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Koreans evangelized their own nation

by Geoff 22 February 2018 No Comments

South Korea: How Koreans evangelized their own nation

The spread of the Gospel is usually attributed to foreign missionaries, but the story is different in the Korean peninsula. Here the Gospel was brought by Koreans themselves.

The ‘Pyongyang Revival’ or ‘Korean Pentecost’ in 1907 was a seminal religious movement for Korean Protestant Christianity. “Some of you go back to John Calvin, and some of you to John Wesley, but we can go back no further than 1907 when we first really knew the Lord Jesus Christ,” Korean Christians were recorded as telling missionaries in 1913.

Kil Sun-ju (1865–1935) was the central leader of the revival. As foreign powers encroached on Korea, Kil searched for a religion that was socially engaged and offered hope for the future. Kil was introduced to the Gospel by a Christian friend who asked him whether he could pray to God as father. Kil answered, “How could man call God Father?” But three days later, while praying, he heard a mysterious voice call his name three times. Kil was afraid and prostrated himself, crying out, “God the Father who loves me, forgive my sin and save my life!” After his conversion, Kil became an ardent Christian.

The Pyongyang Revival broke out in Kil’s church, Jangdaehyeon Church, after Kil publicly confessed his personal sin to church members. Hundreds of others followed his example of repentance and forgiveness to save their souls. Kil and others preached across the country as the revival spread further to China and Manchuria. The religious movement also took on political overtones and became increasingly associated with Korean nationalism. Kil was one of the key leaders in the Independence Movement of March 1, 1919, against the Japanese colonization of the country.

With about 480,000 members the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul is said to be the largest Pentecostal Christian congregation in the world.

The revival had lasting effects on Korean Christianity and on Korea. Indigenous Christian rituals such as sagyeonhoe (Bible study and the Bible-examining meetings), saebyoek gido (dawn prayer meetings), and tongseong gido (collective audible prayer) were formulated as part of Protestant practice. Korean Christian leaders led nationwide educational movements with the vision of making Korea a Christian nation.

The Great Revival transformed Protestantism from a foreign religion to a new national religion, laying the foundation for the most remarkable church growth in Asia in the 20th century and positioning South Korea as a global center of the Christian faith. Christians make up more than a quarter of South Koreans and the country is responsible for one of the world’s largest missionary movements.

Source: Kirsteen Kim and Hoon Ko, summarized by Joel News International

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Egypt – opening to the Gospel amid persecution

by Geoff 17 January 2018 No Comments

Egypt: How an Islam-tired nation steadily opens up to the Gospel

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More often than elsewhere in the Middle East young people in Egypt turn their backs on Islam. Despite the original conservative opposition, they become atheists or Christians.

This observation comes from Dutch Christian and Middle East correspondent Mounir Samuel in a long article (Google Translate version) in secular magazine ‘De Groene Amsterdammer’.

Egypt is one of the most dangerous countries in the world to decline or to convert as a Muslim. A Muslim who openly expresses his faith doubt or desire to convert to another religion can expect a lot of social and political repercussions. Dismissal, rejection by the family, loss of friendship, threats by fundamentalists, arrest, torture, imprisonment or murder by family members or other relatives are the rule rather than the exception.

But there is a growing undercurrent, Samuel observes: the country is Islam-tired. The dominant presence of Islam in every aspect of life, the hypocrisy of clergy and politicians and the rise of salafists and jihadists have made many young Muslims think. They are massively searching for the true essence of religion, which leads roughly to two outcomes: they become more religious than their parents have ever been, or the opposite.

‘The peaceful response of Christians to terror has evoked public sympathy and admiration.’

There is a rising interest in Christianity. The terror waves against Christians in the summer of 2013 and the spring of 2017 have made many young Egyptians think. Not only did the media pay ample attention to the precarious position of the Christian minority in Egypt for the first time; the peaceful response of the leaders also evoked great amazement and public sympathy. A video clip in which Christians sing a message of peace and love in a burnt cathedral went all over the world and forced the Egyptian government to set up a support fund for the reconstruction of churches. Speeches from Christian women who publicly forgave the murderers of their husbands and children, elicited admiration in many talk shows.

New bookstores are popping up in Cairo. There’s a growing interest in Bibles and Christian literature.

The number of Egyptian churches is growing steadily. “Western analysts who predicted the end of Christianity in the Middle East were wrong,” says Reverend Andrea Zaki Stephanous, president of the Protestant churches of Egypt and head of all evangelical churches in the Arab world. “The church in Egypt, whether it is Orthodox, Catholic or Protestant, is one of the strongest in the world. She has had oppression since her inception and has always survived. It’s a true ‘miracle on the Nile’.” With an estimated 15 million Christians, Egypt is the Arab country with the largest Christian minority. ‘After every bomb attack, the churches are fuller. It’s a true miracle on the Nile.’

