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Revival

Discussion in 'Evangelism, Missions & Witnessing' started by Salty, Sep 20, 2010.

  1. Salty

    Salty 20,000 Posts Club
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    Does your church have revivals such as the day of old.

    If not, why not

    If so, how often - (annual, semi, bi ect) and for how long - 3 days, 7, 10, 30, ect...

    How do you determine who to preach in a revival? The same man, or several different men?

    Any other comments about revivals?

    Would you call your church Revival Baptist?
     
  2. TheBibleSender

    TheBibleSender New Member

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    We usually have 2 per year one in the spring and one in the fall.
     
  3. NaasPreacher (C4K)

    NaasPreacher (C4K) Well-Known Member

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    The name is just a per peeve of mine. We never know if a series of special meetings is going to bring revival or note.

    I know, I know - its just a personal quirk.

    We rarely have special meetings in our church.
     
  4. sag38

    sag38 Active Member

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    I agree Roger. You nor I can declare revival. That's God's domain. Currently I am leading my church in seeking revival. When, where, and how it happens is up to God.
     
  5. Jim1999

    Jim1999 <img src =/Jim1999.jpg>

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    In the USA, revival has been used to describe evangelistic meetings. These can be planned. Ihad evangelistic meetings, with a special speaker, once or twice a year, at opportune times.

    A true revival, such as the Welsh revivals, were not planned, they just happened!

    Cheers,

    Jim
     
  6. sag38

    sag38 Active Member

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    From my limited study of revivals many today would not like revival. It would cause a stir unlike what many have ever experienced. The sad thing is that God's moving would not fit into most Christian's expectations. Many would, most likely, reject it as being too radical.
     
  7. Zenas

    Zenas Active Member

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    We haven't had a revival for about 15 years. The last successful revival, where there was a palpable change in the church, was in the 1950's.
     
  8. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    Before something can be "revived" it had to be alive to begin with. Such is not the case when "revivals" are used as evangelistic events. They are attempts to reach and raise the dead (in a spiritual sense). More like the family gathering at the hospital to watch and wait for the arrival of a new grandchild.

    With the concept of revival also goes the concept of church extension (versus mission). We try to extend the church into the lives of people who have never been a part of the church -- something that may have worked when entire communities were at one time professing believers, but such is definitely not the case in 21st century America (or anywhere else for that matter).

    We need to be talking about mission ventures, not revivals.

    A second discussion tied to this subject is the veracity and validity of special events hosted within (or outside of) the church to draw large crowds for evangelistic reasons. After years of trying this procedure (all the way back to the huge outdoor meetings of America's pioneer days) at the end of the day, we've not grown the church using event tactics. Even the best of the best, Billy Graham (who has hosted millions and millions of people at his events) are seeing little true church growth from their efforts. I believe that the current number for Graham is around 2% effectiveness.

    Churches are holding concerts, dinners, tent meetings, revival meetings, etc., etc., etc., but at the end of the day not many people are coming to the Lord by those efforts. A lot of money is spent, and a lot of time and energy is used, but true measurable progress is small.

    That is not to say that there is no place for big event productions of all those sorts in the church -- there are good reasons for hosting activities like these -- but the reason is not ultimately or purely evangelistic, for if it were, we'd be seeing a greater harvest. Big events can foster good will, meet the needs of the people to gather for fellowship, minister to a community, etc., and can also act as precursors to evangelism, but they are seldom evangelisticlly successful.

    So, think about the actual goal and use of events, and use them for those goals -- then do missional evangelism one-on-one in the biblical pattern for maximum effectiveness and true evangelistic growth. Additionally, think "multiplication" instead of "addition" when considering evangelistic practice. If a person leads 2 per year to the Lord on his or her own, and each of those 2 lead 2 more per year, and so on -- by the end of the 7th or 8th year, everyone is fighting for the privilege of leading the last person on earth to Christ. Meanwhile, if Billy Graham hosts rallies where 1 million people show up, and the typical 2% are saved and join a church, at the end of a decade, there are more people needing salvation than before the efforts began. God's plan has always been to go out and to share the good news, then teach those who have received it to share themselves with the next person. God's way works best!
     
  9. Earth Wind and Fire

    Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known Member
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    Right you are mate....from Martyn Lloyd-Jones (Welsh Calvinist Methodism)

    Then, in turn, as I have been trying to say, true Calvinism is bound to emphasize the element of revival, the 'givenness' of the activity of God, the visitations of God. It is only since the decline of Calvinism that revivals have become less and less frequent. The more powerful Calvinism is the more likely you are to have a spiritual revival and re-awakening. It follows of necessity from the doctrine. You cannot work up a revival. You know that you are entirely dependent upon God. That is why you pray to Him and you plead with Him and you argue, and you reason with Him. These Fathers used to do this. How different is our approach to the condition of the church today from that which was true of these Fathers and their successors for several generations. Today we look at the situation and we say - 'Well, things are very bad, everything is going down - what shall we do? We had better have an evangelistic campaign.' So we call a committee together and we begin to organize, and to talk about what is going to happen in a year's time or so.

    Calvinistic Methodists did not look at the problem like that. This is how they looked at it. They said, 'Why are things like this ? What is the matter? We have offended God, He is grieved with us, He has turned His back on us. What can we do about this? We must get down on our knees and ask Him to come back, we must plead with Him.' And so they would use the kind of arguments you find Moses using in praying to God in Exodus 33, or such as yon get in Isaiah 63. They would reason and argue with God, and say, 'After all, we are Your people, not those others. Why do You not come back to us? We belong to You, Your name is involved in all this'. They would plead the 'promises' with God, they would agonize in prayer until God heard them and visited them again.
     
  10. Tom Butler

    Tom Butler New Member

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    I'll tell you how far we've come. A few years ago, I happened across the website of a well-known Southern Baptist evangelist. In his material, he practically guaranteed conversions if we followed his plan. The last time I looked, that guarantee had been removed.

    As I grew up in the 50s, more than once, in advance of a scheduled revival, the revival preacher would send along a plan of action for us to implement. To be sure, they included prayer (We used to have "cottage prayer meetings." Remember them?). There was a heavy dose of media advertising, some outreach visitation, "friend night," "pack the pew night", "don't break the chain Sunday," complete with signed paper chains draped all over the auditorium, and the like. Boy, did those methods work. We had big crowds, people walked the aisles, and the local newspaper would even publish the numbers of conversions, rededications and other "decisions."

    In fairness, the mindset was to get the lost under the sound of the gospel, but it seems that we came to believe that the "decisions" were the result of our methods. And, if the goal was to get people under the sound of the gospel, then just about any method was justified.

    One interesting thing I saw only in looking back. When the revival services were over, we all collapsed from fatigue. Although sometimes, the revival fervor carried over in to subsequent church life for a while, most of the time, it was usually back to business as usual. That begs the question, if reaching the lost is so important, why don't we put the same effort into preparing for next Sunday's services? Why is such effort only for those special events? And why do they have to be "special." Why don't we do these things all the time?

    Some of you will say, we do outreach and evangelism all the time. If so, thank the Lord for you.

    I'm just weary of scheduling meetings, calling them a revival, and they aren't.
     
  11. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

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    I'll add to Tom's last post the taking up of huge offerings for the revivial pastor that could better be used to further the outreach ministry of the church.

    I've seen, in congregations under 50 members, offerings of $1000+ given to some fly-by preacher who went on to fleece another congregation the next week. Meanwhile, their own pastor was bi-vocational, working for $100 a week or less and breaking his back for the people -- the same ones who would argue against spending that same $1000 to help a few families in the community who could really use the love and help. :BangHead:
     
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