1. Welcome to Baptist Board, a friendly forum to discuss the Baptist Faith in a friendly surrounding.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to all the features that our community has to offer.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon and God Bless!

Why Don't we have revivals anymore

Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by milby, Jan 30, 2012.

  1. milby

    milby Member

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2009
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    0
    When I was a kid it seemed that churches had revivals every summer with a guest preacher. Now it seems hard to find a church that still has these. When did this become obsolete?
     
  2. DaChaser1

    DaChaser1 New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 14, 2011
    Messages:
    2,324
    Likes Received:
    0
    maybe because they were NOT treal revivials, as there was no long term changing going on!
     
  3. Ruiz

    Ruiz New Member

    Joined:
    Jun 9, 2010
    Messages:
    2,021
    Likes Received:
    0
    We don't have revivals because... they were not revivals but a series of meetings.

    Most I went to were a series of hyped messages bent on eliciting emotional responses by the congregation followed with singing 6 verses of "Just As I Am."

    While I was saved at a "revival meeting", I am not fond of them.
     
  4. milby

    milby Member

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2009
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    0
    WOW....unbeleivable
     
  5. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2010
    Messages:
    4,996
    Likes Received:
    2
    Like others have said, when it was proven that they did not work.

    The general purposes of a local congregational revival are twofold, first to WAKE UP the sleepers within the church so that they will get busy and DO SOMETHING for God and second, to cause the lost to be saved.

    The congregation should not be sleeping and one cannot "revive" what has never yet been born-again-from-above.

    The same concepts carrry on to "rededicate one's life to the Lord," which sounds so, well, human in effort.
     
  6. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    18,441
    Likes Received:
    259
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I do not agree with the flat statment that 'they did not work'. I know lives that were changed as a result of revivals.

    I think we no longer have them because we have so many entertainment option. Before TV it took more effort to be entertained at the movies. To some degree revivals were both entertainment and were also serious. Because of TV and other entertainment outlets people stopped making the effort of going to a revival. The last revivals I attended the only people there were already active church members. The original intent of the revival no longer was viable. This is even more true now that the Internet is available to us.

     
  7. agedman

    agedman Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2011
    Messages:
    11,023
    Likes Received:
    1,108
    Faith:
    Baptist
    Part of the reason must be in the contemporary living conditions. Folks are no longer living "close to the earth" as demonstrated by the desire of the majority of people to let others make decisions for them.

    Entertainment, ease of mobility, ease of purchase, the rebuke of sinners no longer a public shame but held in court systems that isolate and insulate, ... All these and far more go into a desensitized living in which the "I" is more important and accountability to both community and God is easily seared.

    There is also the actual ability of people to think. The attention span of the typical person of this day is remarkably much shorter than that found 50 or more years ago. People are looking for 2 minute humor segments and 45 minute solve the problem situations.

    And I also think that there has been a great lack of true Holy Spirit awareness in most of the modern world. Young and old seem to entertain ideas about the Holy Spirit and the work of the Holy Spirit that are not Scripture based, rather extensions of what they would desire. It impacts even the prayers offered to God and what many consider God blessed and God approved.
     
  8. glfredrick

    glfredrick New Member

    Joined:
    Aug 5, 2010
    Messages:
    4,996
    Likes Received:
    2
    Agedman, you might get away with saying what you do, except that you make it a universal for everyone not of your era and style. Therein lies your error.

    I can point out to you a good number of very young disciples that would challenge your socks off regarding living the gospel in real time. They are in turn teaching and challenging others and they are growing God's church by the gospel and evangelism if the gospel.

    They take in stride the advances in culture that make instant connectedness an advantage instead of a disadvantage and where in a former cultural era people had to gather at the church to actually hear music, see friends, speak about God, etc., they now do all that and more -- almost constantly -- and in a way that those who either are not looking for it or cannot see it do not see it.

    You should get a smart phone and subscribe to a couple of twitter accounts and see for yourself all the gospel challenges that are going back and forth right under your nose -- and how God has indeed "revived" a people that no one else, who is traditional suit and tie Sunday, will even recognize. Like the earliest church where individual members scratched the sign of the icthuse in the dirt with a toe to identify themselves to others, the church exists right under your nose, but because you don't know the new signs you cannot see it.

