Revive us again by Stewart Perry

While Eron and I were in England earlier this year we heard of what has been called the “Quiet Revival”. Since returning to Australia there’s been talk around various church circles that a similar sort of revival is starting to emerge in Australia & it’s not just in Pentecostal churches.

The word revival can be polarising & I’ve no doubt it’s been misused over the years. Revival can also seem like such an unattainable concept, especially if you think about what God has done through the Church throughout the ages beginning with the Day of Pentecost where 3,000 were added (Acts 2:21), the Great Awakening & the ministries of Jonathan Edwards & George Whitefield in the 1730s and 1740s in the UK & USA, the stories about the crowds that gathered to hear John or Charles Wesley preach and the Methodist revival of the mid 18th Century and beyond, the Welsh revival in the early 1900s, or more recently the outpouring in a college in Asbury in the USA where thousands of students came to know Jesus & worship continued for weeks. There are so many examples through out the history of the Church where God moves in ways that not only shifts the church but also shifts the culture. 

The magnitude of what God can & has done can almost seem so overwhelming that we can push it to the side & think that happened in the past, in those types of churches, that part of the world. We can also be convinced that we don’t need revival here because we’re doing ok thank you very much.

While I was in the UK I heard this quote a couple of times:

“Revival is the intensification and acceleration of the normal work of the Holy Spirit.” (Jonathan Edwards)

Revival is thoroughly normal, it’s what God does & will continue to do. It might seem like an overwhelmingly enormous idea but it starts very small, with the one.

While Jesus regularly preached in front of massive crowds, have you ever considered the numbers of times the gospels record him with just a small group of people and the many times he was just focused on the one person.

It’s the same with God’s work of revival, the one matters, it starts with noticing the one, attending to the one & serving the one.

Churches don’t usually grow by an extra 50 people turning up one Sunday Churches grow in 1s & 2s. Revival starts when the 1s & 2s are joined by other 1s & 2s.

We saw it in the UK when a young lady in her 20s just walked into a church during a mid week communion service. She was seen by the priest, included in the service & then he built a connection with her & invited her to a different service the following week. We arrived late for that service & she was sitting in the congregation.

I sat next to a Greek Orthodox Priest last week & he was telling be that he used to get between 2 & 3 membership enquiries per year but recently he’s been getting 1 or 2 a week.

I was in the office by myself last week & a lady in her 30s walked in. She had never thought about God but had recently started & didn’t know what to do next so she came in to ask.

I overheard a conversation Nate was having on the phone this week with a person who’d “made a bargain prayer with God” & their friend got better so rang to see what they should do to honour that bargain.

People are turning to the church, and they’re turning in 1s & 2s. We just need to be ready for them, to notice them, attend to them & serve them. 

But as we prepare for that there’s something we should consider. If the one matters so much, perhaps the one we can impact most is where we should start, ourselves! When we notice our brokenness, attend to it with prayer, repentance & receive God’s forgiveness. When we call upon the Holy Spirit & are empowered & filled we are turned towards worship & we are turned towards service. It’s in worship & service that we can notice the 1s & 2s that God puts in our way, we recognise their need & hunger & we trust that through the power of the Holy Spirit our small intentional response can make a big difference to the one.

God will bring revival whether we’re ready or not, whether we’re part of it or not. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be part of it & if that’s so the best place for me to be to get ready for what God will do next is on my knees. Revival can start with us.

While I’m looking forward to more experiences of those 1s & 2s that will come across our paths, I’m also excited to hear about how the good people of Palm Beach, Burleigh Heads & Robina are being continually transformed by the love of God in preparation for what God will do next. Might we all begin to pray: “Come Holy Spirit & revive us again. Amen”