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We discuss how churches are strengthening discipleship and helping people grow in confidence in the Bible in a changing culture.
The Quiet Revival Podcast: what's the story? explores the stories behind a renewed interest in Christianity in England and Wales.
Whether you’re a church leader, small group leader, Bible communicator or simply curious about the Church in the UK, this podcast will inform, encourage, and equip you to discover your place in this unfolding movement.
The Quiet Revival sparked a national conversation about faith, church and what God might be doing in England and Wales today. Since its publication and the recording of these podcast episodes, we've had to retract the report after the underlying data was found to be flawed – but the conversation it started hasn't ended.
The Quiet Revival was always more than a single survey. Across England and Wales we're seeing signs of renewed interest in Christianity, especially among younger people: rising Bible sales, more conversions and adult baptisms, growing attendance at evangelism courses. Many of you have shared stories that point to a changing spiritual landscape. The questions this moment raises are more important than ever.
How is your church responding to this missional moment? And how can you invite today’s spiritually open Gen Z to experience Scripture?
Peter Lewis (00:01)
I chat to people who come here and this common thread for all ages seems to be just the same. We're away from something and we're coming to find something. So what would happen if the coming to find something and the getting away from something had an edge about spirituality? We might be going along the beaches and then going into the caves, exploring in the Bible. What does it mean if God says, I am your protector?
that you can come in and retreat from. It's not just a metaphor anymore. You're in the cave. The outdoors provides that cathedral-like experience of what some people will have when they go into a sacred space. A person who I never thought would come to church and hasn't comes to that and says to me, when are we having the next one? when are we having the next one? it creates for us that opportunity of new
connections.
Sian Rees (01:01)
Hi and welcome back, whether you're a regular or this is your first time listening. I'm Sian and it's been an eye-opener to talk to leaders and Bible communicators around the country and find out what they're doing differently in response to this spiritual moment. Today's episode features a conversation with the Reverend Peter Lewis who is responsible for ministry in South West Gower and the wider Gower Ministry area.
He and his wife are part of a vision for the area called Wonder of Wellbeing. It aims to create spaces where individuals can reconnect with themselves, each other and nature. It invites people to deepen their faith through creativity and connecting to the Bible through the outdoors. I caught up with him in Beautiful Gower. Have a listen. So Peter, thank you for agreeing to join us on the second series of the Quiet Revival podcast.
What we're saying in this series is that if things are different in this spiritual moment, then perhaps we should be doing things differently. And that's something that you've certainly taken up the mantle of here in the Gower. So tell us about the creative ways that you're engaging with people here.
Peter Lewis (02:15)
We're based on the Gower. It's full of landscape. It's full of places where you can unwind or you can get adventurous. And we've kind of feel that as soon as people step into here, they may live locally in Swansea or further afield or other part of the world. But when people come here, they are looking to get away from something and find something. And as a person who has grown up,
on Gower, I've kind of seen this change as time has gone by. And I think in our modern society today, people don't just get in the car and go for a drive. They go in a car for a reason, or they go away for a reason. I chat to people who come here and this common thread for all ages seems to be just the same. We're getting away from something and we're coming to find something. So what would happen if
The coming to find something and the getting away from something had an edge about spirituality. And not that we could usurp why people are coming here, but we could just add into the mix, maybe God can help you deal with what you're getting away from, but also create something fresh in what you're hoping to find.
Sian Rees (03:34)
Wonderful. So give us some examples of how you engage with people. Tell us about your work.
Peter Lewis (03:39)
Well, in Gower we've got a whole chain of medieval churches, not everyone's cup of tea. So the first thing that we kind of really thought of was how do we use this pilgrimage route, the Gower Pilgrimage Way, which is 50 miles, visiting all these churches, you know, in three days, and create things there that they may meet people who will pray with them, that they will look at people's stories of how life is changing, that they'll be able to...
step back in a secular way and understand that there's more to life than just what they wanted to get away from and what they wanted to find.
Sian Rees (04:21)
And in what ways does nature and that sense of pilgrimage change how people connect with faith or how they listen or how curious they become? How have you engaged creation really in leading people into a conversation about faith?
Peter Lewis (04:40)
We started up a group of wild church, which is like the forest church and other schemes. And what started out as just a few people here and there has now grown to a monthly coming together. People, we haven't gone down the route of making that church. We're making that an experience of Christian community. Wonderful. So we may have people on there who are part of another church, but
mainly as people who were in churches and don't want to get bogged down with the institutionalization of it, or people who've got no Christian experience, but they love nature and there's something deep that they want to discover. So those are the two folks that we really want to invest in thinking about and time. So we'll put together some kind of reflection or activity.
are very often a craft that will kind of bring all of this together so people can go off on their own, but also they'll come together for us to explore what we're finding about the nature of who God is in your individual life.
