REVIVE OUR HEARTS. REVIVE OUR CHURCH. REVIVE OUR CITY.
On Sunday, we kicked off a study on the subject of revival. Between now and the end of September, we’re journeying through select passages in the Old and New Testaments in order to explore what revival is, how it comes, and why we should expect it in our church and city today.
WHAT WE’RE AFTER
All sorts of things probably come to mind when you hear the word “revival.” Do you think of Billy Graham preaching to thousands? Big tent meetings and traveling crusades? Good old-fashioned religion? Altar calls, walking aisles, and raising hands? Excited and ecstatic people? Singing, dancing, speaking in tongues, and getting caught up and carried away in some kind of powerful emotional experience?
Is revival “Something that used to happen?” “Something to be avoided or wary of happening?” Or frankly, “Something that is not much at all?” A term Christians all too frequently throw around with little substance to it. And seemingly always talk about with little to show for it?
But what is revival, really? What are we after here? We believe that revival is when the Spirit of God is poured out upon the ordinary means of grace given to the Church to produce extraordinary fervor for Christ. When this happens, what takes place is a Spirit-wrought reformation - within the church - that leads to renewal - beyond the church. As God enflames the hearts of his people with a heat that brings true conviction over sin, greater appreciation of grace, intensified desires to live godly lives, and joy that is so contagious it can't stay within the walls of the church. We see these moves of the Spirit all throughout the pages of Scripture and the many chapters of Church History. We believe we can and should ask God to work in such a way today.
HOW WE’LL GET THERE
Over the next few weeks, we’ll follow the road-map provided in our definition above to increase our desire for revival. Looking to God’s word to stoke our longing for God’s extraordinary work. Here’s the list of stops we’ll make along the way:
Zechariah 4:1-7 - Revival comes by the Spirit
Nehemiah 8:1-18 - Through the word which reforms the church and restores God’s people
Acts 19:8-27 - To renew the city in which they’ve been placed
Meditate upon these passages. Check out additional resources here and here. Pray that would glorify himself by doing a work among us that could only come from him.
“I do not desire, I do not advise a bustling, artificial effort to get up a revival, nor the construction of any man-devised machinery…I want God’s work, not man’s” (John Angell James).