“Not since the mid-18th century, before the First Great Awakening, has the church been weaker, nor has the American population been more disconnected from religion.” —Tim Keller
The American church isn’t just in decline—it’s in freefall. Churches are closing. Pews sit empty. Whole generations aren’t merely drifting; they’re disengaging entirely. And as faith recedes, society fractures under the weight of its own disillusionment.
Tim Keller saw this moment coming, but he refused to despair. Even though no single strategy can stop the bleeding, renewal is still possible.
“The renewal of the American church is an enormous undertaking. It will take many entire lives dedicated to it and will require enormous energy and resources. But the need for it is so great it makes any effort warranted and worth it all.” –Tim Keller
He knew the answer wasn’t in clinging to past models. The old playbook isn’t enough. What’s needed is a reimagined church—one resilient enough to thrive in a post-Christian world, distinct from the culture around it yet deeply engaged in renewing it.
So what does that look like? How do we move forward?
Keller didn’t just diagnose the problem—he mapped out a vision for renewal. A church that doesn’t just survive but transforms lives, shapes culture, and shines as a beacon of hope in a fractured world.
He laid out 15 key markers of what a renewed church might look like. These aren’t abstract ideals—they’re a roadmap. And as we walk through them, we’ll explore how The Communion Revolution aligns with and answers this call.
Let’s dive in.
1. Cities are filled with flourishing neighborhoods that point to the churches within them as a crucial source of their life and strength.
Tim Keller envisioned a future where the church’s presence was unmistakable—not because of towering steeples or political influence, but because neighborhoods were flourishing because Christians were there.
He saw the church as the beating heart of its community—a place of healing, service, and connection, where people turned for help, hope, and belonging.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
Rather than treating the church as a destination, The Communion Revolution embeds it into daily life—through open tables, shared meals, and deep relationships that renew neighborhoods from within.
✅ Agape Feasts: Where strangers become family and isolation gives way to belonging.
✅ Saunterre Prayer Walks: Bringing prayer into the streets, seeking the renewal of the city.
✅ Canopy Network: Uniting churches and believers to spark real, collaborative change.
2. Every U.S. community is honeycombed with home fellowship groups and house churches that build up Christians, welcome non-believers, and serve their neighbors.
Keller pictured a grassroots movement of discipleship, hospitality, and mission—one where small, organic gatherings weren’t just Bible studies or social cliques, but incubators of faith, spiritual formation, and deep, personal bonds.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Agape Feasts: More than fellowship groups, these gatherings restore the early church model: a table for Communion, discipleship, and spiritual unity.
✅ Scalable: All it takes is a home, a table, and a willing heart. Anyone can ‘plant’ an agape feast.
✅ Invitational: Non-believers aren’t passive spectators; they’re welcomed into a family where faith is lived, not just preached.
This isn’t about cramming small groups into living rooms—it’s about infusing entire neighborhoods with the presence of Christ.
3. New churches are being planted twice as fast as churches are closing, and 2/3 of the people in the new churches are formerly unchurched and non-believers.
Keller saw that renewal required more than just revitalizing struggling churches—it demanded a movement of fresh, bold communities reaching the unchurched and those who had walked away. But traditional church planting? It’s slow, expensive, and often disconnected from daily life, making it ineffective at reaching those outside the faith.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Agape Feasts as Church Plants: No years of fundraising. No blueprints. If you have a table and a love for Jesus, you can start an agape feast—anywhere, immediately.
✅ Fast, Scalable, and Relational: The early church didn’t wait for buildings; it spread from household to household. Agape feasts reclaim this model, growing naturally, person by person.
✅ Bridging to Churches: These aren’t isolated gatherings; they serve as relational onramps, welcoming the unchurched into a spiritual family—and, eventually, into a church home.
✅ A Movement for the Formerly Unchurched: Hospitality, not programs, takes center stage. For those wary of institutional religion, the table is a safe and sacred place to encounter Jesus.
This isn’t just about planting more churches—it’s about planting churches that grow from real relationships, where faith spreads naturally through the power of the table.
4. Large percentages of Christians become able to speak about their faith in their daily relationships in ways that are not perceived by most of the recipients as offensive or even awkward, but instead are received as helpful and positive.
Keller knew that evangelism in a post-Christian world couldn’t rely on scripted pitches or culture war debates. People aren’t looking for arguments—but they are searching for something real. The Gospel spreads best not through confrontation, but through personal connection.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Tables Over Pulpits: Agape feasts turn meals into sacred spaces where faith flows naturally—not as a debate, but as something lived out in friendship and generosity.
