Now in our 14^th year, RenewalWorks welcomes many churches back to re-do the process. (In the Fall 2026 cohort we have a church in the Diocese of Spokane who is completing RenewalWorks for the fourth time!) Rev. Tom Warren at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church in Kinston, NC, recently redid RenewalWorks with his parish and he penned the below on that experience.

In 2026, St. Mary’s once again took part in RenewalWorks, returning to a process that had been meaningful for our church when we first used it in 2014. After twelve years of ministry that included a transition in Rector leadership, a pandemic, and a capital campaign it seemed to be a good time to check back in on the spiritual vitality of our community with this valuable resource!

Our first RenewalWorks experience led to a greater emphasis on direct engagement with Scripture in our common life. Looking back, it became an important milestone in our parish history, helping draw our focus, priorities, and ministries more intentionally toward the Bible at the heart of the Christian faith.

More than a decade later, we were curious to see how a new RenewalWorks experience would compare to our first one. We also hoped it would help us discern and re-calibrate our missional focus for the season of ministry ahead.

We found that the gift of RenewalWorks is not simply survey results or identifying a list of new initiatives, worthwhile as those may be. Its deeper value is in the process itself. RenewalWorks guided Vestry members, ministry leaders, parishioners, and clergy into a shared conversation about spiritual vitality itself, as well as discernment of God’s call to us in this time. It invited us to look honestly at our shared life: beginning with the individual as we considered our own spiritual lives in the questionnaire, but then continuing with the experience of leaders considering the survey results as tools for discerning a vision for a future season of ministry together.

Over and over again, the concept of discipleship surfaced in conversation. As we explored the ways that we worship, study, fellowship, serve, engage in pastoral care, share meals, set to work at meetings, and partner in the community, we kept coming back to the same underlying question: How does this help form and equip disciples of Jesus? RenewalWorks encouraged us to move beyond asking only, “What programs should we offer?” but also “How are we helping people grow as followers of Christ?”

With the RenewalWorks report as an input in its discernment process, the Vestry at St. Mary’s has recently identified some priorities to move to the ‘front-burner’ of our common lives in the years to come. Some new initiatives are emerging, but just as important is the renewed attention to the spiritual purpose that undergirds all of our ministries, even familiar ones. What a gift RenewalWorks is to the church, and has been to the people of St. Mary’s once again!