What's in a Name?
The History Behind "St. Giles 3.0"
This past Sunday Elder Wally Smith joined myself (Josh) in presenting some of the vision for St. Giles that the Session has been recently discerning. (If you missed this, you can watch it here. The talk begins at the 54:40 mark.) In this brief update, I alluded to a bigger vision that the Session has been working towards since last year. We call this vision St. Giles 3.0. Over the next three weeks, I will be writing some articles that address what St. Giles 3.0 actually is. They will be:
Week 1 – What’s in a name? The history behind “St. Giles 3.0”
Week 2 – What’s in a mission? Becoming a church for such a time as this
Week 3 – What’s in store? A plan for the direction of St. Giles
This week we ask: What’s in a name? The concept of St. Giles 3.0 is rooted in St. Giles’ history, with an eye for its future. In looking at the history of St. Giles, there seems to be two distinct epochs of God’s activity in our church. The first begn all the way back with the church’s founding under pastor J. Blanton Belk in 1938. I am calling this the “Foundational Awakening.” (By the way, have you ever been to the St. Giles History Room across from the kitchen? It is worth your time!)
After leaving Grace Covenant Church in 1937, Belk would work with other like-minded Christians in the Richmond area to establish a new church that deeply valued its pursuit of the person of Jesus Christ, with an eye for moral and social transformation. Within the early years of St. Giles, a DNA was established that cherished Christian growth and discipleship at a personal level, and also an inherent call to work across social and racial lines that existed throughout Richmond. (Belk himself had multiple interactions with MLK Jr.)
The Foundational Awakening of St. Giles proved to be an incredible move of God in the Richmond area. However, the next epoch of St. Giles would unite it with a greater revival movement throughout the Church in the US.
Eleven years into the leadership of pastor Earl Morrey, God began a new epoch in the history of the church. This is one I think we could call the “Spiritual Awakening” of St. Giles. During this time, the Holy Spirit was moving across the United States in an incredible way in which we now call the charismatic renewal movement. However, when it hit St. Giles, it completely transformed the church. (Dr. Art Thomas has been writing a new book focused on this history of St. Giles that is set to hopefully be published in the next few months.) The (very) short version of this history is that St. Giles would become a spiritual outpost in the city of Richmond for the movement of the Spirit of God. During this time St. Giles would grow in its teaching on the gifts of the Spirit, while also growing in a new anointing of healing ministry (of which continues to this day!). Though we often assume these things are commonplace in the church today, during the 70s and 80s, St. Giles was one of a few Presbyterian churches that were dynamically moving and systematically teaching on these things. Both of these epochs have created a rich heritage that has continued in various forms to this very day in 2025.
This leads us to the question of: What is God doing today in St. Giles that is different? How should we identify this third epoch (or St. Giles 3.0)? As with all churches, if a church manages to exist for multiple generations, it must be willing to follow a “moving God.” (Jn. 3:8 – “8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”) This is a God who invites us to care about what He cares about. To trust Him for what only He can do? To live uncomfortably within the vanguard of faithfulness, instead of staying in the comfort of familiarity. The call that I and the Session believe the Lord is moving us towards, is one that is moving us from a church-centric identity to a community-centric identity. We could call this the “Missional Awakening” of St. Giles.
Once again, historically St. Giles has been very dynamic in missions. There is more to say to that than I have time to speak to. However, this new epoch of St. Giles will be one that like the previous two, will not just be an aspect of the church, but a shift in its call and an anointing to accompany it. The Lord is calling us to look less inward at our church, and instead outwards. We are being invited to measure the success of who we are not by our seating capacity, but by our sending capacity. We live in a season of the world where some of our greatest pastors and thinkers are all coming to the same conclusion: We need revival!
Revival will always be an outward focused movement. What would it look like if St. Giles focused it’s time and talents on serving our city and the world? What would it mean to receive afresh the call to partner with the Spirit of God to heal the broken in our city through both prayer and action? How do we shape our building and our assets to reach the lost above all else? How do we, as a Church, own the words of Paul when he says: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.” (1 Cor. 9:22)
These are the kind of invitations that I believe the Lord will (and already is beginning to) answer. Next week I will speak more to the state of the Church in the US and ask why a mission of “Encountering Jesus” is for such a time as this. In the meantime, I encourage you to ask the Lord to open our eyes as a church to the harvest. Pray that He will transform our deepest desires to be those of which only HE can do through us. Ask Him to speak to you specifically about what He wants to do through you in this new season.
Excited for what only the Lord can do,
Josh
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