It finally rained in central Kansas, and in the middle of a long drought, the scent of the grateful earth and the grumbling, cloud-fisted sky felt like God’s favor made tangible and immediate.  

The church in North America has endured a long spiritual drought, but a new season may be unfolding. I’m convinced that it’s time to pray fervently for God to rain down his favor, and the words of the prophet Jeremiah can show us how.

In the Scriptures, rain is a symbol of God’s favor.  If the people love and serve the Lord “with all your heart and with all your soul—then he will give the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the later rain” (Deuteronomy 11:11-14).  The Lord “will come to us like the showers, like the spring rains that water the earth” (Hosea 6:3).  God promises “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh”–a word which was fulfilled at Pentecost when God charged the church with mission and power (Joel 2:28; Acts 2).

Yet many corners of the church in North America have been experiencing a long drought.  I don’t mean the tumult of a few years back: the whole Frankenstein cloud of panmaskingnationalismdemic that Everyone knows shredded Everything and propelled all the pastors to burn out and take up insurance sales.  That was a storm, and in the millennial history of God’s people, storms brew and pass through the ecclesial landscape in a relative flash.  The church can handle storms.  The real trouble is that the church has been slogging through an extended drought—a twenty or fifty or hundred-year drought.

Why?

I have my thoughts: theological slippage, dalliance in moral back alleys, enervating hard-heartedness before the Lazaruses of our age. But none of that is new to us–just scan the letters of Revelation 2-3. Or do a quick read of history (pick your period). Whatever the current causes of the church’s drought, Jeremiah’s ancient words remind us that if God’s people turn from their sin and turn toward God, then God will rain down his favor.

There are signs something may already be shifting: the renewed cogency of the Christian message in big thinking academia, the cracks in the framework of the cultural and intellectual foundations of the New Atheism, the Asbury outpouring, stats showing young men becoming more engaged in church.  They say even hymnals are making a comeback. Perhaps God in his grace is giving the church in North American a foretaste of what a season of his favor could look like.

For a while now in my own rural church watching experience, I’ve been wondering if God might be up to something new.  Stories have come my way of revived rural congregations. In one church I know, the pastor has taken a simple approach: minimal programming, no flashy strategy. The congregation never stopped singing from hymnals. The pastor has just faithfully preached the word, cared for the church, and ministered in the community.  On a recent Sunday morning when I visited, a brace of kids was practicing for the Christmas program. During Sunday School, the young adult classroom ran out of chairs.

Could all of this be a sign that God is doing something new?

In Jeremiah 14, the prophet calls God’s people to confession and petition. He speaks “the word of the Lord…concerning the drought” (v.1).  In response, the people confess: “our apostasies indeed are many” (v.8).  And yet they also boldly petition God: “You, O Lord, are in the midst of us, and we are called by your name; do not forsake us!” (14:9).

Jeremiah’s words guide us in confession and petition.

Confession: Where does the church need to repent, turn, change course?

Petition: Where is God calling the church to return to him and seek his face?

God loves the church, and he longs to show her his favor. We’ve been rehearsing and rehashing the old stories of loss for so many years that we can scarcely imagine it.  In many congregations, the drought has stretched for so long that we’ve forgotten the scent of rain.  God’s favor has become unintelligible to us.

But maybe, just maybe, we’ve arrived at the cusp of a new season. It’s time to pray fervently:

O Lord our God, let it rain!