So many times I'm asked by people, what is a revival?
And this is a question that's been on a lot of people's minds.
I would say, especially in the 20th century, and then even as we move into the 21st century.
Here we are, you know, over 20 years into the 21st century, and it's still a very hot topic.
Lots of books have been written on it.
I've got a whole shelf of books on revival.
And there's no doubt that great moves of God have happened in America and around the world
since the time of Christ, and it's super amazing what God has done.
And it does seem like, when we look at history, that there are these times where
the Lord comes and He surprises us with His mighty signs and wonders,
with His work, with people getting saved in great numbers.
And the question is, what is a revival?
And I want to talk about that, and that's really what this whole set or series of episodes is going to be about.
And I'm going to make the contrast between revival and revolution,
partly because my own growth.
My own growth has led me to some convictions that guide my life about what I call a kingdom of God revolution.
I'll touch on that later, but I wanted to begin with what is a revival.
And, you know, there's so many different perspectives.
One perspective is you hold a revival.
So there has been, especially in Baptist churches, this idea of having a revival.
And I grew up with this.
Now, I didn't grow up Southern Baptist or in the Baptist church, but lots of my Christian friends were part of those churches.
We laughingly say in the South that there's a church, there's a corner on every church, and it's a Baptist church.
So you heard about, and I was always invited to, hey, come to a revival.
We're having revival meetings.
That's not what I'm talking about.
So I'm not talking about holding meetings for other people.
It's the idea of a move of the spirit by which spontaneously or in a prolonged way,
there's a large numbers of people getting saved, coming to know the Lord.
You might look at some of the revivals that have been so termed under Billy Graham.
And Billy Graham started really strongly in his crusade ministry in 1949 in L.A.
And then it was the rest of his career was one crusade after another.
I'm also not talking about that.
In the charismatic Pentecostal circles, primarily but not exclusively,
there has been an idea of revival as an outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
where the Holy Spirit falls upon believers mainly, and there's extraordinary effects on people.
So here's some of my experiences, and then I'm going to get to a definition in this episode.
So I came to know the Lord in 1976 at University of Georgia, and I was an athlete there.
And a guy shared with me the four spiritual laws.
And the four spiritual laws is a tool that the ministry of Crewe uses.
Back then it was called Campus Crusade for Christ.
And I gave my heart to the Lord.
So in that situation, I soon was thrust into an environment of all these young people coming to know the Lord.
It was like everywhere I turned, friends of mine either led by me or by someone else were coming to know the Lord.
And I was in the athletic department also.
And there was a pretty extraordinary move of the Lord in the athletic department.
So a lot of the football players were getting saved.
On my gymnastics team, over half the team, I had the privilege of leading to the Lord over the next three years.
And it was just a very, very exciting time.
So from 1976 to 1980, hundreds if not even thousands of students and athletes at the University of Georgia came to know the Lord.
And our meetings were just big.
We had big meetings all the time.
But no one ever called it the UGA revival.
So we never, I don't remember anybody ever before or since ever associating that as a revival.
But it obviously was an extraordinary time.
In 1994, I was in Anaheim, California, with a group called the Vets.
Vineyard Christian Fellowship, the senior pastor was a guy named John Wimber, and I
was on staff there and I was John Wimber's assistant.
And in 1994, there was this, this work of the Spirit is super different, where you could
feel his presence in the sanctuary during worship services and stuff.
And at one point, even John Wimber, we talked about falling, falling, literally falling
under the Spirit.
These are kind of charismatic terms, but falling under the Spirit, fell on the floor while
he was preaching in the pulpit, and then literally rolled down the steps, and he was laughing
the whole time.
It was just weird.
And you may have heard of Rodney Howard Brown at that time.
He's kind of called the laughing evangelist.
Well, what's funny is the vineyard had nothing to do with that guy, but this thing hit John
one day, and then, because I was on the leadership team, on the ministry team, I was constantly
being asked to come into these meetings and share, speak, and minister at the church.
And it's no exaggeration that almost everybody that I laid my hand on fell, fell under the
power of the Spirit, to the point where I had these guys that traveled around with me
in the church called catchers.
That's kind of a charismatic term again, but catchers are catchers.
I mean, they catch people.
And so they would be behind me or in front of me, whatever, and if I was going to pray
for somebody, could you guys get back there?
And then, bam, they would go down, and it was the strangest thing.
We never called it a revival, but it was, it lasted at least until I left, and I left
in 94, in July, to come to Colorado Springs and plant the church that I planted here.
And I don't know how much longer it lasted, maybe, I think I heard something like six
or eight months it lasted there at Anaheim.
Well, simultaneously, in 1994, in Toronto, Canada, there was a vineyard called Toronto
Vineyard, no, excuse me, called Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship, and they saw this same
kind of experience, the same kind of sign and wonder of people falling under the power
of the Holy Spirit, and it seemed like it was even stronger there than it was at Anaheim,
and hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world started flying into Toronto
to be a part of the airport vineyard.
