I was in a small gathering of folks the other week when a dear lady made reference to a revival she had been a part of.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut, of course, nobody has revivals anymore,\u201d she said with such confidence. I wanted to say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s not exactly right. I am beginning a revival this Sunday at Summit Baptist Church in Loganville.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here in Georgia, I remember very distinctly one statistic that stood out from research a few years ago about evangelistic churches: Churches that have revivals baptize more people than churches that do not have revivals.<\/p>\n
In my book \u201cHealthy Kingdom Churches\u201d a few years back, I wrote about a doctor friend, who accepted the task of getting me well from a respiratory ailment, so I could preach a revival meeting at Atco Baptist Church in Cartersville. He made a statement and then asked a question: \u201cI didn\u2019t know churches were still having revivals. Are revivals still effective?\u201d<\/p>\n
I gave the most sincere and honest answer I knew: \u201cRevivals are effective in some churches and not in others.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow do you explain that?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
I responded, \u201cIt\u2019s like most other things. The success of a revival is determined largely by the amount of effort put into getting ready for revival.\u201d<\/p>\n
The revival at Atco Baptist Church was truly amazing. It happened because the pastor, Wayne Hamrick, had prepared the congregation through praying for revival and witnessing across the community. That week we saw 57 people come to faith in Christ. In one service, we saw over 20 make professions of faith. There were many other decisions as well, with people making rededication commitments and coming on transfer of membership. God had done an amazing thing among His people who dared to trust that if they prayed and witnessed, God would do what only God can do.<\/p>\n
I have come to the conclusion that it is wrong to declare the death of revivals, when the only reason they may be dead in a church is a lack of commitment to pray for revival toward reaching the lost with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
In the first service at the recent revival at Summit Baptist Church, pastor Jason Rothe made the statement that the congregation had literally been praying for months for this series of services. That did not surprise me because when I arrived at the church, I found a vibrant congregation filled with anticipation over what the Lord would do during the week. When the invitation was given, the aisles filled with people coming down front to pray and to unite with the church.<\/p>\n
I want to encourage you to plan a revival for your church.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
This column first appeared in The Christian Index (christianindex.org), the online newsjournal of the Georgia Baptist Convention.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was in a small gathering of folks the other week when a dear lady made reference to a revival she had been a part of. \u201cBut, of course, nobody has revivals anymore,\u201d she said with such confidence. I wanted to say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s not exactly right. I am beginning a revival this Sunday at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1040,467,908,910,1041],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7969\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}