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Because revival speeds up the advance of Christ’s kingdom!
(Byron Paulus, Executive Director of Life Action Ministries, quoted in Revive magazine, Winter 2012, 3).
| Suspended on Prayer |
By T.M. Moore|Published Date: January 30, 2012
Revival
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.”
Matthew 21:22
Ministers of Scotland: Lectures on Revival VI
The Rev. Alexander Cumming, Minister of Dunbarney Parish
“Prayer is an ordinance remarkably suited to the exigencies of our fallen condition, because it tends to preserve in our minds a vivid impression of the divine agency. We are too apt to let our views terminate in the operation of secondary causes, and to forget that Almighty power to which they are indebted for their energy and existence; but when God suspends the communication of his benefits upon prayer, he compels us to recognize his providence in the economy of human affairs.”
Contemporary American Christians have become adept at relying on “secondary causes” in doing the work of the Lord. It’s why we run programs, tweak our liturgies, and organize our churches like businesses rather than flocks. We see ways of doing things that have worked in the world, and so we simply import them into the ministry of the church, forgetting that “God suspends the communication of his benefits upon prayer”. Certainly we will not realize the revival, renewal, and awakening we seek until we give ourselves at least as earnestly to seeking the Lord in prayer as we do to understanding the latest methodology or technology.
What are the greatest obstacles to prayer becoming a more prominent aspect of your own life? Of the life of your congregation?
To learn more about revival, order the book, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir, by Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, from our online store.
Pastor to Pastor brings the insights of great servants of God from the past to pastors in our own day, to link our ministries with theirs in the grand tradition of building the Church of our Lord Jesus Christ
| When Revival is Needed |
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By T.M. Moore|Published Date: January 11, 2012
Revival“So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.” Ministers of Scotland: Lectures on Revival “So long as the Church is weighed down by a body of sin – so long as there is in all her members a law in the flesh which warreth against the law of the mind – so long as without ceasing there arises from her the voice of distress, ‘Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death!’ the enlightening, convincing, and converting influences of the Spirit will be required at each step of her process through the wilderness. And so long as the world remains a valley of the shadow of death, every where times of revival will be required – every needed – every where to be sought.” |
…During one five-year period, 10,000 churches closed their doors.
REVIVAL CHANGES EVERYTHING!
(Life Action Ministries: Revive, Summer 2011, 4)
Cheryl Sacks, in her book, The Prayer Saturated Church writes…
If an outsider observed your church, would prayer be immediately visible? For many churches, the answer is no. Yet prayer is certainly what anyone would have noticed about the early church or any of the churches during the Great Awakening. Their continual practice of prayer was the primary reason for phenomenal growth and evangelism (17).
Lord, may we pray fervently in our churches! May revival come!
| The Church’s Moment in the Unraveling of the West |
By S. Michael Craven|Published Date: August 17, 2011
There is a growing body of research demonstrating that there is a significant disconnect between professing faith in Jesus Christ and actually following Jesus.I do not think it too strong or sensational to say that we are witnessing the collapse of Western civilization. Across the Western world, the fruits of apostasy and secularism are manifesting themselves in overwhelmingly destructive ways.
In my lifetime, I have seen the rapid demise of the family. For the first time in American history, nonmarried households now outnumber married households (52 percent vs. 48 percent respectively). Today, only one-fifth of American households represent “traditional families—married couples with children” (New York Times, “Married Couples Are No Longer a Majority, Census Finds,” May 28, 2011). Out-of-wedlock birthrates in the US have reached 40 percent following a similar trend throughout Western European countries, some of which are as high as 66 percent (New York Times).
While out-of-wedlock births continue to rise, more and more people are simply not having children at all, leading to depopulation of the West on a scale unprecedented. Add to this the radical redefinition of marriage and family to include same-sex couples and the future of the natural family—an institution essential to a healthy society—only promises to worsen.
Earlier this month more than 75 church leaders from around the country gathered in Chicago to discuss revival and pray for God to send it. Just two years ago the same call for such a gathering fell on largely deaf ears. Organized by the National Revival Network and held at Moody Church in Chicago, the meeting pulled together a diverse group—young and old, North and South, Arminian and Calvinist—committed to the common pursuit of asking God to revive his church.