“The different churches in Egypt have excellent mutual relationships,” Zaki says. “We try to speak to the government, the media and society with one voice. In 2013, when the Muslim Brotherhood came to power, we established an Egyptian Council of Churches, uniting the leaders of all churches in the country. We work together in the field of church building legislation, anti-discrimination, government consultation and crisis consultation. We have grown and opened many new churches in recent years. In the past month alone, I have confirmed at least ten new pastors in various local churches.”

The old Christian saying that ‘the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church’, certainly seems to be true for Egypt. “After every bomb attack, the churches are fuller. Have you seen the images from last year?” Zaki asks. “Twelve thousand people came together for a public worship service directly behind Tahrir Square. The streets were full. The same applies to the Easter service, directly after the attacks on Palm Sunday. People had to stand because there was no more space in the banks.” Christians have been revived in their faith, and many Muslims convert to Christianity.

Source: Mounir Samuel

ANALYSIS – An article that also gives background to the situation of Christians in Egypt, and the growing openness to the Gospel among Muslims, is Wafif Wahba’s ‘Witnessing to the Gospel through Forgiveness – A living example from the persecuted Christians in Egypt’, published by the Lausanne Movement.

Egypt: The power of prayer

When Greg Kernaghan, a writer for OM International, travelled through Egypt several years ago, he discovered how prayer is transforming lives and communities.

He met Fatima, a great-grandmother who can recall a life spent in tents. Illiterate, she has heard the dramatised Bible on tape and seen mighty answers to Christians’ prayers for her family in Jesus’ name. She confided that she knows several Muslim locals who also follow Jesus.

Then there was Khalid, a serious man who worked for the secret police. Yet others in his family had become friends with new Christian neighbours. When they experienced a problem, their religious leaders had no solutions or answers but, when the Christians prayed, they were solved instantly. To counteract the perceived shame to his family’s religion, Khalid attempted to drive the Christians from his neighbourhood through fear. However, this backfired and word of the Gospel and God’s interventions spread rapidly throughout the community.

Source: Greg Kernaghan

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Egypt – opening to the gospel amid persecution

See also: Thousands gather for revival in Egypt

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evangelism, life and death Arthur Stace, eternity

ETERNITY – The Arthur Stace story

by Geoff 6 December 2017 3 Comments

Eternity

The Arthur Stace Story

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Sydney, Australia, celebrated the beginning of 2000 by displaying on the Harbour Bridge the word Eternity in the iconic copperplate handwriting of Arthur Stace.

01 eternity1

He started early, usually before dawn, and he wandered through all the streets of Sydney. Every morning he was somewhere else, Wynyard, Glebe, Paddington, Randwick, Central Station. As he said – where God directed him. Every night the message appeared in his head. He was a very little man, bent, grey-haired, only five feet three inches tall and just seven stone. He looked frail enough to blow away. Then with the formality of another generation he always wore a grey felt hat, tie and prim double-breasted navy blue suit. Sometimes in the dawn light he would be seen around Wynyard Station. He would nod to the drunks still left on the pavement and he would look at the debris of the affluent society stretched out on the park benches, trying to keep warm under newspapers. If he detected any movement there would be a pat on the head or a warm greeting. He had the air of a man who understood.

As he walked every so often he would stop, pull out a crayon, bend down and write on the pavement in large, elegant copperplate – Eternity. He would move on a hundred yards then write it again, Eternity, nothing more, just one simple word. For thirty-seven years he chalked this one-word sermon and he wrote it more than half a million times.

He did not like publicity. He regarded his unique style of Evangelism as a serious mission, something between Arthur Stace and his Maker, so for a decade these Eternity signs mystified Sydney. They were an enigma. Sydney columnists wrote about it, speculated on the author, and several people walked into newspaper offices and announced that they were the author. The real man kept quiet.

The mystery all came clear in 1956 and the man who cracked it was the Reverend Lisle M Thompson of the Burton Street Baptist Church. Arthur Stace was actually the church cleaner and one of their prayer leaders. One day Lisle Thompson saw Stace take out his crayon and write the famous Eternity on the pavement. He did it without realising that he had been spotted. Thompson said: “Are you Mr Eternity?” and Stace replied “Guilty Your Honour”. Lisle Thompson wrote a tract telling the little man’s extraordinary story and Tom Farrell, later had the first interview. He published it in the Sunday Telegragh on 21 June 1956.

Arthur Stace was born in a Balmain slum in 1884. His father and mother were both drunkards. Two sisters and two brothers also were drunks and they lived much of their time in jail. The sisters ran brothels and one of them was ordered out of New South Wales three times. Stace used to sleep on bags under the house and when his parents were drunk he had to look after himself. He used to steal milk from the doorsteps, pick scraps of food out of garbage and shoplift cakes and sweets.

