The Ren­o­varé Mission

From the Renovaré Newsletter Archive

The selection below is from a September 1992 Renovaré newsletter. Download a PDF of the original newsletter.

The Ren­o­varé Mission

The Ren­o­varé mis­sion is excep­tion­al­ly sim­ple to state and infi­nite­ly com­plex to con­vert into real­i­ty. Ren­o­varé is com­mit­ted to work­ing for the renew­al of the Church of Jesus Christ in all her mul­ti­fac­eted expres­sions. Such renew­al begins with every one of us as indi­vid­u­als and extends all the way to orga­ni­za­tions and insti­tu­tion­al struc­tures. We want to fan the flames of renew­al every­where we can. Our goal is, like Samp­son, to light the tails of the fox­es and let them go!

We want Chris­tians every­where to live lives pat­terned after Jesus Christ – to do the kinds of dis­ci­plines Jesus did and to live the kind of life Jesus lived. In short, we want to con­vert Chris­tians to the way of Christ!

Dynam­ic Spir­i­tu­al Movements

And I believe God is rais­ing up dynam­ic spir­i­tu­al move­ments that are pleas­ing to him. Peo­ple are thirst­ing as nev­er before for a per­pet­u­al life of prayer and inti­ma­cy with the Abba of Jesus. They are seek­ing deep­er puri­ty of heart and life. They are liv­ing by a con­stant inner infu­sion of life and pow­er from the Spir­it of God. They are serv­ing their neigh­bors out of the ​“may I” of love rather than the ​“must I” of duty. They are once again dis­cov­er­ing Scrip­ture as ​“warm bread” fresh from the oven, and are shar­ing their faith with oth­ers as the Spir­it opens the way.

That is the kind of thing I want to be a part of, don’t you! There are hun­dreds, if not thou­sands, of man­i­fes­ta­tions pop­ping up every­where and we at Ren­o­varé want to encour­age them all. Stu­dent move­ments, cou­ples move­ments, sin­gles move­ments, church-based move­ments, para­church-based move­ments, mis­sions-based move­ments. May God bless each of them and may they always know Christ as their life!

Con­nect­ing With the Move­ment of God

The Ren­o­varé covenant – with its accom­pa­ny­ing dis­ci­plines and exam­i­na­tion ques­tions – is our way of help­ing peo­ple begin con­nect­ing with the move­ment of God. We view com­mit­ment to the covenant as a cross­roads deci­sion, a sacred altar call. If you have nev­er made that com­mit­ment, I urge you to do so today. Fur­ther, I encour­age you to begin meet­ing reg­u­lar­ly with one or two oth­ers to nur­ture and encour­age one anoth­er in your covenant com­mit­ment. God can use this sim­ple act to help build Paul’s words into your life, ​“inward­ly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16).

Peace and joy,

Richard J. Foster