isolation. They’re coming from places where leaders have decided to be for each other, and for their communities, together.

God is responding to united prayer

This is something that every Christian knows and yet it is still worth restating. Wesley famously said, ​“God does nothing except in response to believing prayer.” The unity movements that are seeing growth are, almost without exception, cultivating a serious, expectant, missional prayer culture. They are asking for God to move and are making prayer the foundation of their unity.

Belief has returned to the church

A friend messaged me this week after attending his unity gathering. He was buzzing with excitement; every leader in the room had stories of people coming to faith. Some were door-knocking, others gave away Bibles on the streets. One church had just had twelve baptisms and another had stories of people walking in off the street. 

I asked what he thought had caused the shift. His answer was simple and stayed with me: ​“My reflection is that it’s like belief has returned to the church.”

I love that realisation. Belief leads us to action, action leads to fruit, and fruit confirms our belief. It is a genuinely beautiful cycle and a convicting one for those of us who have perhaps grown more practised at managing decline than expecting transformation.

Spurgeon once said that the gospel is like a lion – you don’t need to defend it; you just need to open the cage. Churches are getting bolder and have started opening the cage again. They are going to the streets, knocking on doors, prayer walking and discovering that people are more open than they expected.

So is there a quiet move of God in the UK? I think that there is in the places where people have decided to believe that it could happen. Wherever the church unites, prays together and is bold with the gospel, we are seeing God move and churches flourish. 

It is natural to ask what is happening elsewhere, but I think that a better question for us is whether we are willing to believe that God wants to move where we are… and then to act as though we do.