Gospel.com Blog

What does real, genuine revival look like? What can we learn from past revivals in history, and how would we recognize revival when we see it today? Those are among the many questions posed to Greg Gordon of Sermon Index by interviewer Paul Arthur. If you follow Greg’s ministry at all, you know that he has a tremendous heart for revival and is always willing to speak his mind about revival trends both positive and negative. Here’s the first clip of the interview (Greg is introduced about three minutes into the clip); in it, Gordon talks about what we can learn from the history of revival in the Christian church:

The entire interview is available on Youtube in short clips, or you can download the entire show from Sermon Index.

Are you familiar with the ministry of Luis Palau? Palau, an evangelist whose ministry has preached the Gospel over the radio, in print, and at massive evangelistic events, is on the leading edge of the revival movement. He’s spoken in over 70 different countries to over 25 million people, preaching the Gospel to those who aren’t Christians and encouraging believers to revitalize their faith.

If you haven’t yet explored the Luis Palau Association website, you might be surprised to find that although Palau’s revival ministry works on a grand scale—huge evangelistic events and concerts—there are a lot of resources on the website to help you kick off a revival in your personal spiritual life. Here are a few items worth checking out:

• Palau has written dozens of articles about living out the Christian faith—many of which have become “classics” in the Gospel.com community over the years. Among the best are Five Ways God Answers Prayer, Facing Sexual Temptation, and Forgiving an Absent Dad—but you’ll find many, many others worth reading in addition to those.
• Growing Faith is a semi-regular podcast featuring Palau’s insights into many different topics, from overcoming addiction to understanding the place of wealth and poverty in society.
• Central to Palau’s ministry are the massive evangelistic festivals held all over the world. There are upcoming festivals this year in places ranging from Romania to Mexico.
• Reaching Your World is a one-minute and two-minute daily English feature that provides listeners with practical encouragement on how to share their faith. Tune in and listen online!
• And if you live in the Portland, Oregon area, the Luis Palau Association always welcomes volunteers!

The Luis Palau Association is a truly global ministry, but there’s are plenty of good resources to help you through the everyday, personal issues that come with being a Christian in today’s society. Stop by and see what they have to offer!

Sometimes all it takes is an impassioned speaker to move us on into action. Thankfully many of the gospel.com community members have made classic and contemporary sermons and messages available on their sites. Here’s are some links to those resources on from around the community:

From Sermonindex.net:

A Burning Heart by Leonard Ravenhill

Turkey Creek Revival by J.D. Brodgon

A Vision of Revival by Sammy Tippit

David Bryant’s Proclaim Hope:

Seven Irrefutable Reasons Why We Should Prepare for a Nationwide Christ-awakening Movement

The Anatomy of a Christ Awakening

The Crises that Demands a Christ Awakening

How to Prepare a Way for a Christ Awakening

From Life Action Ministries:

Personal Revival Messages

The youth of today are the leaders of tomorrow—so the saying goes, and it’s as true for the church as it is for society in general. What that means for the church today is that it’s not enough to train and disciple adult believers—if we’re hoping and praying for a revival with an impact that extends beyond the Boomer and Gen X generations, Christians must work to inspire young people with the spirit of revival.

Several ministries in the Gospel.com community are focused on fanning the flames of revival not just in today’s church leaders, but in tomorrow’s:

• Youth for Christ aims to connect young people with mission trips and service opportunities that will deepen their faith. Their mission trips send young people everywhere from Botswana to Uruguay, and their Prayer Triplets program plugs students into a worldwide network of prayer. In their words, these small prayer groups “may seem insignificant, but even one life spent in prayer may start a revival that will sweep the world.”
• Youth Specialties is all about helping youth leaders inspire their youth. In particular, their Generation Change (”Calling students to change their world”) conferences, held all across the U.S., train church leaders and volunteers to inspire young people to carry the Gospel into the world.
• In an article at the Youth Specialties site, Ted Stump describes a type of student ministry that might just be the prelude to widespread youth revival: student-led cell groups.
• Youth revival programs are not without their challenges. Elsewhere on the YS site, Tom Bergler cautions against (among other things) youth revival programs that focus too much on entertainment and not enough on real spiritual change. Current Thoughts and Trends sums up an account of a high school revival that might or might not bear lasting spiritual fruit.

Take some time to browse through more articles and resources here about youth revival!

“The nature of revival is that it deals with things below the surface. It goes to the root issues so that long-term resolution is really possible.”

Personal revival is something we all need, but do we want it? I don’t think I’d be alone in saying, “Not always.” Revival means change. Sometimes drastic change. And change can take a tremendous amount of effort.

But revival also means renewal. Through revival we do more of what God wants us to do and less of what our sinful nature desires us to do, which is, to me, scary and exciting.

Life Action Revival Ministries exists to help individuals experience revival in their own lives.

Life Action Ministries is on a mission. We have a single-minded focus to see God glorified through a revival among His people. This purpose has carried us for over three decades of work alongside the churches of our country. Life Action Ministries is the largest revival ministry in North America.