✅ Embodied Evangelism: Radical hospitality—welcoming neighbors, feeding the lonely, serving with no strings attached—demonstrates the Gospel before a word is spoken.
✅ A Positive Vision: Instead of defining Christianity by what it opposes, The Communion Revolution paints a compelling picture of what it stands for: reconciliation, grace, generosity, and belonging.
✅ Respectful Invitation: True hospitality isn’t coercive. It respects people’s freedom to believe or doubt while offering a glimpse of a better way: Communion rather than division.
The Gospel doesn’t spread by force—it spreads by presence. When faith is shared through meals, love, and generosity, it stops feeling awkward. It becomes beautiful.
5. The movement of the young out of the churches is completely reversed. Children and youth in the church are equipped to see not only the beauty of the historic faith, but the deeply inadequate alternative identities, narratives, and answers provided by the culture.
Young people aren’t just drifting from faith—they’re running. But what if the church wasn’t something they left behind, but something they ran toward? What if it became the place where their deepest longings—for meaning, belonging, and purpose—were actually met?
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Depth Over Hype: Many young adults, burned by shallow, entertainment-driven faith, are searching for something ancient and enduring—liturgy, sacrament, tradition. The Communion Revolution grounds them in relational meaning, not slick marketing.
✅ The Cure for Loneliness: The greatest crisis young people face isn’t doubt—it’s disconnection. Agape feasts replace isolation with real relationships—tables, talks, and family, not just content and sermons.
✅ A Bridge Between Generations: Grandparents don’t have to preach to pass on their faith. Hospitality creates a natural way for wisdom, love, and tradition to be shared over meals and shared life.
✅ A Faith That Captivates More Than Critiques: Young people are exhausted by endless culture war battles. The Communion Revolution doesn’t just tell them what’s wrong with the world—it shows them something better: a faith that is beautiful, communal, and embodied.
The next generation won’t return to the church because of better branding or social media campaigns. They’ll come back when they see a faith so alive, so rich, so deeply human—that they can’t stay away.
6. Christians are famous for being the ones who show up in force first to help victims whenever there is any disaster.
In the early church, when plagues swept through cities, it was the Christians who stayed behind to care for the sick—risking their own lives to serve. Their sacrificial love made the Gospel undeniable.
What if that was still our reputation today? What if, in every disaster, crisis, or tragedy, the church wasn’t an afterthought—but the first on the scene?
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Rapid Response Web: The Canopy weaves agape feasts into a ready network, allowing Christians to mobilize immediately when disaster strikes.
✅ Hospitality as Relief: When people lose everything, the first thing they need is a place to belong. Agape feasts offer not just food, but comfort, care, and community.
✅ Unity in Action: This isn’t about isolated efforts; it’s about a coordinated response. Churches and believers acting together as Christ’s hands and feet.
✅ Boots on the Ground: Instead of outsourcing compassion to distant organizations, Christians step in personally—offering help, hope, and a human presence where it’s needed most.
The church’s witness isn’t built on statements or slogans. It’s built in the rubble, the floodwaters, the shelters—wherever suffering calls for love in action.
7. Christian churches would be known as the most racially and culturally diverse institutions in society.
Keller envisioned a church so radically welcoming that it became a foretaste of heaven—Revelation 7:9 brought to life, where every nation, tribe, and tongue gathered as one.
But today? Sunday morning remains one of the most segregated hours in America. In many places, churches don’t reflect the neighborhoods around them. Instead of leading the way in racial unity, we often lag behind.
How do we change that?
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Hospitality Is Universal: This isn’t a Western program to be imposed on the global church. In fact, most non-Western cultures practice hospitality far better than we do. The Communion Revolution invites us to learn from them.
✅ Agape Feasts Bridge Divides: Breaking bread is a universal language. Sharing meals fosters trust, dismantles suspicion, and builds real relationships across racial and cultural lines.
✅ Church Without Walls: Instead of asking people to enter our spaces, The Communion Revolution moves into theirs—homes, workplaces, and neighborhoods—where diversity isn’t forced but flourishes naturally.
✅ Canopy Goes Global: Agape feasts aren’t just a local movement; they can unite believers across continents, allowing the global church to help shape and renew Western Christianity.
Western Christianity isn’t the model we need to impose—we’re the culture in need of renewal. And maybe that renewal comes not from ‘reaching’ others, but from humbly learning from others.