“Despite our philosophical distinctives there was a palpable shared urgency for genuine wide-scale revival and spiritual awakening—for the church to ‘come fully alive to the glory of Christ’—that was heightened by this remarkable gathering of leaders,” says organizer Byron Paulus, executive director of Life Action Ministries in Buchanan, Michigan. For more about the vision behind this unique event, check out “An Urgent Appeal.”
Echoing these leaders sense’ that the church needs spiritual awakening, I asked several others to explain why they ask God to send revival.
Here is the fourth response…
Jared Wilson, pastor of Middletown Springs Community Church in Middletown Springs, Vermont; author of Your Jesus is Too Safe: Outgrowing a Drive-Thru, Feel-Good Savior:
1. Because a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in my ministry context (Vermont) would lift up the hearts of the dry and weary church here and unify us in worship and mission.
2. Because the historic revivals of New England (and beyond) seem far-flung and far-fetched to many. We have heard of God’s deeds, and in many ways stand in curiosity (rarely awe) of his work in this area in the past. But we ought to be hungry to see them renewed in our day and known in our time. I believe the church in this neck of the woods really needs a contemporary reminder of the surprising power of the gospel.
3. Because revival is something only God can do. Everything else “spiritual” can be faked or self-maintained in varying degrees. If God sent revival, we’d get a firsthand lesson in his passion for his own glory.
Earlier this month more than 75 church leaders from around the country gathered in Chicago to discuss revival and pray for God to send it. Just two years ago the same call for such a gathering fell on largely deaf ears. Organized by the National Revival Network and held at Moody Church in Chicago, the meeting pulled together a diverse group—young and old, North and South, Arminian and Calvinist—committed to the common pursuit of asking God to revive his church.
“Despite our philosophical distinctives there was a palpable shared urgency for genuine wide-scale revival and spiritual awakening—for the church to ‘come fully alive to the glory of Christ’—that was heightened by this remarkable gathering of leaders,” says organizer Byron Paulus, executive director of Life Action Ministries in Buchanan, Michigan. For more about the vision behind this unique event, check out “An Urgent Appeal.”
Echoing these leaders sense’ that the church needs spiritual awakening, I asked several others to explain why they ask God to send revival.
Here is the second response…
Scotty Smith, founding Pastor of Christ Community Church in Franklin, Tennessee, and a Council member with The Gospel Coalition:
Because of our condition. Until the day Jesus returns, our natural drift as the people of God will always be toward spiritual atrophy, not spiritual entropy; toward self-serving idolatry, not God-centered worship; towards using God, not serving God; toward salvation by us, not salvation by grace; toward being coddled, not being changed; toward church as an ingrown club, not church as a missional community; toward the protection of “our tribe,” not the welcoming of the nations; toward hair-splitting factionalism and ugly schisms, not diligence in preserving the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. In short, I ask God for revival because only the power of Jesus’ resurrection is sufficient to keep sinner-saints like us from contradicting the gospel even more than we do.
Because of God’s promises. I also ask God to bring revival because of the many promises he has made to renew, refresh, and revive his people, even before the return of Jesus—promises God has been faithful to honor at various places and times in the history of redemption. Why not us and why not now? Since God has called the church to be a first-fruits-of-the-resurrection people; a preview of coming attractions in the new heaven and new earth; a “city set on a hill” as a down payment of the ultimate New City; most assuredly, he will resource us by the Holy Spirit for such a privileged and important calling. There is no other way, none. Our Father will not give us snakes, scorpions, or stones, but more of his Sprit. Let’s ask, believe, and expect. Again, why not us and why not now?
By Craig Alan Myers
Prayer is an indispensable element in revival. The great revivals of Biblical faith in history have been occasioned with two things: the proclamation of God’s Word and prayer. Revival cannot be “worked up;” it must be sent down from the Father. But we can pray that God would again visit His people with a quickening Spirit,. and revival, and the joy that comes through that. Even the great “revival verse” of the Bible, 2 Chronicles 7:14, says “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray…” We want to consider how prayer is so important to God’s people in receiving revival.
Because to some extent all prayer is warfare, as you develop in your prayer life you will be growing in spiritual warfare as well (95).
Jonathan Graf, The Power of Personal Prayer
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