Why most “revivals” come short (although we need more Asbury-like movements!)
I recently watched the Jesus Revolution movie and appreciated the story being told of this great move of God that greatly impacted America. With the concurrent events happening at Asbury right now, I am encouraged with the potential for God’s grace being seen again.
I was saved during the Jesus Revolution. In late July 1973, I was on my job in a city park and God touched my heart when I was not seeking Him nor even knew I needed Him. While picking up trash in an open-air chapel in the park, I was overwhelmed by His presence and fell on my knees, tears pouring down my face, as I simply said over and over the words “Oh God!” I did not know why this happened. I quickly got up and went on my way the rest of the day, completely puzzled by it. I was not unhappy or in desperate need of anything. I was an “All-American” redneck 17 year old who had had no interest in church; only my 57 Chevy, my dog, girls, rock music and sports.
A few weeks later a co-worker invited me to a non-denominational meeting in a community center where I saw hippies and older people sincerely in love with God. I then realized that Jesus was real, and I most certainly did not know Him like they did, so I asked Him into my heart during the worship and, without any outward emotion, my life was forever changed. A few months later on my birthday, I was filled with the Holy Spirit in an amazing supernatural experience.
Slowly I began to hear of similar experiences by thousands of young people just like me, all over the United States. A revival at Asbury college not far from me took place just a few years before, as part of this awakening. The recent movie Jesus Revolution (and another movie a few years ago called Woodlawn) give a good sense of what was happening in USA at that time. But it was also worldwide. Nancy, now my wife of 41 years, was living in the Congo in Africa experiencing the same things at that time. It was a global move of God.
I went to Western Kentucky University and helped start a campus revival there, helping thousands to hear the gospel and hundreds get saved, and a church birthed. When I graduated in 1977, I went immediately into fulltime ministry, and have been ever since. I have experienced amazing times of revival in my own churches but also have witnessed others such as the Pensacola revival of the 1990s. I’ve planted churches, served as bishop over other churches, and preached in over 60 countries around the world.
That is the impact of a sovereign touch of God in my life that I did not ask for. He sovereignly moved upon my life. Thank you, Jesus! I am thankful for revivals and truly value them. However, please hear me on this, I think many modern Christians have an inordinate view of revivals. I have a deep commitment to study church history and have written several books on it. One of the most surprising discoveries from my research is that no revival (as people most commonly define them today) has ever brought major change to any nation in history. NEVER.
Your definition of revival might be different so please be patient as I explain in the additional material in the subscriber section below. And let us rejoice whenever God is changing lives of individuals and churches as we hear about today, and pray for more. [But for more insight in what it takes to transform a nation you can subscribe to see the rest of this blog, or see my books.]
New zeal and spiritual passion among believers is great. God’s presence in church services, with signs and wonders, is to be welcomed. An increase of numbers of believers and attendance in church is wonderful. More prayer, evangelism, church growth and missions is important. All of these things together is often what people think a revival is. But here is a reality. Many, many times in church history in different nations around the world, these things have happened and there has been no significant impact in society. No major transformation of culture. That is fact. Many “revivals” have happened, and we should be thankful for them. But if modern believers think those things will change America or transform their country, they are hoping for what never was.
Please don’t misunderstand what I am saying. I highly value these revivals for individuals who are transformed (and sometimes in very large numbers), but I think many Christians pray for these revivals to come and chase after them when there might be one happening somewhere – vainly hoping that it will transform their nation.
Having said that, there is clear evidence of major national transformation many times in church history. In my lifetime of studies (including my Ph.D. in Christian thought), I found that when major national transformation occurred there was of course all those things that people commonly associate with revivals, yet there was ALWAYS one more thing that happened.
In many ways the Jesus Revolution of the late 1960s and early 70s did greatly change America because of those additional things. Will the current Asbury revival or similar meetings do the same? It takes time to see for sure. In my series of five books called Christ’s Strategy to Disciple Nations I show that one extra thing that was always essential to move from merely church awakening to national transformation. Subscribe below to learn more about it.
The content below was originally paywalled.
From Revival to National Transformation
That one extra thing was this: An intentional plan by church leaders to disciple and send out believers into the major cultural spheres of influence, and then helping to coordinate such leaders in strategic action. When discipled and “revived” believers went into leadership in government, business, academia, journalism, health care, and their families with power of God’s word and Spirit, then and only then did major shift happen in culture. This discipleship of nations is what makes the Great Commission of Christ truly great. But when “revival” is limited to only individuals having religious experiences and the impacting the sphere of church, then nations are unchanged.
To study more of this, see my books on National Transformation or the five-book set on Christ’s Strategy to Disciple Nations. Also please note that simply teaching a Biblical worldview for all spheres is not enough. I did that for many years and started the Providence Foundation for that sole purpose. It is important yes, but we have to actually become leaders in the cultural spheres to see dramatic change. Dr. James Davidson Hunter writes of this in his book To Change the World. Knowledge or information is not enough. There has to be intentional leadership in major spheres of influence coordinating together in strategic initiatives in order to really change the world. Only rarely have Christian leaders done this on a national or regional scale, but thankfully it is starting to happen again.