8. The Church Becomes Publicly Recognized as a Refuge for Sufferers, Known for Its Ability to Help People Through Grief, Pain, and Loss.
Tim Keller dreamed of a church less obsessed with being right and more devoted to being a refuge for the hurting—a place where the grieving and broken don’t hesitate to run, drawn by the promise of real hope.
But too often, churches expect composure. Grief unsettles us. Pain makes us uncomfortable. Suffering is met with rushed reassurances or empty clichés. And so, many suffer in silence—alone, unseen, with nowhere to turn.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ A Table for the Broken: Agape feasts aren’t just for celebration; they’re sacred spaces for lament and healing. Here, people bring their raw, unpolished stories—without pressure to “move on” before they’re ready.
✅ Presence over Platitudes: The church often preaches at pain instead of dwelling in it. Jesus didn’t. He drew near to the weeping and brokenhearted. The Communion Revolution prioritizes presence: showing up, sharing the weight, bearing one another’s burdens side by side.
✅ Communion vs. Isolation: In a world drowning in loneliness, true community is a lifeline. A network of open tables ensures that no one has to face suffering alone.
✅ Hospitality as Healing: The grieving don’t need a program. They need a friend to sit quietly, share a meal, listen, and stay. Simple acts mend what sermons and self-help books cannot.
When the church stops flinching from pain and starts carrying it, the world will see. Not because we’re polished or perfect, but because we refuse to let anyone suffer alone.
9. An increasing number of Christian artists—working out both the realism of the Christian worldview about sin and the confident expectation of restorative grace—produce high-quality stories, music, and visual art.
Keller saw that renewal isn’t just about theology—it’s also about imagination. The church should be a place where artists create works that wrestle honestly with both the world’s brokenness and the hope of redemption.
When Christian art is excellent—not sentimental or preachy—it draws people in. It makes faith feel real, intuitive, and filled with meaning. It sparks longing for something beyond ourselves.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅Communion, The Soul of Great Art: The Communion Revolution isn’t an art movement, per se—but it points to the source of great art: Communion. The greatest stories—Les Misérables, The Lord of the Rings—are about homecoming, sacrifice, and love that transcends the self. That’s the heart of the Gospel.
✅Canopy, A Seedbed for Beauty: The Canopy isn’t just about networking; it’s a space where artists, writers, and creatives can root their work in an ethos of Communion—crafting beauty that inspires rather than alienates.
✅A Legacy That Inspires: From Bach to Dostoevsky, Christian faith once fired the world’s artistic imagination. The Communion Revolution invites artists to rekindle that tradition—not by making “Christian art,” but by creating works of excellence that explore the tension between sin and grace, death and resurrection.
Christianity has always been at its best when it doesn’t just argue for faith but makes faith beautiful. When artists, poets, and musicians don’t just explain the Gospel but make us feel it. A faith so alive, so radiant, that it doesn’t need to be defended—it only needs to be seen.
10. There is a robust, respected, and growing community of intellectuals and scholars that hold unashamedly to historic Christian doctrine…
Keller didn’t just want a more educated church—he dreamed of one that influences culture through intellectual excellence. He envisioned a future where Christian scholars didn’t just exist within academia but led across disciplines, producing work so rigorous it altered the cultural landscape.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Communion, The Root of True Scholarship: True scholarship isn’t about self-promotion; it’s about serving others in love. Communion grounds us in humility, rigor, and a shared pursuit of truth for the common good.
✅ Logos, Faith and Reason: Christianity insists the world is knowable because it was created by a rational God. Studying philosophy, science, or history isn’t just scholarship—it’s worship, tracing God’s fingerprints in creation and Scripture.
✅ Canopy, A Hub for Christian Intellectuals: The Communion Revolution isn’t a think tank, but Canopy fosters deep conversations, connects Christian thinkers, and supports new institutions—especially in education—to root culture in wisdom, not mere ideology.
Renewal demands more than zeal and passion—it requires sharp minds committed to the truth. Christianity has always been an intellectual tradition, and it’s time to reclaim that inheritance.
11. The Church Becomes a Visible, Respected ‘Sexual Counter-Culture.’
Keller envisioned a church that doesn’t mimic culture or war against it, but transforms it—where marriage flourishes, singleness is honored, and relationships reflect self-giving love rather than self-seeking gratification.
In a world obsessed with sexual liberation, what makes the Christian vision of sex, marriage, and singleness not just different, but better?
