In a newsagents today I was amazed how many magazines are still writing about the effects of the Reformation, 500 years on. This one in the New Scientist is fascinating.

It’s widely held that Martin Luther never aspired to be a great theologian or meant to start a revolution, he just wanted a conversation about salvation that led to the Reformation (did you notice that rhymed? I should have been a rapper!).

Reading Nick Page’s recent funny and informative book on the Reformation reminds me Luther was not particularly original either, he combined the ideas of others with the questions he had from reading the Bible for himself and posed some questions about the church in his day that was so far removed from the people it was meant to reach. The new technology of the printing press took his ideas viral and set ablaze a conflagration leading to movements formed that continue to multiply to today.

I thank God for that. I thank God for the Reformation today. I thank God for those who gave their lives so that I as an ordinary person could read the Bible and understand it’s eternity changing message.

I also wrestle with what God is doing in our times. Alan Hirsch proposes that 500 years ago there was a Reformation of soteriology (how we are saved) and now we are undergoing a Reformation of our ecclesiology (how we are church). He says the systems we are presently running are perfectly designed to produce the results we are getting. In my opinion the latest figures on that show that it’s change or die time.

It’s late. But it’s not too late. So many great movements are being formed in our day and so much is till happening to encourage me. Right now I’m at an incredible gathering of leaders at Kingsgate Church – the talk and plans being made in faith here excite me!

I can’t wait to hear from those who will inspire us at our own Launch event in just two weeks, to show us that all around the world, the gospel still works wherever it is unleased.

We must have the conversations, that could lead to the new Reformation, and dare I say it – to Revival!

It’s not too late for you to join us for Launch, please come if you possibly can – as we nail some ideas and explore how C21st churches who believe the Bible has lost none of its power can still make history, whenever courageous disciples are willing to make a stand for its truth and live it out in the world.