So let’s pray for more revivals when we see them happening today, but also for the fullness of the Great Commission to take place as well. What follows below is from the concluding chapter of my bok National Transformation.
In the next few paragraphs we will summarize the way Christians did it in the past when nations were significantly transformed. Often they were never but a small percentage of the population but when they did these things, they succeeded to turn their nations. These patterns have been used by pagans as well with success.
A modern example is the homosexual community. Although under 2% of the population in the United States, they applied this strategy and in under 50 years have captured the power bases of culture, especially in schools and media, and are now changing opinion of the general public to accept their lifestyle because of speaking their perverse “tongue” unceasingly through these institutions. In a similar way, the secular pagan movements in America deliberately developed a plan in 2002 that was coordinated by the “Thunder Road Group” that basically is what Christians used to do, but now is being used against them effectively.
There is nothing wrong for other groups to do what Christians should be doing, so it is not worth focusing on them as if they are a conspiracy. Rather, we simply must get back to doing these things that really will move God’s kingdom forward effectively. If we do, other groups who promote philosophies and goals contrary to that, will lose.
There are seven strategic resources that we must create or multiply and connect:
· new organizations working on each of the 7 cultural areas
· organizations to do opposition research
· think tanks to provide research for strategy and winning arguments
· social technology
· media operations
· mobilization organizations for voting, protesting, and other best-practices
· coordinated giving and funding organizations
The church today may be growing in numbers and having “mega-church” assemblies but is still losing the culture. This is true even though they are much larger in numbers than homosexuals or any other pagan group. It must recognize its failure and stop “business as usual” and return to a truly biblical model that the historic church applied to disciple nations. We are ineffective today because there is no unified strategy.
Of course, it makes sense that denominations and churches separately have legitimate purposes and honest differences of belief that may not allow them to build churches together, but that should not prevent us to unite for the good of our communities. We can keep our liturgical preferences but we can be united in our common biblical worldview and on our transformational great commission mission.
We can identify best practices that Christians did in united fashion in many different cultures over the past two millennia and were historically powerful in 7 areas: politics, business, education, medicine, media, church and family. In each of these areas, it was done on the local level first. We must not be frozen in a mistaken notion that someone has to start this nationally before we can do anything. No the local level is real power to shape history. Only when it is happening locally is it possible to connect regionally and nationally in a meaningful way.
Most organizations tend to start top down. This is a mistake. They often want to create one organization identified with one person. This is a mistake. As soon as the enemy is able to demonize and stigmatize that group, the movement stops being effective. No. We must build locally and build diverse organizations. If one group is targeted and stereotyped negatively by the enemy, then let it die and work through a new group. That’s the way to win. But we have to have a mindset that God’s kingdom goes on even though organizations fade. And to do this strategy that means we don’t care what humans get the credit on earth. Local organizations can be coordinated behind the scenes with a unified strategy and it cannot be stopped.
We must begin to work long-term, strategic and united in the following five steps.
5 steps that will transform society if done in each community:
1. Provide general education in the Discipling Nations Transformation vision
– In each local community we need more of the Christian community to learn about Christ’s truly great commission to disciple nations so that many more believers may become mobilized beyond merely winning souls for heaven and building churches. Good organizations already may exist that can help in this general educational step and especially pastors should be able to do this.
2. Identify and provide advanced training for leaders in all 5 signs and 7 cultural institutions.
– In each local community we need those who get awakened to the discipling nations vision to find somewhere to receive more training. It’s not enough to simply be motivated but then go out with an unrenewed mind. We have to have in-depth teaching available on the local level (ideally in every local church to some degree) on the biblical best practices and worldview principles for each of the 7 spheres of influence. Again, good organizations already exist that can help with this advanced training step. Most pastors may not feel adequate to do it, but can employ these other teaching ministries to help supplement their church’s basic discipleship.
3. Connect trained leaders in these professional fields into networked teams
– In the first two steps there is some degree of activity that exists but now we begin to see with this step where Christians are most in need of change. In each local community there are usually a few trained believers working in the 7 cultural areas of influence, but they are largely limited in their impact precisely because they are acting independently of each other. They work alone and isolated instead of as a team. So now in each local community we need to identify who these trained individuals are and begin to connect them to each other in networks and teams that can pull in the same direction. There are sometimes some professional networks and some Christian groups bringing fellowship for businessmen or teachers or health care workers, etc. No group has to yield to another or dissolve. Each are important. But these need to be brought into awareness of each other and then be willing to embrace the idea of strategic planning and action. No organization has to lose its purpose and identity in this process. Rather, the networking step helps every organization to be more well known and more effective, not less.