His schooling was practically non-existent; so much so that this was noticed by Government officials. At the age of twelve he became a state ward. Not that this helped him greatly. When he was fourteen he had his first job – in a coal mine – and his first pay cheque he spent in a hotel. Already he had learned to drink at home so like the rest of the family he became a perambulating drunk, living in a fog of alcohol. He went to jail for the first time when he was fifteen, then it became a regular affair.

He was in his twenties when he moved to the seedy inner suburb of Surry Hills. There his job was to carry liquor from the pubs to the brothels, and particularly his sister’s brothel. Then there were other jobs such as cockatoo at a two-up school, that is the character who gives warning of the approach of the police. He was mixed up with various housebreaking gangs and because of his size he was splendidly useful as a look out man (1).

During the first world war he enlisted in the 19th Battalion, went to France and returned home gassed and half blind in one eye. Back in Surry Hills he took up his old habits, drink in particular. He slipped from beer, to whisky, to gin, to rum, to cheap wine until finally living on hand-outs. All he could afford was metholated spirits at sixpence a bottle. His alcoholism was so extreme his mind began to go and he was in danger of becoming a permanent inmate of Callan Park Mental Asylum (2).

He told Tom Farrell that in 1930 he was in Central Court for the umpteenth time. The magistrate said to him: “Don’t you know that I have the POWER to put you in Long Bay jail or the POWER to set you free.”

“Yes Sir,” he replied, but it was the word POWER that he remembered. What he needed was the power to give up drink. He signed the Pledge but he had done that many times before. He went to Regent Street Police Station and pleaded with the Sergeant to lock him up. “Sergeant, put me away. I am no good and I haven’t been sober for eight years. Give me a chance and put me away.” The Sergeant said: “You stink of metho, get out!”

This was the depression time and a metho drinker, dirty, wretchedly dressed, had to be the least likely of any to get a job. Outside the Court House there was a group walking up Broadway. The word had got around that a cup of tea and something to eat was available at the Church Hall. In the nineteen thirties one would endure almost anything for free food.

The date was August 6th and it was a meeting for men conducted by Archdeacon R.B.S. Hammond of St Barnabas’ Church on Broadway. There were about 300 men present, mostly down and outs, but they had to endure an hour and half of talking before they received their tea and rock cakes. Up front there were six people on a separate seat, all looking very clean, spruce and nicely turned out, a remarkable contrast to the 300 grubby-looking males in the audience. Stace said to the man sitting next to him, a well-known criminal: “Who are they?” “I’d reckon they’d be Christians,” he replied. Stace said: “Well look at them and look at us. I’m having a go at what they have got,” and he slipped down on his knees and prayed.

After that, he did find it possible to give up drink and he said: “As I got back my self respect, people were more decent to me.” So he won a job on the dole, working on the sandmills at Maroubra one week on, one week off at three pounds a week.

Some months later in the Burton Street Baptist Church at Darlinghurst he heard the evangelist, the Reverend John Ridley. Ridley was a Military Cross winner from the World War One and a noted “give-‘em-Hell” preacher. He shouted: “I wish I could shout ETERNITY through the streets of Sydney.” (3) Stace, recalling the day, said: “He repeated himself and kept shouting ‘ETERNITY, ETERNITY’ and his words were ringing through my brain as I left the church. Suddenly I began crying and I felt a powerful call from the Lord to write Eternity. I had a piece of chalk in my pocket and I bent down there and wrote it. The funny thing is that before I wrote I could hardly have spelled my own name. I had no schooling and I couldn’t have spelt Eternity for hundred quid. But it came out smoothly in beautiful copperplate script. I couldn’t understand it and I still can’t.”

Stace claimed that normally his handwriting was appalling and his friends found it illegible. He demonstrated this to a Daily Telegraph reporter. He wrote Eternity which snaked across the pavement gracefully with rich curves and flourishes, but when he wrote his own name ‘Arthur’ it was almost unreadable. “I’ve tried and tried but Eternity is the only word that comes out in copperplate,” he said (4). After eight or nine years he did try something else “OBEY GOD”, and five years later, “GOD OR SIN” and “GOD 1^st”, but finally he stuck with Eternity.

He had some problems. There was a fellow who followed him round and every time he wrote Eternity this other character changed it to Maternity. So he altered his style to give Eternity a large, eloquent capital E and maternity took a dive. The City Council had a rule against defacing the pavement and the police “very nearly arrested” him twenty-four times. “But I had permission from a higher source,” he said.

He lived with his wife Pearl in Bulwarra Road, Pyrmont and this was his routine. He rose at 4 am, prayed for an hour, had breakfast, then he set out. He claimed that God gave him his directions the night before, the name of the suburb came into his head and he arrived there before dawn. He took his message every 100 yards or so where it could be seen best then he was back home around 10am. First he wrote in yellow chalk, then he switched to marking crayon because it stayed on better in the wet. He did other things. On Saturday nights he led gospel meetings at the corner of Bathurst and George Streets. At first he did it from the gutter but in later years he had a fine van with electric lighting and an amplifier.