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Communion, The Foundation of Moral Knowledge: Imagine a community where people gather at the same table for years. What sustains it? Trust, fidelity, sacrifice, self-control. What destroys it? Betrayal, selfishness, broken promises. Sustaining a table-driven community requires the very virtues that hold marriages, friendships, and families together—this is the ethos of Communion.
Christian sexual ethics aren’t arbitrary rules; they are the natural outworking of a life centered on relational faithfulness.
✅ Marriage, A Covenant for the Community: Culture treats marriage as a lifestyle choice. Christianity sees it as something bigger: a covenant that strengthens not just the couple, but the entire community. Healthy marriages don’t just benefit spouses—they create the best environment for raising children who feel connected, confident, and called to something greater than themselves.
✅ Singleness, A Gift, Not a Crisis: In a Communion-rich church, singles aren’t sidelined—they’re family. The table offers them deep belonging and relational security that a lonely, individualistic world cannot match.
✅ Rejecting the Shallow Dating Culture: Modern dating is built on consumerism—profiles, algorithms, and short-term desires. The agape feast offers something radically different: a space where deep friendships form first, where character matters more than curated images, and where relationships grow out of shared life, not self-promotion.
✅ Christ at the Center: What sits at the center of the table binds the community together. For the church, it’s the Eucharist—Christ’s body, broken for us. If we replace Him with anything else—whether sexual identity, personal preference, or political ideology—we fracture the very Communion that makes us whole.
All are welcome at the Lord’s table by repentance—those who submit to the Lordship of Christ, not those who demand He conform to their desires.
A Curiosity – Could This Reverse the Dating Crisis?
Modern dating is bleak—lonely, chaotic, allergic to commitment.
But could The Communion Revolution change that? What if churches and agape feasts became the places where men and women formed relationships—not in a transactional dating market, but in a trust-based, faith-filled environment?
What if marriage was seen not as a private contract between individuals, but as a covenant that strengthens the entire church?
I can’t predict what will happen if The Communion Revolution takes hold—but I hope it helps people find lasting love, build strong marriages, and raise children who thrive.
A church filled with healthy marriages and well-loved children isn’t just good for Christians—it’s good for the whole world.
12. Christians Are Known for Their Just Use of Power.
Keller envisioned a church known not for grasping power, but for giving it away—where Christian leaders in business, politics, and beyond built a more just world through generosity, integrity, and service.
In an era of corporate greed, political tribalism, and economic exploitation, how can the church reclaim that vision?
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Generosity as Gospel: True faith produces radical generosity. Think of Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas morning—his redemption wasn’t just personal; it transformed his entire community. When Christ captures our hearts, wealth, power, and influence are no longer about us—they’re tools for lifting up others.
✅ Businesses as a Force for Good: Christian entrepreneurs shouldn’t ask, “How can I extract the most profit?” but “How can I create something that truly serves my neighbors?” The best businesses aren’t just profitable—they’re generous, offering dignity to workers, real value to customers, and opportunities that elevate entire communities.
✅ Urban Renewal and the Homeless: The goal isn’t just relief, but restoration. Community First! Village in Austin proves what’s possible—a movement that doesn’t just hand out charity but builds real homes, real jobs, and real communities. The poor aren’t just people to help—they’re future leaders of the Kingdom.
✅ A Different Kind of Power: Christians in politics, philanthropy, and leadership should be known for seeking the common good over personal gain, people over partisanship, and service over self-interest.
The Communion Revolution redefines the American Dream—not by what we accumulate, but by how many we lift up. A generous church doesn’t hoard power and wealth—it pours it out, filling the world with God’s blessings.
13. Christians Are Known for Their Uncompromising Stand for Truth—Yet Also for Their Civility and Commitment to True Pluralism.
Keller envisioned a church fearless in defending truth but free of pride—holding ontological confidence (certainty in what is real) with epistemological humility (awareness of our limitations in grasping it).
In a polarized world where disagreement often leads to outrage, Christians should be the ones who engage with conviction and kindness, who defend free speech and conscience, and who welcome even their staunchest opponents to the table.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Truth as Communion: Truth isn’t just objective facts (a thing in itself) or subjective opinion (my interpretation of a thing). It’s ‘transjective’—meaning is found in the relationships of things and people. Just as the meaning of language only exists in conversation, truth is most clearly understood in Communion. The deeper our Communion with God, the clearer our grasp of truth.