Now, that one lasted for years, and it got so kind of crazy there that John Wimber, who
was the president, director of the Association of Vineyard Churches, actually asked Airport
Vineyard to kind of calm it down and pastor it.
They didn't want to.
They felt like that was quenching the spirit, so they left the vineyard.
Now, that was called the Toronto Blessing, so that was called, so it did have a term,
but again, revival was not used.
Well, by 1998, 97, 98, there's this move of the spirit very similar to these in Brownsville,
Florida, so this was called the Brownsville Revival, and the Brownsville Revival was a
holy ghost, holy spirit move through a guy named Stephen Hill, Pastor Stephen Hill, who
was an evangelist, who began to preach, and I'm thinking it was around Mother's Day, 1995
or 96, I may have my dates wrong, where the holy spirit came.
People fell down again, kind of under this power of the spirit, but this was different
in that people were getting saved left and right.
So Steve Hill led the preaching there, and I don't even know, but it had to be, I think
at one point, I heard something like 100,000 people got saved in about four years, and
Liz and I went down there, so we went to Brownsville for a whole week, and we actually had the
privilege of hanging out with some of the pastors, and then going to the weekly meetings.
It was every night, it was happening.
I think they took one day off a week, but it was, and that went on for quite a while,
and that was called the Brownsville Revival.
So from 2002 to 2007, after we had planted Mountain Springs Church here in Colorado Springs,
the spirit really began to move at our church, and we saw thousands come to Christ, and the
church grew from like 600 to almost 3,000 overnight, and at one point, a church growth
analyst felt like we were one of the fastest growing churches in America.
Again, we didn't call it a revival.
We didn't even call it a revival.
and outpouring, we just called it really fast church growth. So what is a revival? I mean,
how would I define revival? Well, there's so many different terms. I've been fascinated with
revival since I came to know the Lord when I was a freshman in college. So I have books and books
on it. Here's some of the terms that are oftentimes associated with a revival. Terms that writers
have used are a special blessing, an outpouring, outpouring of the spirit,
the manifest presence of God, the presence of God coming suddenly, awakening, showers of the spirit.
So those are some of the different, and each, every author you read has a different definition
of what a revival is. Jonathan Edwards, considered by most to be the father of the
first great awakening in America. So that would be 1730 to 1740. So 1730s and 1740s
would be the great awakening in North Hampton, Massachusetts. He called it a surprising work
of God. That's a pretty good phrase, a surprising work of God. I think you'll find that when
something unusual happens where many, many people in the church are touched by God, and then it
spills out into the community, you're witnessing a revival. I mean, you're witnessing something that
is unique, and it's a surprising work of God. Here's a long definition, but I like it.
This is by Duncan Campbell. Now, Duncan Campbell was the key leader of the Hebrides revival in
1949 to 1953, and I think he gives the best description of a true revival. So I'm going to
read from a transcript that he gave when he was speaking at a college about the Hebrides revival.
Here's what he says. First, let me tell you what I mean by revival. An evangelistic campaign or
special meeting is not revival. In a successful evangelistic campaign or crusade, there will be
hundreds or even thousands of people making decisions for Jesus Christ, but the community
remains largely untouched, and the churches continue much the same as before the outreach.
In revival, God moves in the district. Suddenly, the community becomes God-conscious.
The Spirit of God grips men and women in such a way that even work is given up as people give
themselves to waiting upon God. In the midst of the Lewis awakening, now when he mentions the Lewis
awakening, that's one of the islands in the Hebrides, the Lewis island. The parish minister
Barvas wrote, the Spirit of the Lord was resting wonderfully on the different townships of the
region. His presence was in the homes of the people, on Meadow and Moreland, and even on public roads.
This presence of God is the supreme characteristic of a God-sent revival. Of the hundreds who found
Jesus Christ during this time, fully 75% were saved before they came near a meeting or even
heard a sermon by myself or any other minister in the parish. The power of God, the Spirit of God,
was moving in operation, and the fear of God gripped the souls of men. This is a God-sent
revival as distinct from special efforts in the field of evangelism. I agree with that. I think
that's a beautiful definition, and actually in my next episode, I'm going to look at six
characteristics of a revival. So revival, basically what Duncan Campbell's saying, and I would agree,
is both a touch of the church, of the Spirit of God moving upon believers who are kind of dead,
and they come back to life. It'd be like someone who faints, and then they're revived,
but it doesn't stop there. It flows out and begins to affect the whole city or the whole region
in an area. So different guys, different authors would look at this differently,
but that's what I think it is, and I think Duncan Campbell has hit the nail on the head. I mean,
he was a part of it, so he's not just talking about it from theory like a lot of authors are.
He actually lived it, and so that's what I believe a revival is. I know it's a long definition, but
it's the Spirit of God touching the church and then
filling out into the community with evangelistic boldness and fervor.
In my next message, I want to talk about the six characteristics of revival.