On what is faith based: escape or divine renovation?

I find many contemporary Christian songs difficult. I find them too fluffy, too sentimental, too individualistic, too escapist.

They may contain words of radical aspiration but do not seem drawn from the genuine struggles of life. Rarely do our songs reflect scripture’s lament for the injustices and brokenness of the world.

My friend Andy Flannagan is part of the Boundless collective who are creating songs which connect Christian worship to the realities of life. Yesterday, they released a new worship song, Renovation.

‘Broken things you don’t dispose’

Andy led worship at the Hope into Action conference earlier this year and gave us a preview of Renovation there.  It’s a song which relates so strongly to our work to create loving homes for people who are scarred from the experience of homelessness:

“This is a house where hope is waiting / This is the ground that we are staking / Jesus, make your dwelling in our midst

This is the workshop of your kingdom  / These are the tools that fashion freedom  / Miracles and mess still co-exist   

Broken things you don’t dispose  /You repair the cracks with gold  /And you use us here before we’re whole”

Ecological disaster

The song resonates with a theology of salvation as restoration and renewal – as opposed to escape. This is fundamental to how we care for the earth, as well as each other. As Andy puts it:

“The word renovate comes from a Latin root – to make new again. Something old is brought into ‘a new state of repair’. So much of our lack of care for creation comes from a false presumption that we are ‘moving house’ rather than renovating the home we have already been given. We need to recognise the dignity conveyed on ‘the stuff of now’ by Jesus’ resurrection body. It was not made of new, different molecules. It was the same stuff resurrected!”

Hope-filled realism rather than ‘hopium’

Jon Swales is someone I have huge respect for. He does brilliant work in the Lighthouse community in Leeds with ‘those battered and bruised by the storms of life’ to find renovation in their lives. He also writes spiritual poetry of rare power.

Yesterday, he wrote this great commendation of the song:

“We live in a world of climate breakdown and ecological collapse. Too often, the songs we sing in church fail to speak to this reality. Instead of naming the wounds of creation, they risk numbing us, offering a kind of “hopium” that shields us from pain rather than carrying that pain into the presence of grace. What we need is hope-filled realism: words and melodies that help us lament, repent, and yet still hold fast to the promise of renewal.

This is why I want to heartily endorse the latest song Renovation…Here is a song that dares to speak the truth of our ecological crisis — with lines like

“Melting ice and tainted sky / Fertile plains now bleeding dry / Forgive us for our greed and pride.”

Yet it refuses to leave us in despair, calling us instead into the reality of God’s faithfulness:

“You’re the God who is faithful to this earth / Every atom given worth / Resurrected in the here and now.”

Renovation is both prophetic and pastoral. It tells the truth of a groaning creation while lifting our eyes to Christ, the one who renovates, restores, and makes his dwelling among us.

This is the kind of worship we desperately need in these days: not escapist sentimentality, but a song that stitches together lament and hope, realism and resurrection.”