Sian Rees (05:50)
And what are the kind of responses that you get when sort of the eyes are being opened if you like? How do people respond?
Peter Lewis (05:58)
Within the context of Wild Church, because we're maybe exploring a theme, so for example, it could be of God as protector, and we might be going along the beaches and then going into the caves or going up on the high cliffs and exploring in the Bible what does it mean if God says, am your protector, I am your stronghold, I'm the cave that you can come in and retreat from.
You see people's minds just making all these little connections because it's not just a metaphor anymore. You're in the cave and you're seeing what that is like. So for a lot of people, the outdoors provides that cathedral-like experience of what some people will have when they go into like a sacred space.
Sian Rees (06:48)
And I love the way you're describing not just an encounter with nature, but actually it's deeply rooted in biblical text then. You're talking thematically. So what are the principles behind your choice of theme or subject or perhaps even Bible text? How do you choose? You talked about this group of people, but how do you discern what might be suitable?
Peter Lewis (07:11)
well, it might be more basic than that. It may well be that somebody has gone on a walk and they really like the walk. And what we find is that when you just sit down and chat about planning or leadership with a few people, what started as a particular place suddenly becomes connected to an aspect of God involved in the detail of your life. Wow.
That would be a really good theme for us to explore a little bit more and we can bring along some people to talk about how God is active in their life or maybe we can use some of the natural material around us to maybe build a little collective art installation and people behind that can think about the ins and outs of their life but how they're related to other people and we'll do it. we'll do that altogether, shall we?
So it's that kind of starting off and then giving time for God's Spirit to kind of lead and prompt within. So that's then where the Bible comes to life because it's coming from something experiential at the start. Wonderful. It's that way around. Yeah, yeah. But then there are other times when we're developing a kind of a
practical way to explore the Christian faith where we're starting with Jesus and we're starting with a biblical accounts of Jesus and imagining right if Jesus went on lots of journeys didn't so what happened on that journey of Jesus and what question does that throw up about who Jesus is and about our life. let's make that into a walk so you can
pick up a little resource in our churches where you do your own walk, you go wherever you want, but it's based on exploring something about Jesus as the Bible presents that for us and then relating it to the outside, the down, the up, and the weather.
Sian Rees (09:26)
I'm sure,
yes. Lovely. So you've talked to us about pilgrimage and how you're using that as just a tool really to engage people in a conversation. I know that community is really one of your core values, right? So how are people learning to chat with one another about faith so that it's not just coming backwards and forwards to you all the time? Are there rich conversations within the group?
Peter Lewis (09:52)
Well, there are lots of different groups, Sian so within them, we haven't got one large group of people who connect, they're all individuals, but we want to make sure that within each event that is taking place, that people begin to feel a sense of connection to each other. And Wild Church is a really good example because we often get folk coming and going, so every other month, they may not be every time we meet, but...
they know who they are and that gives us an opportunity to create a sense of well how can we involve people in sharing their story and what is happening to them so it isn't like I'm a leader and so just come and follow me and I'll instruct you all the way through it's about what do you think and can anyone imagine that or when everybody
wants to contribute, they know that they're able to offer something.
Sian Rees (10:54)
And what about the response of local church people? This is very different and we are saying that in a different sort of spiritual moment we should be doing things differently. How has that been met in the sort of local churches?
Peter Lewis (11:08)
I work with my colleagues with 20 congregations, all very different from the inner part of Swansea right through to the coastline. It's definitely a new way of looking at things. And even people who've been part of the pilgrimage way, I would probably say that it isn't something that they have owned in the past. It's just something that they have been part of where people come into their church.
Helping people to grow as disciples has always been a key part of this vision and to see how people can link in and hear stories about others articulating faith has been important. So what we find with the opportunities for Wild Church and the like is that people who have come to Wild Church have decided they want to come to church as well, not one or the other.
come for something that Wild Church doesn't do. So it's been very lovely to see the regular people come alongside and welcome them in and help them feel that they're part and parcel of everything, even if they just come once in a while to what they feel is church. They appreciate that something else is going on which is equal. And I think that has been a hard...
part in the past for things like Messy Church, where in the past you have families coming to Messy Church, but there's no integration and people have found that a real barrier. Well, how are we all part of the same church? they don't tithe or they don't give. We don't talk to them about money because they're like an outreach. So it's taken me by surprise how to see that there is equality and understanding between that where we are.
And one part of the work that you were chatting about in terms of art is our setting up of art galleries, pop-up art galleries. So we've got one church in Frustoli, which it would be fair to say is one of the smaller congregations that we've had, because for us in our communities, there's a lot of second homes and people who are holiday renting out their accommodation. So moving into an area where you may have a hundred homes,
You may only have 40, 30 of them that have a resident. to connect to them is a bit of a challenge. But what we've been able to do through a lot of our artwork is make connections to people who are coming in for the week or coming in for the fortnight or who come down regularly throughout the year and invite them to things which are not church related but are in the building.
