Written by Jesse Furey

Recently, my wife Jenny has added “sourdough bread-maker” to her ever expanding list of vocational superlatives. She is not alone. If anything good comes out of this COVID19 lockdown, it might be in the home bread-making industry. Sourdough is a thing now. People even name their starters—a fermenting lump of soggy dough. And why not name it? It is alive, after all. Ours sits on the counter in an old peanut-butter jar from the 1980’s, loosely covered, bubbling and shifting. A hidden life, fermenting in the dark of our cool kitchen.

Lately I’ve been wondering if the hidden prayers of a small, unassuming remnant of Christian brothers and sisters might work like that sourdough starter. Over the course of church history, renewal and revival has most often been sparked not by the big and famous, but the small and unseen. Remnants—what Martin Luther called “little churches within the church” committed to praying--or fermenting and bubbling--in the hiddenness of living rooms and haystacks and church basements.

Of course, this hiddenness and smallness is not only a feature of renewal in church history, is it? We can look to Jesus himself to see the fermenting power of the few who are committed to one another and to prayer, as my friend Gerry McDermott has noted:

“We see the same pattern in Jesus’ ministry. Why didn’t he spend much time with crowds? Why didn’t he go after them when they wandered after getting fed, or when they turned away in repulsion because of his hard sayings? Instead he spent the vast majority of his time with the remnant, the twelve. He went deep with them, and trusted that their inter life, which he cultivated for three years, would radiate. Their lives would attract others.”

Their lives did radiate and attract others. They fermented in the hiddenness of life with Jesus and communal prayer. Why couldn’t it be the same with us, now? Sure, “meeting” online is...less than ideal. But God often moves in the less than ideal times. What better time to show his power and glory than now? What’s more, our neighbors are thinking more about ultimate questions of life and death and meaning now than ever.

We can’t plan revivals, and renewal is God’s work. But we can commit to pray together in small groups—for Gospel renewal in our land. For churches to be planted and revitalized, and to live together as friends in the Kingdom of God. For families to be healed and communities to flourish. We can “stand before [God] in the gap on behalf of the land” (Eze 22:30). Who knows what might come of this kind of fermenting, hidden prayer in small groups? Who knows what kind of life might bubble and grow in the darkness of this pandemic?