    It is not that their attention span is in minutes instead of hours (though it is) it is rather that they have more going on at any one given time than anyone else before them in history and our world forces them to be that way to survive. New era, new cultural reality. Like those who are reared in the darkest jungles know how to survive the day-to-day stresses of wild animal attack and disease ridden jungle rot, and like you know (knew) how to survive the suit and tie Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday night church community with its pot lucks and shallow fellowship, so too does this modern generation of authentic gospel-carrying believers know how to operate in their world, and one either swims successfully in their waters or retreats back to the shore and wishes for the old days, which are gone forever!
     
  9. preachinjesus

    preachinjesus Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 9, 2004
    Messages:
    7,406
    Likes Received:
    101
    You're just on a role here...keep saying what needs to be said. I'll keep agreeing. :thumbs:

    Every "revival" I've been to has generally just been a spiritual emphasis meeting.
     
  10. Gina B

    Gina B Active Member

    Joined:
    Dec 30, 2000
    Messages:
    16,944
    Likes Received:
    1
    I think it would be cool if our Baptist church did this...got out of the building, went to some announced location on the street downtown, started preaching, some of us could lead the singing, it would be a neat way to reach the community.

    But I think it's probably taking about a 50% chance of getting shot at or some type of violence with the high crime rates around here.
     
  11. agedman

    agedman Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2011
    Messages:
    11,023
    Likes Received:
    1,108
    Faith:
    Baptist


    I have no disagreement with what the local groups might be doing, but the typical summer revival protracted meetings of the first half of the century died in the second. The OP was about the traditional summer revivals of the last century.
     
  12. agedman

    agedman Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Nov 4, 2011
    Messages:
    11,023
    Likes Received:
    1,108
    Faith:
    Baptist
    It would have to be permitted by the city, security by the city, cleanup by the city, temporary building, electrical, plumbing, emergency access, all approved by the city code.

    Personally, I think assemblies may be missing a great opportunity with the present economic situation to provide shelter and soup for displaced and needy families.
     
  13. freeatlast

    freeatlast New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2004
    Messages:
    10,295
    Likes Received:
    0
    I have been a Christian now pushing 30 years and I have never been in a revival. I have been in what was called a revival by men, but not a Holy Spirit revival. In fact I have asked a many a pastors if they have ever been in one and I have never met one yet that says they have. I have read about them but never experienced one.

    So my question is what are you calling a revival?
     
  14. freeatlast

    freeatlast New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2004
    Messages:
    10,295
    Likes Received:
    0
    I think you are misunderstanding what he said and means. He did not say he was not fond of revivals but revival meetings, there is a difference. I seriously doubt that anyone on this board has been in a real revival. The last revival I know of was in the 1800's.
     
  15. milby

    milby Member

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2009
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    0
    What I am calling a revival as I remember is simply a guest preacher coming to our church and having a service every night for a week.
     
  16. convicted1

    convicted1 Guest

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Messages:
    9,012
    Likes Received:
    28
    However, the question remains, "Is that really a revival, or is it a bunch of people meeting at church for a week, and calling it as such?"
     
  17. milby

    milby Member

    Joined:
    Oct 16, 2009
    Messages:
    197
    Likes Received:
    0
    Ok Let's forget the name revival. Why doesn't guest preachers come to churches anymore and have a service every night for a week?
     
  18. freeatlast

    freeatlast New Member

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2004
    Messages:
    10,295
    Likes Received:
    0

    All right but that is not a revival. That is a meeting being called a revival. Here is a link discribing a revival. http://www.colonialwarsct.org/1740_s.htm
    Strong preaching with heart breaking songs bringing about hyper emotionalism that lasts a few days or weeks is not a revival.
     
  19. Crabtownboy

    Crabtownboy Well-Known Member
    Site Supporter

    Joined:
    Feb 12, 2008
    Messages:
    18,441
    Likes Received:
    259
    Faith:
    Baptist
    I believe primarily because no lost people and few church members would attend unless it was a really famous preacher ... and most churches probably could not afford that person ... or he would not come preach a revival.
     
  20. convicted1

    convicted1 Guest

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2007
    Messages:
    9,012
    Likes Received:
    28
    My in-laws knew a man who was "saved" at just about every revival he went to. The last one he was "saved" at, they "baptized" him in the creek, when he came up out of the water, his glass eye was gone. He never found it, either. True story.
     
Loading...