My outflowing energy, songs and music, visitation and service for the needy - all of which were given for not less than fifteen hours a day... Happily I was an ealry riser. Two hours on the Bible before breakfast, and full of spirit and prayer, I kept in humility and expectation with literally "Every hour for souls and duty." - Commissioner James Hay
Read the story of James Hay in Aggressive Salvationism and you will find that he was often living in revival. From hundreds of people getting saved every week, increasing people attending meetings, to the commencement of Salvationist social work Hay is an example of a revivalist/evangelist who loves the poor. (Sounds like Jesus hey?)
What was his secret to his success? Ive been reading a bunch of texts on revival and three things keep popping up, 1) Prayer - lots of it, 2) Outreach - lots of it and 3) Lots of work. In the abiove statement Hay talks about 15 hour days. Railton was the same often not sleeping at all. I heard a story of Joe Noland starting a corps and putting in 15 hour days too.
The result of prayer, outreach and hard work is revival. Ive been challenged. How about you?
Friday, November 28, 2008
Revival Work
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
5 comments:
The subject of revival attracts interest among contemporary believers and the language used by revivalist optimists are usually hopeful and positive. There are, however questions. Is the notion of revival in danger of functioning as a form of religious ideology, hiding the reality of the condition of Western Christianity, while preventing believers from facing the challenge of discipleship and mission in a post-Christian culture? Does the focus on revival conceal a desire to preserve inherited forms of the church and traditional TSA, thus avoiding the challenges in mission in a radically changed historical context? The connection between revivalism and Christendom model of the church raise some difficult issues. What are the underlying assumptions about the growth, expansion and success of TSA and those who suggest revival in on the way? The temptation of optimistic revivalism is that it limits the possibility of decline, loss and recession to mere temporary blips in an otherwise inevitable progress toward final and undoubted triumph. What are the biblical criteria by means of which we might assess whether or not a rival movement contributes toward the extension of the redemptive reign of God in Christ Jesus? Bonhoeffer, in dark days commenting on Jesus’ words “I will build my kingdom” said, “It is great comfort that Christ gives to his church: you confess, preach, bear witness to me, and I alone will build where it pleases me. Do not meddle in what is my province”.
There are problems with the type of revivalism that you advocate, problems very few want to face. All too often unbelievers are not present, and evangelistic results are crucial for revivals to be justified, revivalists have accepted the "reconversion" of Christians as an acceptable work of the Holy Spirit. Anyone familiar with revivalism knows that the results of any meeting will contain a large majority of Christians deciding that really weren't Christians after all, but now, under the guidance of the evangelist, they are really going to be Christians this time. The Biblical and theological problems here are immense. My main objection is the denial of the nature of saving faith as simple trust (minus emotion) for some notion of "perfect event and perfect feeling" faith.. My observation is that a continual diet of revivalism (or any continuous emphasis on evangelism for that matter) uproots the foundations of Christian growth and seriously hinders the development of Christians into maturity. A continual emphasis on "Are you sure you are saved?" does not produce Christians motivated to grow in Christ and serve God from a knowledge of God. Revivalism has also had a lethal effect on worship. In churches with a strong revivalistic tradition, worship as a Biblical covenant renewal ceremony has often ceased to exist, and worship services became generally pragmatic evangelistic endeavors with a great focus on the invitation.. Today, revivalism has allowed churches to be turned into everything but worshipping, teaching congregations. The only question that will be asked: Will it Work? Or, to be more exact, did we get decisions?
The displacement of worship for evangelism and church growth in those churches is producing a generation of Christians who know less about the faith than any generation in history. There is little or no evidence of discipling beyond learning the lyrics to Contemporary Christian songs and listening to an occasional motivational speaker. I think it is the heritage of revivalism, and it's emphasis of evangelism to the exclusion of everything else.
In fact, revivalism seems to produce a certain kind of Christian. I am talking about Christians highly oriented towards individuals as conduits of the Holy Spirit. Not simple celebrity adoration or fan behavior, but a sense that anointed individuals speak for God more than scripture speaks as God. I am also talking about Christians who desire crisis experiences rather than ordinary growth in grace and knowledge of Christ. Revivalists often announce that the meeting is a crisis point, and endue individual meetings and events with bizarre significance. The misplacement of evangelism into the entire definition of discipleship has produced a self-centered, numb sub-culture of revivalism.
Revivalism has given itself the mantle of the highest work of God within His church. The issues facing the church today demand a thorough reformation and a sweeping revival, with revival being a deep and thorough work of the Holy Spirit in restoring the place of the Bible and the sovereignty of God over the failed pragmatic efforts of human beings. Such a revival and restoration have happened in history, but has little relationship to the revival meetings under discussion..