✅ Hospitality Breeds Civility: The church should be the place where honest, meaningful debate happens—not just in theory, but around actual tables. A good host doesn’t compromise his convictions but still welcomes guests with warmth and generosity. True dialogue is impossible without hospitality.
✅ Conviction Without Contempt: The Communion Revolution fosters strong but humble communities—places where people stand for truth without cruelty and critique falsehood without dehumanizing those who hold it. We fight ideas, not people.
✅ Freedom as a Christian Value: Christianity, at its best, has always defended freedom of conscience and speech—not just for Christians, but for all people. A society where people are free to seek and speak the truth is one where faith flourishes, not by coercion, but by its beauty and compelling power.
Christian witness isn’t about winning arguments—it’s about making truth irresistible. A church of courage and warmth doesn’t just guard truth; it beckons others in.
14. The Protestant gospel of salvation by grace and faith alone is lifted up prominently and beautifully across many denominations…
Keller longed for a church where salvation by grace through faith wasn’t just a doctrine, but a lived reality—a faith that rejected both moralism and cheap grace, calling believers to transformation, not complacency.
For centuries, Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox have debated justification and sanctification. But what if the goal wasn’t to erase doctrinal differences, but to push each other closer to Jesus?
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Contestant Reformation: If the 16th-century Reformation was about protest, maybe the next one is about contest. Unity won’t come from watered-down theology—it comes from Christ alone. Let’s spur each other on toward deeper fidelity, greater holiness, and radical hospitality. Let’s not erase our distinctives, but embody them more fully.
✅ Hospitality over Moralism: Jesus ate with sinners—not because sin didn’t matter, but because grace came first. Agape feasts echo this: we don’t invite the perfect, but the forgiven. And we welcome them because Christ first welcomed us.
✅ Outdoing One Another in Good Works: What if, instead of arguing doctrine, different Christian traditions competed to outdo one another in love? What if Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox weren’t debating who had the best theology, but who cared best for the poor? That’s a contest worth having.
✅ Grace That Transforms: Grace saves us, but it also sculpts us. The Communion Revolution isn’t just about believing in Jesus—it’s about becoming like Him.
A church shaped by grace is one where humility, holiness, and hospitality bring us together—where we don’t just preach salvation, but live it.
15. A Church That Grows, Flourishes, and Collaborates Without Compromise
Keller didn’t envision a lukewarm Christianity—he envisioned a church so confident in Christ that it flourishes across denominations. Rooted in historic orthodoxy, it collaborates not by diluting doctrine, but by pursuing truth, love, and mission side by side.
How The Communion Revolution Answers This
✅ Distinction Yet Ablaze: Denominations shouldn’t blur together; they should burn brighter. Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox shine most when they fully live out their traditions, challenging each other toward deeper faithfulness in Christ.
✅ Collaboration Without Compromise: The Communion Revolution builds bridges where they matter most—fighting loneliness, discipling families, serving the poor, and welcoming the lost to the table—all without erasing distinctives.
✅ Growth Through Faithfulness: The church’s future doesn’t rest on scrambling for relevance or chasing numbers. It rests on faithfulness—living the Gospel so fully, so beautifully, that people want in. A church marked by radical hospitality, deep discipleship, and agape feasts won’t shrink—it will draw people home.
This is the vision Keller saw: a church that stands boldly, loves radically, and flourishes in unity.
Now Is Our Chance to Renew the Church
Tim Keller painted a vision of a church that isn’t shrinking back but rising up—transforming lives, shaping culture, and embodying the love of Christ in tangible ways.
The Communion Revolution answers this call—not with another program, but by restoring the ancient, life-giving rhythms of the agape feast: hospitality, discipleship, and Communion.
The next era of the church won’t be built from a stage—it will be built around tables, in homes, and through relationships that reflect the heart of Jesus.
The question now isn’t “Can the church be renewed?” but “Will we step into that renewal?”
Let’s reclaim the practices that once defined Christian community.
🍽 Start Today: Invite a neighbor to dinner. No agenda, no pressure—just an open table.
📚 Get Equipped: Download The Communion Revolution for free & start practicing radical hospitality.
📍 Visit: www.communionrevolution.com to learn more and join the movement.
📖 Buy: The Communion Revolution.
💬 Join the Conversation: Drop a comment below—how does this resonate with you?
Stay Engaged
In our next post—“Does The Communion Revolution Answer Tim Keller’s Call for Church Renewal? Part Two.”—we’ll explore why today’s church
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Until then—pull up a chair, break bread, and start the conversation. Share this post with anyone longing for a deeper, renewed faith.