The membership rates of the Evangelical Lutheran Church are declining; thus its position in society is becoming more and more precarious. This article focuses on a description of how charismatic religiosity, as one possible answer to the challenges faced, has gained a foothold inside the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and what might be the premises that have made its emergence within an institutionalized Evangelical Lutheran religion possible. Because of the several decades of work done by the association known as (...) Spiritual Renewal in Our Church, the publication of the Bishops’ Commendation, and the Church’s awakening to the ‘crisis of the folk church’, more doors have been opened to collaboration and the search for sources of inspiration. (shrink)