And then you start these conversations and they say, all right, I will come back again or we'll come back again. So it gives us a little bit of a focus outside of Sunday worship to use our buildings in a different way. So for a silly, we've got an art show that changes every other month now. And so we've been measuring that. And we've got like a thousand two hundred people last month come into a tiny church in a month.
And there are opportunities for them to write comments and the like. But what makes it really lovely is that when we've got folk from our local congregations or the project together who can sit there and chat. That's what makes a real difference because all of the artwork that we do is designed to be reflective so you can sit back and you can interact with it. So when the team put that together, there's a
Sian Rees (14:45)
Yeah.
Peter Lewis (14:59)
things they can take home, it's all digital so they can see it at home if they want as well, but there's a chance for them to think what difference is that making to me? And everything has a so what. There's always material to take away, there's always Bibles to take away, there's always information to be part of and then to come and join a kind of an online community and that's our focus for the future is how do we create that as a living
connection between people who've been part of all of these different activities, but how do they then move into something else from there?
Sian Rees (15:36)
I mean it sounds absolutely breathtaking to be honest. A lot of our listeners will be people in positions of leadership within the church or people of influence. What words of encouragement would you give to them to really step out and try something different from perhaps what they're used to?
Peter Lewis (15:58)
It is always freeing when you feel that you are able to do something or express something that God has got for you. So if God is stirring something up for you, then don't hold back from that. We live in a society today where the church is always reaching out to all kinds of different people of different backgrounds, languages, and the whole caboodle. So if there is something which
has taken a person's ideas and passion and they just think, I'd like to do a little bit more in that, then why wouldn't you do that? It's almost like saying, yeah, you've got permission to explore it. And there are people like us and all over Britain that are looking at outdoors and landscape and creativity as the connection point to folk.
What can go wrong in it? There's nothing that can go wrong in this, is there really? No one's going to be offended by it. It's all like really good things to make connections. So one of the things we do is prayers in the sauna. So Oxford Beach has two saunas. So we advertise there, why don't you come down to the sauna and use it as a time of prayerfulness. Amazing. So there are lots of people that wouldn't normally come to church, but they really like the idea of
a shared communal sauna and something that connects to their inner self. So it's taking what we know that is really familiar and then re-presenting it in a way that communicates to people that we wouldn't normally chat to. We do prayers at sunset during the summertime. So you're on the beach, sometimes in the rain, but often not.
and the sun is going down and you've got these words of blessing and encouragement that God has good plans for you and that God is a God who knows the deepest part of you and even when the sun goes down, you're safe in God's care. There are lots of people who come to Gower for the day and for the week. That's a real nice 15 minutes, that's all it is, coming together and a person who I never thought would come to church and hasn't.
comes to that and says to me, when are we having the next one? when are we having the next one? And so it creates for us that opportunity of new connections. So if someone's thinking about doing that, imagine what would it be like and go for it.
Sian Rees (18:37)
So at Bible Society we have this theory of change which relates to encountering God through the head, the heart and the hands. So, you know, engaging with facts being the head and then the emotions the heart but then the outworking of what we learn really through our hands and through living it out. But it sounds that it's not necessarily in that order for you and for Wild Church. Could you just speak into that maybe?
Peter Lewis (19:05)
It could well be that those elements are there, but they are mixed up a little bit. And the entry point, as you mentioned, is more about responding to what is around you at that minute. we deliberately, when we plan Wild Church, think about it being encountering, encountering nature, encountering what is around us, but also encountering the Lord and what God is going to be doing.
and thinking how to take things forward and go deeper. So they can go deeper and they can go to be more authentic of their own faith, whatever that might be, but they need someone to accompany them into it. always on the wild church, when we look at the Bible, there will be something that will root people in, this is what we're finding out about God.
Do you find that? What is your experience of that? Well, where do we find our confidence from? let's just share. So when Jesus is talking about himself as calming the sea, that isn't because he was a good weatherman. It's because he was Lord, is what people thought. There was something like amazing about who he is. So we'll always try and direct people back and then...
What I have found recently is that when we do things like a traditional Bible study in Gower, we have people cropping up who come to that. Brilliant. So as we're recording today, there's a Bible study in our local pub. And I think there'll be two or three people from Bible Church who will be coming to that. And they're new to faith. Yeah. And that's their kind of inroads. So they're almost like creating for themselves
an exploration of faith and we're putting all these things in front of them and then they taking what they want or what they feel will direct them. So that's quite a lot of things that are going on. But remember we're in a rural context. So we work together really well. We work with the Methodists and we work with other denominations. We work with the local New Wine Network. So all of these things that will say, gosh, you know, come to us.
to everyone else and be part of something where you can go deeper. it usually is that kind of way round because we want folk to go deeper, we can't do it all ourselves, so go to wherever.