Aruther Stace died of a stroke in a nursing home on July 30, 1967 (5). He was 83. He left his body to Sydney University so that the proceeds could go to charity. The remains were finally buried at Botany Cemetery more than two years later (6).

There were suggestions that the city should put down a plaque to his memory. Leslie Jillet of Mosman said that there should be a statue in Railway Square depicting Stace kneeling chalk in hand (7).

In 1968 the Sydney City Council (8) decided to perpetuate Stace’s one-word sermon by putting down permanent plaques in “numerous” locations throughout the city. Sir David Griffin, a former Lord Mayor, tried to perpetuate what he called “a delicious piece of eccentricity”, but a team of City Commissioners killed the idea. They thought it was too trivial (9).

But finally Arthur Stace did get his plaque. It happened ten years after his death and was all due to Ridley Smith, architect of Sydney Square. He set the message Eternity in cast aluminium, set in aggregate, near the Sydney Square waterfall. The Sydney Morning Herald Column 8 said: “In letters almost 21cm (8in) high is the famous copperplate message Eternity. The one word sermon gleams in wrought aluminium. There’s no undue prominence. No garish presentation. Merely the simple Eternity on pebbles as Arthur Stace would have wanted it (10).

Ridley Smith did have an interest in Arthur Stace, according to the Sydney Morning Herald. As a boy he used to hear him preach on the corner of Bathurst Street. Even more interesting, Ridley Smith was named after the fire-breathing Reverend John Ridley, the very man who converted Arthur Stace back in 1930 (11).

This beautiful memorial to Sydney’s ‘Mr Eternity’ Arthur Stace is located in the Eastern Suburbs Memorial Park in Matraville in Sydney.

References
(1) Sunday Telegraph, 21 June 1956.
(2) Reverend Lisle M. Thompson, The Crooked Made Straight.
(3) Daily Telegraph, 12 June 1965.
(4) Ibid.
(5) Sydney Morning Herald, 1 August 1967.
(6) Daily Telegraph, 8 October 1969.
(7) Sydney Morning Herald, 9 May 1968.
(8) Daily Telegraph, 30 April 1968.
(9) Sydney Morning Herald, 20 November 1976.
(10) Ibid, 12 July 1977.
(11) Ibid, 13 July 1977.

Sydney Harbour Bridge, 1 January 2000

This story is also in INSPIRATION

LINKS TO OTHER INSPIRING STORIES

Best Revival Stories – “Living Faith”
“Before they call I will answer” – Dr Helen Roseveare
The Spirit told us what to do – 2 teenage girls start 30- churches in China,
also in Great Revival Stories
Speaking God’s Word – Communist leader healed and thousands saved,
also in Great Revival Stories

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Eternity – the Arthur Stace Story

Dinner churches

by Geoff 5 December 2017 No Comments

USA: Dinner churches spring up nationwide

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In 2009, Saint Lydia’s, a Lutheran church in Brooklyn, New York garnered national attention when it began holding a weekly service over dinner. Longing to dispel feelings of isolation often reported among young New Yorkers, founder Emily Scott decided to model her service around the early church practice of having a meal together as Eucharist.

Meanwhile, the Assemblies of God Community Dinners in Seattle, Washington, the Disciples of Christ Potluck Church in Madisonville, Kentucky, and the Episcopal Southside Abbey in Chattanooga, Tennessee, began experimenting with their own ideas of meal-centered worship. One by one, communities began to emerge, though many remained unaware of others participating in the movement.

In the years since, the model has grown from four to over forty congregations across North America and Europe, with new communities emerging on a weekly basis.

While every church has its own feel, the concept is the same: connect with others in a language spoken by all – food. Serving a hearty meal at a table with real napkins, dishes, and silverware, the services aim to feel like a dinner party, fostering conversation among men, women, and children who might otherwise never meet.

‘For the first 300 years, Christianity was done around dinner tables.’

These churches encompass a range of denominations, both conservative and progressive, and they meet in a variety of settings: in church basements, restaurants, gardens, and art galleries. Found in urban, suburban, and rural areas, they attract wealthy, middle class, and unhoused neighbors. The intergenerational and multi-ethnic congregations create engaging dialogue; and the meals become a space where diners can disagree and still maintain close relationship. Throughout the evening, they read Scripture, sing, and pray, but most importantly, they eat. Central to the process of eating is engaging in dialogue, providing space to respond to the Scripture or sermon.

