What are characteristics of a church that embraces repentance?

Paul Carrington explains in this video that a repentant church is a humble church and is sincere about conforming to the Word of God. It involves a group of people that not only hear the Word but actually do what Scripture commands. Such a church desires to closely align their lives with Scripture.

Conversely, a church that is devoid of the Holy Spirit will not repent or experience true reformation. Love also becomes predominant within the church, among the family, and to others outside of the church. The church now desires to proclaim salvation to others. 

James 1:22-25 (NKJV) - "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does." 

I think repentance in a church looks like, first of all, a church that is humble and a church that is sincerely desirous of conforming to the word of God. It looks like a bunch of people that have heard the word that are not only hearers of the word, but as we see in James, they're doers of the word and they want to, again, align their lives as closely as possible to the word of God because they fear God, they want to please God, they don't want to displease God. And so by virtue of that I think what you will find is a church that by degrees is a church repenting and a church that is desiring of reform and transformation on a daily basis. And that happens because of God working right in their midst. I think the work of the Holy Spirit is the most powerful thing.

And a church that is devoid of the Holy Spirit working will not have repentance, will never have true reformation. I think another thing that happens in a church that is repenting is love becomes predominant. Love within the family, you know, love amongst the brothers, and then love amongst, or love pouring out to the broader community. It's a church that is really realizing its own poverty without God, and humility as a result of that is the fruit. And so we don't just stay within the walls of the church, but we want to go out and proclaim to others where life can be found.

And I think when you see people doing that, you see a church that is truly repentant because they desire others to become partakers of that repentance as well.