Scratching the Surface
of
Revival
(A
Brief and Incomplete Guide to Revival’s Recipe/Results)
While there are many exemplary
examinations/explanations of revival’s recipe and results – how it
happens and what happens when churches really get it/Him and the
trickles turn into rivers of living water – with Bob Griffin’s Firestorms of
Revival among the most comprehensive, I’ve been observing the accelerating
revival on the corner of Lincoln and Main in Belvidere, Illinois and see seven
ingredients that have enabled/encouraged Actsual results of
increasing reconciliations with Him and His along with increasing emotional,
intellectual, spiritual, and physical signs, wonders, and miracles:
1. Worship – We’ve thrown away stopwatches/clocks
and ignored people who wanna limit our praise, proclamation, prayers,
sacraments, and ordinances to 59 minutes and 59 seconds. We’re increasingly Selahed about
worship – pausing and pondering and taking the time for Him to sink in as we
soak in His glory. Whoa! Sounds Pentecostal! Absolutely!
We want to worship! We want to
experience/express Him! We’ve abandoned
the hypocrisies and insults to God of going through the motions of meaningless
liturgies for something/Someone who really wants our existential and eternal
wholeness, happiness, health, joy, and security. Of course, it’s more than that; and if
you haven’t already experienced/expressed it/Him, ain’t no way for me to…
2. Word – It’s all about Jesus by
the book!!! We pray and labor to
honor the Father and move with the Holy Spirit as personified in Jesus and
prescribed in the Bible. Our highest
goal, greatest ambition, and most fervent prayer is to let go of the church and
let Him have it; or as we like to say, “We’ve gotta get out of the way so we
can go with His flow!”
3. Witness – We talk about Jesus by
name with enthusiasm and without equivocation as our Lord and Savior and
have an increasing passion to invite, welcome, include, and agape everyone
to get it/Him!
4. Rebirths – Regardless of age or
gender or who or what or when or why, more and more and more folks –
longstanding members who knew something about Him but didn’t know Him in a
personal kinda way and newcomers and whoevers – are experiencing an emotional,
intellectual, and spiritual regeneration that feels like being born all over
again in a John 3 kinda way.
5. Renewals – There’s a refreshing and
restoring passion for Jesus enabled/encouraged by worship and Word mentioned
above sweeping through the family on the corner of Lincoln and Main. It’s contagious!
6. Recruits – Along with family
members who’ve come alive in Jesus for the first time or have experienced a
reinvigorated relationship with Him, we’re welcoming, including, and agapeing
new family members who are hungry and thirsty for Jesus by the book from
churches that don’t know Him by the book along with sisters and
brothers getting to know Him for the first time or again or…
7. Removals – Simply, some folks in
some churches gotta go before they can grow! Additions often follow subtractions in churches
with unchecked miscreants, control freaks, idolaters, apostates, contradictions
to 1 Corinthians 13, and the like. Go to
Matthew 15, 16, 18, 23, Luke 18:9-14, Romans 16:17ff., Titus 3:10-11, and other
related texts for more on that.
Getting back to letting go and letting Him
lead the family of faith by His Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus as explained
in Holy Scripture, it’s time for dying/troubled churches to recognize
they have exhausted all of the wrong answers in addressing their problems,
confusions, and decline.
Hmm.
Maybe that’s why our Lord is driving so many
of ‘em to their knees.
@#$%
Blessings and Love!
3 comments:
God's got something going on on the corner!
My take on why so many churches never experience revival? Well, you can't RE-vive something that was never, if you'll permit, VIVVED (alive) in the first place.
Fortunately, God can raise up children of Abraham, not to mention praise, from stones.
Perhaps an 8th point might be that revival happens when, and where, God chooses, and He chooses where he finds so much as one heart refusing to settle for anything less than the power and truth of his presence. So a cornfield or a kitchen can be, as likely a place for revival to start as a sanctuary (often more likely than your typical clock watching, worship by rote, God on our terms sanctuary).
Bob
This is so powerful!!! You are positioned for the latter and former rain outpouring!! That's my heart!
Hey, Dr. Bob,
1. Yeah, Forks people initially protested when we went past 1 hour, 1 minute to include hymn medlies, jr. sermon, testimony time, etc. AND I wanted to throw out the weekly Gloria Patri & Apostles' Creed and just use them in a more meaningful, irregular way.
2. And I remember when one Bethany guy told me, "Evangelism [witness] is your job, Bob; that's what we pay you for." [Sorry to end with preposition!]
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