This new way of doing church, which Saint Lydia’s fondly coined a ‘dinner church’, is modeled after the earliest gatherings of Christians as described in Acts 2: “They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts,” (Acts 2:46). Early church father Tertullian further describes these early church meetings, called Agape feasts, all based on the idea that Jesus’ Last Supper was intended to be a model for how Christians worship together. “For the first 300 years, Christianity was done around dinner tables more than any other way,” says Verlon Fosner of Seattle’s Community Dinners, who uses the writings of Tertullian as a model for his services.

Something very powerful happens when meeting in this manner. By intentionally pulling together a diverse group of people around the shared need to eat, it is impossible to worship without acknowledging the variety of needs and experiences of those around the table. The Apostle Paul chastised the Corinthian church for stratifying their services based on socioeconomic status, stifling diversity at the table. The poor were left hungry while others got drunk, turning the worship gatherings into places of division rather than methods of unification (1 Corinthians 11:17-34). For contemporary dinner churches, returning to the table for worship aims to reclaim the social boundary-breaking power of the Eucharistic meal, signifying a commitment to unity in Christ’s Body.

‘Eating together signifies a commitment to unity.’

“If we say we come together at the Lord’s Supper, at the table, what does that look like if we spin it out into something more tangible?” says Alex Raabe, pastor of Table of Mercy in Austin, Texas. “All of our physical eating becomes spiritually nourishing, and our spiritual nourishing becomes physically fulfilling even outside of church.”

Despite inevitable disagreement during dinner table discussions, participants share a loaf of bread and worship together. “The meal allows for that to happen,” says a regular participant of Simple Church in Grafton, Massachusetts. “It feels natural. If you were to sit down at a table without a meal, you would feel like you were having a meeting, or like you were deliberating on something. The stakes would feel a little higher; people might feel a little more on edge. But eating, it reminds you of all the times you’ve eaten with friends before, or with family. It evokes a comfortable experience that I think allows people to be more real with each other.”

Each congregation has found a unique way to fit the dinner church model into its denomination’s patterns or its location’s restraints, but all have achieved a similar mission: seek unity in the midst of diverse individuality. “Whenever I get overwhelmed by the whole thing,” says Zach Kerzee, pastor of Simple Church, “I just remember that in the end, all I’m doing is throwing a dinner party.”

Source: Christian Food Movement

Joel News International # 1062, December 4, 2017

House Church: the fastest growing expression of church

Grassroots movements with no church buildings explode

Dinner Churches

House Churches, by Ian Freestone

House Churches in China (Barbara Nield)

China: how a mother started a house church movement

Laos: a church for the So

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How I Learned to Pray for the Lost

by Geoff 7 August 2017 6 Comments

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Selected from ‘How I Learned to Pray for the Lost’, Back to the Bible pamphlet.
The author is anonymous.

The letter accompanying this testimony says in part: This is the result of my search for effective ways of praying for the unsaved. I have found it to produce amazing results in a very short time. After more than 20 years of fruitless praying, it seemed that there was no possible chance for my loved ones to ever return to the faith. But after only a few weeks of the type of praying that I have outlined here I have seen them studying the Bible by the hour and attending every church service possible. Also, their whole attitude toward Christianity has changed, and all resistance seems to be gone. I have taken my place of authority in Christ and am using it against the enemy. I have not looked at myself to see if I am fit or not; I have just taken my place and have prayed that the Holy Spirit may do His convicting work. If each and every member of the Body of Christ would do this, what a change would be made in this world.

Perhaps because the salvation of some seemed to me to be an impossibility, the first verse that was given to me was Mark 10:27: “With God all things are possible.”

The next Scripture verse had occupied my attention for some time, but it took on a new meaning: “(for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds;) casting down imaginations [speculations] and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (2 Cor. 10:4,5). This shows the mighty power of our spiritual weapons. We must pray that all of this will be accomplished in the ones for whom we are concerned; that is, that the works of the enemy will be torn down.

Finally I was given the solid foundations for my prayers – the basis of redemption. In reality, Christ’s redemption purchased all mankind, so that we may say that each one is actually God’s purchased possession, although still held by the enemy. We must, through the prayer of faith, claim and take for God in the name of the Lord Jesus that which is rightfully His. This is not meant to imply that, because all persons have been purchased by God through redemption, they are automatically saved. They must believe and accept the gospel for themselves; our intercession enables them to do this.

To pray in the name of the Lord Jesus is to ask for, or to claim, the things which the blood of Christ has secured. Therefore, each individual for whom prayer is made should be claimed by name as God’s purchased possession, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and on the basis of His shed blood.

We should claim the tearing down of all the works of Satan, such as false doctrine, unbelief, atheistic teaching and hatred, which the enemy may have built up in their thinking. We must pray that their very thoughts will be brought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

With the authority of the name of the Lord Jesus, we must claim their deliverance from the power and persuasion of the Evil One and from the love of the world and the lust of the flesh. We should also pray that their conscience maybe convicted, that God may bring them to the point of repentance and that they may listen and believe as they hear the Word of God. Our prayer must be that God’s will and purposes may be accomplished in and through them.