Sian Rees (21:44)
and that's a beautiful kingdom mindset isn't it to just encourage people to take responsibility for their own curiosity in a sense.
Peter Lewis (21:53)
And it also helps us say, so if I was to say to colleagues in a city Swansea, we're doing a retreat, we're doing this on the beach, we're coming down and we're doing that. We're not stealing people from you, we're just kind of giving them an experience of something we're able to do so they go back to you and really encourage you and are part of your missional flock.
We've got all of this going on here, so let us be a little part and coordinate that together.
Sian Rees (22:26)
beautiful. I think one of the things that really impacted me was the sheer creativity behind the Wondre of Wellbeing and how Reverend Peter and his colleagues are using natural resources as a tool for mission in his area. What it is to think outside the box, Really creative. Stuart Ford is the Catholic Church Engagement Manager here at Bible Society.
And we asked him to share his scriptural reflection on this expression of church and faith with us. Over to you Stuart.
Stuart Ford (23:03)
Thank you, Sian. The year is 1112, and a young man only around 22 years old is leading a group of 30 or so friends and relatives into a life of service to the Lord at the recently established Cistercian monastery of Citeaux. That young man was Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, somebody I find endlessly fascinating.
St Bernard is known as the Doctor Malifluous, the honey-mouthed doctor. He had an extraordinary mind and an extraordinary depth of relationship with God, formed over many years of living that strict Benedictine-Cistercian life. And like all Benedictine and Cistercian monks and nuns, he lived a life saturated in the sacred scriptures.
The Psalms sung in their entirety every single week and hours every day spent pouring over the Word of God. I want to begin with an extract from a Psalm he would have known by heart and sung week after week throughout his life from Psalm 19. The heavens declare the glory of God and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Notice what the psalmist does here. In a single breath, he moves from the speech of creation
to the speech of scripture, from the sky above to the law of the Lord, two voices speaking in harmony. Creation declares the glory. The written word revives the soul. They belong together. St. Paul draws out the same in Romans 1, his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power
and divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. Clearly perceived, not vaguely sensed. Creation is already communicating. The question is whether we have the ears to hear it and the eyes to read it. This is what the tradition has called the two books, the book of creation,
and the book of Scripture, both authored by God, both revealing his truth, but revealing it a bit differently. Creation tells the truth of the Creator in a real but partial way. Scripture reads creation from within the fullness of revelation in Christ. When we hold them together, we see more clearly. This is where Bernard becomes so remarkable. He wrote,
you will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you what you can never learn from masters. What an extraordinary thing to read from a man who had spent decades immersed in scripture. He was not setting creation against the Bible. He was saying that both read together take us deeper. He was not alone in thinking this.
A great mind from the Christian East, St Maximus the Confessor, wrote that all of creation contains logoi, little markers pointing back to the eternal logos to Christ, the word through whom and for whom all creation exists. Creation, for Maximus, revealed God in stone and root and tide. When we step outside,
When we stand by the sea or sit beneath a tree or pick up a stone, we are, whether we know it or not, opening that book. And when creation pierces our heart, when a person picks up that stone or catches the scent of rosemary and feels something stir in them, that is the logos of that small thing doing its work as an invitation to go further.
Because here is the important thing. Creation opens the question. Scripture answers it. The sky declares the glory, but glory of whom? The stars speak, but what are they saying? We need the second book to read the first.
Take a passage of scripture outside. Let the landscape become your commentary. Let a cave give expression to the Psalms of lament. Let a hillside evoke the scene at the Sermon on the Mount. Let a bluebell wood speak of resurrection. And then let that experience drive you back to the word with fresh eyes and an open, receptive heart.
It produces, I think, humility, which comes from the Latin humus, from the earth. To be grounded in creation is to be grounded literally and spiritually in the earth from which we were made and to which we will one day return. It's from that groundedness, that humility, that we are able to read the Bible rightly, not as those who master it, but as those who are mastered by it.
So I invite you, find a spot under a tree by a stream on a hillside, open the Bible and read. Let what surrounds you speak to what is on the page. Let what is on the page speak to what surrounds you. And trust that the God who wrote both books is with you.
Sian Rees (30:02)
Thank you Stuart. I love seeing the connections you draw out there between creation and the revelation of the creator through scripture. As we close, this is a reminder that our final episode of this series will be one where Andrew and I will be discussing some of the questions and comments that you've sent in. There are some really thought-provoking ones in there, so be sure not to miss it. Until next time, goodbye.