Thankfully, there are revival and reformation movements alive in nearly every denomination today, and God is stirring up his people to pray for the restoration of the Gospel and the Word of God in our sick churches. But part of reformation is the dismantling of the idols of the past, and revivalism must be dismantled if the regular worship of the church is to be restored to its Biblical place, and if the authority of the Bible in methodology is going to be restored as well. My own opposition to revivalism is often misunderstood, but I am against revivalism for a simple reason: because I love the church, and our churches will not be strong again until the false answer of revivalism is rejected.
James, I would be interested in you commenting on Jason Davies-Kildea's blog and giving your thoughts on the post and comments here - http://boundless-salvation.blogspot.com/2008/12/why-i-cant-be-fundamentalist.html
Hey guys, thanks for commenting... just a couple of quick things I want to say...
Firstly, I do not see revival as a set of meetings! Nothing turns me off more! As my post said revival revolves around outreach! I say that becasue as you have commented anon, you need people to get saved to have a revival!
I dont even see miracles as a sign of revival. (I use to...) If a bunch of miracles start occuring out of no where then i'll call that a miracle revival, but thats not what Im praying after. Im praying for souls to be saved!
Secondly, I also see that people are unhappy with some discipleship efforts duirng revival or so called revival.
When I started off here at Plenty Valley I quickly learnt the lesson that if they do not get discipled then the fruit doesnt count for much at all...
We have had a few different discipleship programs, my fav and the one i think worked the most was the one called revolution recruits where we taught Bible and prayer, then did outreach. The focus was still on salvation, get people saved etc, but we went deeper at the same time and shared what we were learning. Infact the main emphasis of the teaching/bible part was actually on holiness, self denial and concsecration...
As for taking on inherited forms of the church... I think im with you, Id prefer to take on the essence of what people were on about... Anon 1 are you referring to some of the Salvation Army stuff that may or not be appropriate for todays age?
Throughout history God’s people have experienced cycles of spiritual prosperity and expansion followed by stalled growth and eventual decline. In such contexts, movements of renewal or revival have sprung up as the Spirit of God graciously worked to complete the cycle and restore the vitality of God’s people.
I like renewal movements. This may help you understand part of what attracted me to the missional church. It too is a renewal movement. I see it as a moving of God’s Spirit within the Western church at a very critical time in its history. We find ourselves (most Christians probably agree on this) in a time of decline. Churches in the West are in trouble: internal dissensions, the failure and discouragement of leadership, loss of our youth, widespread negative perceptions of Christians by outsiders, and the death of many congregations. Just the kind of dry-bones situation where the breath of the Spirit often begins to blow!
How wonderful it would be to live into a new era of spiritual vitality and power for the church in Australia! I imagine those of us in the missional church movement sometimes sound a bit like Dylan and so hear the message as, “move out of the way,” “get with the program,” “admit you are wasting your time,” or something equally uncharitable.When missional leaders point out current problems in the church, they often appear to have an arrogant disregard for what God has already done—as if the Holy Spirit has been totally absent for the last century and nothing of eternal significance has really been accomplished! Good people thus feel attacked and undervalued, their contributions unwelcome and unneeded.
I suspect most renewal movements, whether by intention or misunderstanding, have conveyed such messages. Of course any attempt to answer this question involves evaluation of our current situation and some level of critique of the current state of the church.The term “triumphalism” describes an attitude that assumes the superiority of a particular culture, teaching, organization, etc. In the case of the missional movement some folks have sensed a triumphalist spirit among its proponents, as if we are saying, “This is THE ANSWER, we have found THE WAY, wisdom now resides with US!”
Certainly triumphalism in all its forms is divisive and offensive. To the degree that missional church leaders are guilty of this, we need to repent. Triumphalism is not helpful and does not honor the Lord or his people. However, I would like to offer a note of caution to those who think the missional church is triumphalistic and who are tempted to dismiss the movement on that basis. Part of what initially attracted me was the willingness of missional leaders to admit that they did not have all–or even many–of the answers to the problems facing the church today.
The current period of highly discontinuous change will not go away any time soon. The point is that this discussion is not about having all the right answers, but rather trying to identify the most important questions before the church–and working toward biblically and theologically sound answers.
For this discussion everyone is welcome at the table: traditional churches, charismatic churches, mega-churches, emerging churches… no one is excluded unless they exclude themselves. The challenges facing the church in our generation call for the Spirit-led creativity and commitment of the whole body of Christ. Faithfulness to our Lord demands this. So let’s get on with it!
Post a Comment