Intercession must be persistent – not to persuade God, for redemption is by God, but because of the enemy. Our prayer and resistance are against the enemy – the awful powers and rulers of darkness. It is our duty before God to fight for the souls for whom Christ died. Just as some must preach to them the good news of redemption, others must fight the powers of darkness on their behalf through prayer.

We will find that as we pray, the Holy Spirit will give new directions. Note that “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing” (John 6:63) and that “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life” (2 Cor. 3:6). Therefore we must constantly seek the motivation of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in our faith, in our prayer and in our testimony.

It is most important also that we confess our own sins and have them forgiven. The enemy will use every possible means to silence our intercession and to block our attack against him. We must not only understand our enemy, our authority in Christ and how to use our spiritual weapons, but also how to wear the armour that God has provided for our protection. Thus equipped and protected, we need not have any fear. But let us always remember that we have no power and no authority other than that of Christ.

Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ (2 Cor. 2:14).

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world (1 John 4:4).

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Principles of Revival from History by Andrew Staggs

by Geoff 2 August 2017 1 Comment

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Andrew Staggs is the Dean of the School of Ministries at Christian Heritage College, Brisbane.

Here is a paper that I wrote many years ago about the amazing way that God moves in His people, His church and His world.

I hope that it helps you position yourself under God to receive His favour and love at a completely new level.

________________________________________________________________

INTRODUCTION

Much has been written about the revivals and awakenings that have taken place in the Church over many centuries. It is clear that there are a number of revival principles that constantly recur including persistent prayer; powerful preaching and testimony; and a deep awareness of the presence and holiness of God leading to a strong sense of conviction of sin and repentance followed by extreme joy when peace with God is received (Davies, 1992, p 217). This essay will illustrate from revival history these and other principles and explore the nature and potency of revival.

WHAT IS REVIVAL?

It is important to define in more detail what is meant by the term revival as this will determine which events are included as illustrations in the essay. Davies (1992, p 15) proposes a working definition of revival as

A sovereign outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon a group of Christians resulting in their spiritual reviving and quickening, and issuing in the awakening of spiritual concern in outsiders or formal church members; an immediate, or, at other times, a more long-term, effect will be efforts to extend the influence of the Kingdom of God both intensively in the society in which the Church is placed, and extensively in the spread of the gospel to more remote parts of the world.

Waugh (1998, p xxii) quotes Arthur Wallis definition of revival as

A divine intervention in the normal course of spiritual things. It is God revealing Himself to man in awesome holiness and irresistible power. It is such a manifest working of God that human personalities are overshadowed and human programs abandoned. It is man retiring into the background because God has taken the field. It is the Lord…working in extraordinary power on saint and sinner…Revival must of necessity make an impact on the community and this is one means by which we may distinguish it from the more usual operations of the Holy Spirit.

Edwards (1997, p 28) proposes the following definition:

A true Holy Spirit revival is a remarkable increase in the spiritual life of a large number of God’s people, accompanied by an awesome awareness of the presence of God, intensity in prayer and praise, a deep conviction of sin with a passionate longing for holiness and unusual effectiveness in evangelism, leading to the salvation of many unbelievers.

Revival is necessary to counteract spiritual decline and to create spiritual momentum (Wallis, 1956, p 13). In revival the church dormant becomes the church militant. For example, as the nineteenth century dawned America was again morally bankrupt. Eight years of war had drained the nation’s vitality leaving a dark cloud of spiritual indifference and moral degradation. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church circulated a pastoral letter declaring they were filled with concern and awful dread at the conditions of the nation. They expressed the solemn conviction that the eternal God has a controversy with this nation. This concern prompted fervent prayer that precipitated a national spiritual awakening beginning on the east coast around 1800 and spreading to the western frontier (Hyatt, 1998, p 121).

Charles Haddon Spurgeon experienced a continual revival in his church in London for many years in the middle of last century and he was convinced that a true revival is to be looked for in the church of God. In other words revival begins with the church and spills over into the world. It always begins by getting Christians right first, which is very painful.

Revival will always vitalise God’s people … but revival is not always welcome. For many the price is too high. There is no cheap grace in revival. It entails the repudiation of self-satisfied complacency. Revival turns careless living into vital concern…exchanges self-indulgence for self-denial. Yet, revival is not a miraculous visitation falling on an unprepared people like a bolt out of the blue. It comes when God’s people earnestly want revival and are willing to pay the price (Pratney, 1984, p 17).

Preaching at the Keswick Convention in 1922, Douglas Brown, who was used in a revival the year before, rightly maintained that “revival” is a church word; it has to do with God’s people. You cannot revive the world; the world is dead to trespasses and sins; you cannot revive a corpse. But you can revitalise where there is life… (Edwards, 1997, p 27).

