Free Renovaré Resources for Renewal

The more time we spend listening to God’s voice, the more familiar the Voice becomes. In this booklet are two exercises — from Trevor Hudson and Brian Morykon — to help you learn by experience to recognize the voice of God and enjoy the ​“divine companionship for which our souls are made.” The booklet opens with an excerpt from Dallas Willard’s Hearing God.

Do you wish your awareness of God’s presence was more constant, your prayer conversation more regular? How are you tuning your ear to God’s still, small voice?

We offer here two practical and beautiful ways to draw near to God in the midst of your daily life: a set of thoughtfully written prayers for morning, noon, and night by Richella Parham and wonder-evoking cyanotype artwork by Sally Kendrick.

Drawing on the biblical psalms as examples, this booklet steps the reader through two psalm writing exercises — one of thanksgiving, one of longing or lament. The point of these exercises is to help you work with your words and discover what you didn’t even know you had to say, to move past surface‑y prayer and get real with God. Whether you are brand-new to praying or well-seasoned in a conversational life with God, you can pick up these psalm-crafting tools to bring more of yourself into the light of God.

This seven-day devotional invites us to understand and experience prayer as Jesus taught. When Jesus’ friends asked him how they should pray, he gave them — and us — the brilliantly succinct guide we call the ​“Lord’s Prayer.” In a feat of cosmic engineering, Jesus managed to gather the entire waterfront of human need and the vast ocean of God’s plans for his universe in just 57 Greek words. We can pray those 57 words (or their English equivalents) for a lifetime and never exhaust them.

Beautiful Vessels highlights two unique writers whose voices most of us have never heard: Bakht Singh and Sojourner Truth. We need to listen to brothers and sisters of diverse cultures and ethnicities who have insight and wisdom into a loving, passionate, daily walk with God. Sojourner Truth brings us a vibrant testimony of God’s living and active presence that utterly transformed her and strengthened her for the work of abolition. Bakht Singh brings us modern parables packed with divine truth to guide our thinking and our living. 

This resource explores several historic symbols for the Church through short excerpts spanning centuries and Christian traditions. These readings along with the original essays introducing them and the questions inviting further reflection will help you experience the truth and invitation of each symbol for the Church, and find fresh ways of envisioning and expressing the glorious reality of being his people, united in love and purpose.

This booklet includes a selection from Richard Foster’s book, Learning Humility: A Year of Searching for a Vanishing Virtue and an excerpt from Andrew Murray’s Humility. We hope you will enter with these authors into the rich remembrance and growth of a virtue that draws us to union with Jesus.

Any serious effort to follow Jesus must be grounded in community. To be in Christ is to be in the gathered Body of which he is the Head. Not just abstractly or ​“in the great by-and-by,” but planted in a particular place and a particular group where we can be formed by, alongside, and for the sake of other people. This booklet is designed to help us consider ways to root our communion with the Lord God in relationships with other people, drawing on insights from: Marva Dawn, George MacDonald, Richard J. Foster, Vernon Johns, Amy Carmichael, and D.T. Niles.

In his last major talk, presented in essay form in this twenty-page booklet, Richard Foster helps Christians maneuver around modern landmines on the road of becoming more like Jesus. Celebration of Discipline opens with the line, ​“Superficiality is the curse of our age.” It rings as true today as it did in 1978. The twenty-first century though has brought with it new challenges — namely the rise of distraction and narcissism due to technological advances. Foster writes, ​“Our world today cries out for a theology of spiritual growth that has been proven to work in the midst of the harsh realities of daily life.”

In this little booklet, you’ll find thirty daily meditations that explore common experiences we encounter as disciples. Discipleship is a path sketched out by many, many seasoned apprentices of Jesus down through the ages. From their testimonies, we can discern certain patterns, which we can call Classical Stages of Transformation. Tracing the well-worn path helps journey with Jesus in a more clear-sighted way and participate more deeply in our transformation as we advance ever nearer toward that one great goal of human life — union with the Trinity. 

Transformation into the image of Jesus Christ is available, possible, and awaiting every believer who seeks it. But how does it happen? Written by Renovaré Ministry Team and Board member Richella Parham, this approachable book answers essential questions about spiritual formation by exploring topics like: God’s grace, the Kingdom of God, the process of change, the spiritual disciplines, and the fellowship of believers.

In this pastoral letter, Ted Harro imagines what Quaker philosopher Thomas Kelly might say to his home congregation. The message is timely and true for a broader audience, as well. Find your story in it. Share it. Expand on it as you open your heart to whatever the Lord might say specifically to you and your community of faith. Read it as the playful, prayerful, humble exhortation it was meant to be. And be encouraged.