What is revival?

Sunday mornings with three teenagers in the house sometimes feel like trying to convince hibernating hedgehogs that spring has come. The first alarm clock bell is as effective as an unplugged toaster. My wife or I will often put on some music downstairs intended to stir the pot and awaken our souls to get ready for worship. But this past Sunday I changed the routine a bit. Instead I turned on, and turned up, the livestream from the Asbury University Chapel in Kentucky. Hundreds of people were lifting their voices in lovely harmony to God. My daughter and my nephew stumbled in, still half under the sandman’s spell. “What is this?” My daughter said.

“This is a revival at Asbury University,” I said, “They had a chapel worship service that started 11 days ago, and it has been going on 24 hours a day since then.”

The look on my kids’ faces was a mix of bewilderment and concern. I could tell an 11-day church service seemed to them much less like heaven, and more like reruns in purgatory. But they were also intrigued. The people in the video were wholly engaged.

Their music was robust. Their arms were outstretched. A sweet spirit seemed to be present in the place. The name of Jesus was being lifted. Something different, and interesting, was happening. And even secular media outlets were taking notice.

But what is revival, and what is a thoughtful reaction to these types of events?

The definition of revival is cumbersome because in many places a church will put up a tent, call in a guest speaker for five days in a row and call it a “revival.” But the type of movement that started at Asbury’s chapel service on Feb. 8 is not that type of planned and marketed event. Rather, it is a spontaneous move of God’s Spirit that includes a deepening of prayer and praise, confession of sin and conversion, experiences of God’s healing spiritually and physically, and an indifference toward the normal concerns of time and schedule. Some have described it as “time collapsing into eternity,” of “heaven overlapping earth.”

The American spiritual tradition has a long history of revival including the Great Awakenings during the 18th century, the Azuza Street revival in 1906 which gave birth to the Pentecostal movement, and even the 1970’s Jesus

People movement that started the Calvary Chapel denomination. The later is even depicted in the powerful movie ‘Jesus Revolution’ which is currently, and I think providentially, playing at the Bishop Twin

Theaters. American revivals have not only given birth to influential movements and denominations, but they have preserved much of the religious practice in our country, long after devotion waned in Europe and other parts of the western world.

But is revival real, and what should our reaction be? Just like any bright light that gets turned on in the darkness, revival attracts some strange moths and bugs. These critters include leaders that are hungry for the spectacle, attenders that are just looking for an emotional experience, news media that will report whatever attracts more viewers, and marketers that want to bottle up the power and unleash it at a certain time and place.

But despite all these expressions of “strange fire,” in revival there is real substance underneath the surface. Those who are sitting back with skepticism, or are holding the balances of judgement trying to find the theological fault in the movement, will not experience the real movement of God’s Spirit. Neither will those that are just going along with the emotional show to match the energy of those near them.

But for those that come to God hungry, and wait for His touch, they are likely to get strengthened by the movement, like a ship that raises its sail when the forecast has steady winds moving in their direction. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matt 5:6). My encouragement for us, at a time when God seems to be sending a special wave of His Spirit, is to come to

Him in faith, expectant. Like the old hymn written

Franny Crosby wrote, “Savior, savior, hear my humble cry; while on others thou art calling, do not pass me by.”

Together in the Journey, Father Cam Lemons

(Father Cam Lemons serves at St. Timothy’s Anglican Church. Service is at 9 a.m. on Sunday at 700 Hobson St. in Bishop. He also serves at Trinity Memorial Anglican Church in Lone Pine. The service there is at noon at 220 N. Lakeview Road. For more information, go to StTimothysBishop.com.)