4. Execute long-term strategic action plans for each of these professional fields.
– Another key but least common step is the creation of long-term strategic plans for each of the 7 cultural teams and then the integration of those plans into a comprehensive city-wide plan that is comprehensive of all the mountains or gates of influence. Even in the rare occurrence today of a Christian city-wide transformation council, it is almost overwhelmingly focused on prayer events, fellowship, and if there are actions that are planned, it is usually short-term and defensive in nature to stop evil things happening. Real transformation in nations over the past 2000 years has only come when there has been an intentional plan to get leaders into the highest and many of the critical positions of the influential institutions of society.
Today and in history, sometimes a Christian has gotten elected to high office or become a major leader in media or medicine, for example, but because not enough of other believers are also in lower positions or equal positions in parallel institutions, the rare leader is largely ineffective due to so many pagan leaders pushing back against anything they want to do. The rare Christian leader at a high position is also eventually discouraged or compromised in some way by the constant pressure of the opposition and temptation against him. We often also try to convert people at the top or claim them as allies when in reality more often than not they are using the church and they have no in-depth understanding of how to bring transformation in the Biblical way. So the church gets a bad reputation or discouraged.
Success is absolutely dependent on a long-term strategy to raise up an entire movement of biblically trained leaders in the 7 cultural areas that slowly get placed into key positions through the recommendations and advocacy of existing Christian leaders. Over time these earn experience, as well as credentials from institutions that the world respects, not just the church, and prove themselves worthy of higher positions. This process takes time but within about 20 to 30 years a young leader can become a top political leader, or top banker or Hollywood producer, or Hospital administrator, or University President, Dean or professor, or television network owner or news anchor, or top CEO or owner of a Fortune 500 company, etc, etc. You get the idea. But that’s when REAL transformation can begin to happen.
For that to be possible the city-wide strategic councils must develop plans to be at the top of those institutions in 50 years, and then they must start counting backward to create real benchmarks, goals, and plan of work that leads back to the coming year ahead. Then instead of just activity that is reacting to what pagans are doing, we have our own plan and our activity the coming year, and then 5 years down the road, etc, has real meaning and significance.
This of course means we must have leaders who are willing to work hard even though they may not see all that much change in their own lifetime, but will be satisfied that their children or grandchildren will enjoy its fruit. As the Pilgrims said, they knew they were but as “stepping stones unto others for so great a work.” Church leaders have to be willing to let their best people give time to these community institutions and not demand them to keep all their focus on church activities. Church leaders must also accept the reality that they must send their best people away to places like Wall Street or Hollywood or Harvard or Washington so that they can get credibility and be raised up to change the power bases of the culture. Many times they may return to local community but the pastor must affirm those young leaders with this vision and send them out.
We must cast this vision and coach local leadership teams to begin to think long-term like this. As more and more believers catch the vision and are brought into the local strategic plan, they will bring new perspectives and talents and resources and vision that will constantly cause the local plan to be tweaked and improved. This should always be welcome as long as it meets the worldview principles and biblical best practices criteria.
5. Develop funding for permanent institutions in these professional fields
– The final step must not be overlooked. Often vision dies when the original visionaries die or are not able to contribute anymore for some reason. Even if the original strategic leadership remain involved, there is rarely big transformation without a concurrent plan for sustainable funding of the strategic plan. A good plan will not rely solely on donations but will develop a business model for making it financially-self-sustaining. This is why a local city-wide team must incorporate all of the 7 mountain team plans into a master plan and then leaders from every sector of the community can see where the needs are and entrepreneurs can find what they would like to do help fulfill it with an existing or new business. New hospitals or movie studios or universities or political parties will emerge qualitatively different from the world and will truly make a difference. It is amazing how much money is made available from the very Christian businessmen who no longer feel that excited about simply another church facility that sits largely empty most of the week and irrelevant to the real institutions that change the world.
Concluding Thoughts:
Certainly as local plans and teams develop there will come opportunity to work in coordination with other cities in their region and state, and even nationwide. This leads to constant enrichment and development of state and national strategy that may have truly historical impact. In fact, when this has emerged this way in the past, it ALWAYS has led to significant national reformation and transformation.
Leaders must articulate this vision and for local strategic planning groups in each community and set long-term goals. What is the ideal they hope to achieve in 50 years? Then they have to work backwards to goals for next year. And then stick with it. Don’t quit. Share it with the next generation and incorporate young leaders into the steering committee so that it does not die with the original organizers of the strategic plan. It must be multi-generational and long-term in order to work.
Visionaries all over the world are arising in recent years with this dream. Most have yet to hear of them. The news is dominated by stories that seem to indicate the world is getting worse, but a powerful new undercurrent is already flowing. The fruit of their work will surely come but perhaps in the next generation. Don’t be impatient and short in your vision. And it doesn’t matter what your eschatology is. Even if one thinks Jesus is going to return very soon, He has never changed His commission to us. Occupy until He returns (Luke 19:13)! Go and disciple the nations!