Evan Roberts made the same claim in Wales in 1904: “My mission is first to the churches.” When the churches are aroused to their duty, men of the world will be swept into the Kingdom. A whole church on its knees is irresistible. Revival always brings the church to its knees. Rhys Bevan Jones who preached in Wales throughout 1904 declared that if ever there was a slogan for that revival it was this: “Bend the church and save the people” (ibid).

A revival usually results in an unusual sense of spiritual interest or concern and it can first manifest itself as a deep concern on the part of professing Christians regarding the shallowness and superficiality of their spiritual lives. They become profoundly conscious of their poverty of their relationship with God, the standard of their moral lives and their service for Christ (Davies, 1992, p 19).

This can also be demonstrated in the Brownsville revival in 1995. Stephen Hill (1997, p 74) noted that as in the revivals of old, people fell to their knees, prostrate or backward on the ground, weeping and wailing and crying out to God: John (Kilpatrick) and I prayed for individuals, and I realised that repentance was on the hearts of these people. I heard them cry out to God about their lukewarmness and stale Christianity, confessing their sins, and wanting desperately to get right with God. It seemed that everyone in that sanctuary desired a renewed relationship with their Lord Jesus Christ.

Revival is not primarily to give the church power, though it certainly does this, but give it life. There is a world of difference. In one sense the church had no history before Pentecost. In Acts 2 the church was not restored to where it ought to have been and from where it had fallen, but it was the starting-point of the new covenant church. The Acts story certainly describes the effects of a community saturated with God. A revival is the spring of Christianity – the renovation of life and gladness … it is the season in which young converts burst into existence and beautiful activity … the whole landscape teems with living promises of abundant harvest of righteousness and peace… it is the jubilee of holiness (Jenkins in Hill, 1997, p xxx).

When a group of God’s people are revived there is an inevitable effect on those in the immediate neighbourhood. They see that something has happened, make enquiries, and are then told by those who have been revived. This is what happened on the day of Pentecost, and is what has often happened in subsequent times of revival. For example:

1. Wales, 1904, 100 000 conversions

2. Argentina, 1951, 300 000 conversions

3. Pensacola, 1995, 100 000 conversions

Revival is remarkable, large, effective and, above all, it is something that God brings about. It is quite impossible for man to create revival. Though men may prepare and pray for it, revival is the work of the sovereign God. Commenting on Acts 2:1, when the day of Pentecost came, Wallis in Edwards (1997, p 29) claims every genuine revival is clearly stamped with the hallmark of divine sovereignty, and in no way is this more clearly seen than in the time factor. The moment for the first outpouring of the Spirit was not determined by the believers in the upper room but by God, who had foreshadowed it centuries before in those wonderful types of the Old Testament.

The suddenness is a typical feature of revival. What happened in the time of Hezekiah was done so quickly and the same was true 700 years later when, on the day of Pentecost, suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind… (Acts 2:2). No matter how long people have been praying for it or expecting it when it comes it is always a surprise.

When God came to the north of Korea in January 1907 it was on the Monday following a particularly formal and weary Sunday. In revival things happen suddenly and unexpectedly. Meetings are lengthened, crowds gather, and sermons have to be preached, not because it is all arranged in advance, but because God is at work. At

Herrnhut in 1727, Zinzendorf acknowledged, hitherto we had been the leaders and helpers. Now the Holy Spirit himself took full control of everything and everybody (Edwards, 1997, p 30).

PERSISTENT PRAYER

God longs to work afresh in the affairs of His people and bring them back to the knowledge of Himself and relationship with Him (Waugh, 1999, p 11). To illustrate, God gave a promise at the dedication of the temple in Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles 7:14 – If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land (NIV).

He has kept this promise and the history of Israel gives many examples. This verse speaks of the need for God’s people to humble themselves and pray and seek God’s face and turn from their wicked ways, thus emphasising the paramount need for prayer. As God’s people truly seek his face, humbling themselves before him and acknowledging their complete dependence on him, earnest and urgent in expressing their wholehearted desire for his presence and blessing together with their determination, like Jacob (Gen 32: 26), not to give up until he answers, he will hear. They will find that He reveals to them their secret sins which up to that time they have cheerfully committed and tolerated, but which now become hateful to them as they have a glimpse of how He views them.

Orr (1993, p 13) quotes Pierson who said, there has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer. Joel 2: 15-17 is a vital passage to apprehend for revival – blow the trumpet in Zion … Here is a community of people of God called to pray for revival, and it clearly involved a radical alteration of their regular program. The first hint of revival is frequently a stirring in the life of prayer in the church. King Hezekiah set the example for the people by his own commitment to God in prayer.

