Revive is a discipleship program to help active lay leaders—wardens, property and finance officers, committee chairs, vestry members, church school teachers, youth ministers, pastoral visitors, and liturgical ministers—grow in confidence as spiritual leaders. Revive is about transformation through spiritual formation. In just 10 months, this small-group program transforms leaders of practical church ministry into confident spiritual leaders who love God and participate in Christ’s ministry.
How does Revive work?
Revive is an in-person, small-group program, utilizing downloadable and printable materials in coordination with videos that teach and reinforce the concepts of each session. Lay leaders join their minister in a safe setting for an opening retreat, three six-week modules of weekly two-hour sessions, and a closing retreat. Each session includes at least one presentation from a prepared video or a live talk from the facilitator. Notes are available to help guide the facilitator’s talk. The videos are optional; they can help make the program easy to lead so that the facilitator can attend to hospitality, group dynamics, and facilitating discussions.
Does Revive have to be run as one year-long program?
Not really. Revive was designed to be run over a year, beginning in the fall or the new year, but the modules can serve as separate workshops. While the sessions work independently, the program is most effective when there is consistent membership in the small group for a ten-month period.
How much does Revive cost?
The full price is $299 $150.
Can I use Revive with multiple churches and/or groups?
Revive materials and concepts are licensed for use by the purchasing congregation, individual, or organization only. A congregation may choose to re-run the program multiple times, but the materials may not be shared, reproduced, or distributed to any third parties without express written consent from Forward Movement. A single facilitator working with many churches or groups may purchase subsequent licenses for each congregation or group by contacting our customer service team at orders@forwardmovement.org or 1-800-543-1813.
Are there other costs we should prepare for?
Along with the one-time cost of the Revive curriculum, the program costs include covering the expenses for craft supplies, light refreshments, and the Saturday midday meal for both the opening and closing retreats. If the participants do not print their own Participant Guide, then weekly photocopying of the Participant Guide for each participant will need to be covered.
What do I get after I purchase Revive from Forward Movement?
After your transaction processes, you will receive instructions and links to download three PDFs; a Facilitator Guide, a Participant Guide, and an informational PDF (labeled READ-ME-FIRST) with links and instructions to download (or stream) the program videos.
There are 29 videos total, and each can be downloaded in five sizes and qualities to accommodate your internet connection. The HD (high definition) files are up to 600 MB each and provide the best quality, while tiered sizing options go all the way to SD (standard definition) files that are less than 25 MB each, but may be grainy on a large screens.
How do I purchase and download the program materials?
We’ve prepared a short video that walks through the process of purchasing and downloading Revive from the Forward Movement website.
Once you’re purchased Revive, we recommend immediately downloading and saving the program files. However, the files will remain accessible on your Forward Movement account for six months and are able to be downloaded up to five times. After six months, or five downloads, you will need to call Forward Movement Customer Service at 800-543-1813 to be re-issued new files (no charge).
Here is a short tutorial video that shows you where to find the files once you’ve logged into your Forward Movement account:
Links and passwords to access the videos online are included in the READ-ME-FIRST document downloaded after purchasing Revive. We recommend downloading the videos several days or weeks in advance, to avoid any connectivity issues that may delay your program. The files you will be downloading range in size and may take several minutes to download, depending on your local internet speed. Vimeo supports most major web browsers and operating systems, with limited exceptions.
No, but we highly recommend it. The videos are optional and help provide the content and make the program easy to lead so that the facilitator can attend to hospitality, group dynamics, and facilitating discussions.
Who is a lay leader?
A lay leader is anyone who holds a church office, oversees a ministry, or has fiduciary responsibility for finance, property, or human resources. Leaders include wardens, vestry members, property and finance officers, committee chairs, church school teachers, youth ministers, pastoral visitors, and liturgical ministers.
What can participants gain from Revive?
Participants will develop a deeper relationship with God and others while getting to know more about themselves as spiritual leaders. They will:
- develop a prayer life that suits their personal spiritual temperament
- gain confidence in speaking about God in their lives
- experience scripture as a spiritual resource
- gain experience praying in public and leading bible study
- create a Rule of Life that expresses their personal spiritual practices
- discern their call for justice, forgiveness, and peace as servants of Christ’s kingdom
Who is the facilitator?
The facilitator of the program is a minister of the church who is leading the small-group sessions. We have purposefully used the word minister as a signal that the person can be ordained or lay, although many facilitators are clergy. The facilitators do not have to be a spiritual saint or a master spiritual director, but they must be intentional about their own spiritual growth and open to a relational connection with God. It is advantageous for a minister to have a spiritual director (or be one) as it serves as a model for commitment to spiritual growth.
What Christian denominations is Revive geared towards?
Though coming from the Anglican tradition, Revive is a solidly Christian mainline program and therefore can be considered ecumenical and easily used in Lutheran, Presbyterian, and UCC churches. Periodically there are references to the The Book of Common Prayer (Episcopal) which could easily be replaced with the Book of Common Worship prayers and liturgies.
We tried to keep the roles and ecclesial offices generic and so we refer to “minister” throughout Revive thus avoiding “priest”, “pastor”, “bishop” which tend to be denominationally specific. With lay offices we tended to simply use words like treasurer, liturgical ministers, and music ministers, to be as generic as possible. You may find a need to contextualize here or there, but not much. For instance, Session 18, Module 3 on Liturgical Tradition asks participants to move through stations set up in the church space (Montessori-like). Many of the stations include furnishings found in a typical Anglican Church (lectern, pulpit, prayer desk). Here again, this can be easily adapted to your setting, words, and furnishings.
In short, 95% of the resource is made up of ancient and modern practices that are not specific to any denomination (lectio divina, Visio divina, Ignatius imaginative, contemplation, creeds…etc).
How long are the opening and closing retreats?
The opening and closing retreats take an evening and a day (ideally a Friday evening and Saturday) and are most effective when they are scheduled as closely as possible to the running of the modules. The retreats can be held at the church or at a retreat facility. Participants can return to their homes on Friday evening or arrangements can be made for them to stay overnight.
What if we can’t do a Friday evening and Saturday together?
There are two alternative models for the retreat, with adjustments to the program to accommodate the shift:
1. All-day Saturday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (cut out the worship and make storytelling shorter by using smaller breakout groups and turn the spiritual preferences exercise into homework).
2. Two nights from 6 to 9:30 p.m. (cut out worship and focus on storytelling and turn the spiritual preferences exercise into homework).
Still have questions?
For questions about purchasing or downloading, please contact the Forward Movement customer service team at 1-800-543-1813 orders@forwardmovement.org
For questions about program content, contact revive@forwardmovement.org