This next excerpt is from their revival report from last year written by Byron Paulus:

I passionately believe that the greatest spiritual need in American church life is to make concentrated time to seek the Lord corporately. When it comes to experiencing the life-giving presence of God, there simply are no shortcuts. Spiritually, good things really do come to those who wait (on God!)—those who are willing to have a single antenna tuned in to a single voice.

It is in the context of seeking God that He speaks most clearly. It is then that the potential of another outpouring of revival and spiritual awakening in our nation is most likely.

That’s exactly what happened 150 years ago in America. A businessman named Jeremiah Lanphier noticed that God was absent from his bustling, materialistic society. So he did the one thing that he could do—he paused for a noontime prayer meeting during the workday and invited others to join him.

What began that day on September 23, 1857, eventually grew over the next 18 months into one of the greatest revivals that has ever swept our country. The entire eastern seaboard seemed to have become a prayer meeting, and major cities like Chicago, Boston, and Philadelphia witnessed thousands of people closing their shops over lunch to pray. Historians estimate that up to 50,000 people a week were coming to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

What about you? Will you renew your commitment to tune out distractions and fix your attention on the Lord? Will you join with others to pray that God will once again visit us in revival?

When you look at the culture around you—when you consider the spiritual state of our society—what do you think? Does a Christlike spirit define the words and actions of our leaders, our neighbors, our families? Is the church of Christ boldly proclaiming the Gospel and successfully modeling Christian love and integrity to a watching world?

In the eyes of many Christians, the answer is a definite no—looking around us, we see violence, immorality, and dishonesty where there should be peace, righteousness, and integrity. We see a Christian church struggling to preach the Gospel message in a way that the world can understand… and we see the church struggling even to train and disciple its own to become effective followers of Christ. Maybe, looking around at all this, you even think to yourself something like: If only a spirit of Christian revival would take root in our culture today, we could truly impact our world for Christ.

If you’ve ever thought something along those lines, you’re not the first person to do so: at different points in history, there have been periods of spiritual revival that witnessed outbreaks of large-scale, sometimes nationwide fervor for Jesus Christ. From the so-called “First Great Awakening” in the early 1700s to the “Jesus people” movement of the 1970s, there have been times when the conditions were just right to kickstart a spiritual revival in which thousands or millions committed (or recommitted) themselves to Jesus. Sometimes those revivals were short-lived and quickly faded from memory… but others had long-lasting effects on the church and popular culture.

Some have suggested that the conditions are right once again—that the world is primed for another Christian revival movement to sweep through hearts and minds. In fact, there are Christian ministries working toward that very goal, through prayer, evangelism, and missionary work. Some of those ministries are plugged into the Gospel.com community. This week, we’ll be talking about revival in all of its incarnations, from personal, individual revival to worldwide revival, and we’ll be highlighting a few of the ministries that are working to make it happen. (You can take a look at some of them at our Revival topic page.) So as we kick off the new week, take a few minutes to ask yourself: is the time right for a revival in my country? My community? My own heart?

Have you ever looked around, taken stock of the spiritual apathy and confusion in our culture, and wished for a nationwide religious revival? If so, you’re not the first Christian to do so. If you’re despairing that a society-wide revival could ever take place, you might be surprised to learn that just a few hundred years ago, that’s exactly what happened!

I’m talking about the “Great Awakening” that swept through America in the 18th century, sparking great church growth, renewed missions work, and inter-denominational unity. Sound far-fetched? Here are a few resources to introduce you to the Great Awakening and the evangelists who helped spark it:

• First, read a brief overview of the Great Awakening—who started it and what it meant for an America increasingly affected by spiritual malaise and the humanist philosophies of the Enlightenment.
• Jonathan Edwards was a Puritan preacher who, distressed by what we saw happening (or not happening) in America’s churches, began a preaching tour that kickstarted a great spiritual revival. His 1741 sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” (link goes to an audio reading of it) is one of the most famous sermons in all of Christian history. (You can listen to many more of his sermons at Sermon Index.)
• George Whitefield, a British evangelist and friend of Ben Franklin, was another major figure in the Great Awakening. Greatly upset by the “lukewarm Christianity” he saw all around him, he did all he could to shake Christians out of their stagnant spiritual state. Read more about Whitefield’s evangelistic work, or check out some of his many sermons. For a shorter sample of his teaching style, see this brief Whitefield excerpt on the importance of “frequent and devout prayer”.
• Revival didn’t end with the Great Awakening— it wasn’t long after that a Second Great Awakening was sparked, with an even greater impact on American society.

The preaching of Edwards, Whitefield, and other evangelists had a profound effect on their society—and if you take the time to read some of their sermons, you’ll be amazed at how relevant they are. Some of them feel like they could just as easily have been written in 2008! So next time you’re tempted to despair at the all the religious confusion we see in society around us, remember the Great Awakening, and be reminded that what seems impossible to man is quite possible for God.