The UK: A Sleeping Giant

This is why it is said:
     “Wake up, sleeper,
          rise from the dead,
          and Christ will shine on you.”

     – Ephesians 5:14

Have you ever rolled out of bed, bleary-eyed and feeling unprepared for the day ahead? If you don’t start the day off right, it can feel as though you’re sleepwalking through the rest of it. No wonder, then, that coffee is the preserve of so many in their daily routine. When I can muster up the courage to go beyond a customary caffeinated cuppa, I like to kick things off with an ice-cold shower. The shock of the water’s impact on my face and body is more than enough to wake me up and imbue my being with fresh vigour and focus. It may not be pleasant, but goodness me is it effective.

I’ve lived more than half of my life in the UK and witnessed its great beauty and many strengths as well as its vast, glaring shortcomings. I’ve learned of the historic revivals that have swept through the nation and across the seas. I’ve heard the names of those who have gone before and marvelled at their love and passion for Jesus. What motivated them? What led them to go? I’ve looked around at the current state of affairs and mourned the lack of such bold faith and desire to see Jesus known and His Spirit freed amongst the peoples of the world.

The UK needs to wake up! It is a sleeping giant in great need of the intercession of the saints. The land that housed the Hebrides and Welsh revivals, raised faithful heroes like George Whitefield, John Wesley, and J Hudson Taylor, and spread the fire of the gospel East to China and West to Azusa Street is now a slumbering shadow of its former self. A mere 5% of the population attends church with any regularity (as of 2015) and most of the population professes either irreligiousness or a vague, undefined belief in ‘something, somewhere’.[1]  Caffeine cannot save the country of my earthly citizenship; only the biting, perhaps unpleasant water of the Holy Spirit can stir its people into a living, active faith once more.

What might this burst of life look like? Where could this outpouring come from? I prayerfully believe that we must ask God to restore past currents of His Kingdom here – to pray that we might reconnect with those who have preceded us and the work they have faithfully given their lives for. The UK must wake up and remember who it is and whose it is.

“Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.” – Genesis 26:18

The upcoming Friends Around the Table conference in the UK is a glorious opportunity for such prayer, however small it may seem in the midst of the global pandemic. We may not be able to gather in large numbers this time around, but if we can take a leaf out of Isaac’s book and the re-dig ancient wells of our forebears, we can release God’s intended will and blessing on the people of this nation and indeed the whole world. This will require prayer that ploughs up the land to prepare it for harvest, prayer that removes the debris the enemy has been dumping into and around the sources of our spiritual life, prayer that restores the treasures of old the British were given to steward.

I am mixing metaphors; hopefully you can excuse me for that. What I do know, however, is that we will need a diverse mix in order to see the kind of change I am writing about here – a mix of generations, cultures and strategies of partnering with God to see His Kingdom come in this part of the world in new ways and old.

Over the last three years, I have been doing some Kingdom ‘mixing’ of my own with my father and grandfather, both of whom are based in the UK and both of whom have a heart to see God move in ways that speed the Lord’s soon return all across the earth. Most recently, this has involved partnering with my grandfather to help him write Growing Leaders – an autobiography with his lived reflections on servant-leadership sprinkled throughout. Before that, I worked as a consultant with my father’s social enterprise and not-for-profit, Authentic Business and Authentic Lives, which run values-based initiatives that foster greater relational connection and awareness of meaning and purpose on a personal and corporate scale.

What connects us as three generations in the UK, even though we have slightly different callings and expressions in our walk with the Lord, is a heart to see God’s beloved children equipped to go to the nations – to change the direction of their lives and to walk in a new way. In a country that has accepted the status quo (an inward focus, gradual decline and muddled pluralism) we want to see people discover a heart for relationship (loving one another) and live lives that show God’s outward, passionate, sending love, even as we are loved. We are all excited for the upcoming Friends conference, however small it may end up being. It brings us great joy to think of Kingdom friends from around the world joining us to pray for a shift here: to call this people to repentance and rediscover its great corporate calling once more.

[1] https://faithsurvey.co.uk/uk-christianity.html