Commenting on the prayer that preceded the revival in Shotts in 1630, one writer remarked that while God sometimes works without His people, he never refuses to work with them (Edwards, 1997, p 85).

The first hint of revival is frequently a stirring in the life of prayer in the church and this can be well documented from history. In the case of the First Great Awakening there were Christian leaders such as Cotton Mather (1663-1728) who over the course of his life spent hundreds of days in prayer and fasting for revival, even though he did not live to see the answer to his prayers, at least not in his own church.

George Whitfield attributed much of the blessing which attended his ministry and that of others to a daily prayer meeting which he and his friends began in October 1737. Jonathan Edward’s preaching derived its power from his prayer life. He would spend whole days and weeks in prayer and it was not unusual for him to spend eighteen hours in prayer prior to preaching a single sermon. The result was a revival that not only transformed the moral and spiritual character of his community but also that of an entire nation (Hyatt, 1998, p 116).

The Moravian church was renewed at Herrnhut in August 1727 and this was preceded by nearly a century of prayer for renewal by the persecuted remnants of the Unity of Brethren in Bohemia and Moravia from whom the refugees at Herrnhut had come. The twenty-four hour prayer watch which soon became a distinctive feature of the Moravians and which continued for another hundred years provided much of the moving power which sent the Moravian missionaries to all corners of the globe.

In the 1740s John Erskine of Edinburgh published a pamphlet encouraging people to pray for Scotland and elsewhere. Over in America the challenge was picked up by Jonathan Edwards who wrote a treatise called, A Humble Attempt to Promote Explicit Agreement and Visible Union of God’s People in Extraordinary Prayer for the Revival of Religion and the Advancement of Christ’s Kingdom.

For forty years John Erskine orchestrated what became a Concert of Prayer through voluminous correspondence around the world. In the face of apparent social, political and moral deterioration he persisted. In 1781 in Cornwall the heavens opened at last and across the country prayer meetings were networking for revival. A passion for evangelism rose and converts were being won – not through regular services of the churches but at the prayer meetings! Whole denominations doubled, tripled, and quadrupled in the next few years. It swept from England to Wales, Scotland, United States, Canada and to some Third World countries.

Matthew Henry wrote, “When God intends great mercy for His people He first sets them praying” (Robinson, 1993, p 8).

The prayer movement had a tremendous impact but waned until the middle of the 19th century. Then God started something in Canada and the necessity to pray was picked up in New York. A quiet man called Jeremiah Lanphier had been appointed by the Dutch reformed Church as a missionary to the central business district. He called a prayer meeting in the city to be held at noon each Wednesday. Its first meeting was on 23 September 1859 and eventually five men turned up. Two weeks later they decided to move to a daily schedule of prayer. Within six months 10 000 men were gathering to pray and that movement spread across America. Within two years there were one million new believers added to the church. The movement swept out to touch England, Scotland Wales and Ulster. It was estimated that 100 000 converts directly resulted from prayer movements in Ireland. It has also been estimated that during the years 1859-60 some 1 150 000 people were added to the church wherever concerts of prayer were in operation (ibid, p 10).

In describing how revival comes, believers can never overlook the part that urgent prayer and confident expectation play. There must be, especially among the leaders, the determination that God will come, that He must come. William Bramwell is typical of this. A powerful Weslyan preacher towards the end of the eighteenth century and the first twenty years of the nineteenth, Bramwell was on the Dewsbury preaching circuit and longing for God to come in revival. He had been praying fervently for this when God gave him the assurance that the revival, which actually broke out in 1792, would come (Edwards, 1997, p 75).

It is said of David Morgan that for ten years before 1858 he never prayed in public without praying for revival. The revival that came to England in 1859 and particularly to the preaching Charles Haddon Spurgeon can be traced back six years to the prayers of his London congregation. It is not always clear when prayer meetings are part of the revival itself or are preceding it. But the distinction does not matter too much. Prayer is both the cause and result of the coming of the Spirit in revival (ibid, p 78).

Commenting on the Welsh revival in 1904, RB Jones looked back to the latter years of the previous century. From 1897 many younger ministers were meeting together to pray for revival. One minister recalled that on a Saturday evening when his sermon preparation was finished he spent time in prayer and there would come upon him such a power as would crush (him) to tears and agonising praying (Edwards, 1997, p 77).

Pandita Ramabai opened a home for girls in India. In this endeavour she was totally dependent on God’s provision and prayer was truly her lifeline. In January 1905, she began to speak about the need to seek God for revival. Before long, 550 people, mostly women and girls, were meeting twice daily, praying for revival and for an enduement of power. On June 30 Ramabai was teaching the girls from John 8 when suddenly the Holy Spirit fell as in the book of Acts. Everyone in the room began to weep and pray aloud. The revival had begun. Pandita Ramabai left her imprint on her generation and surely deserves to be recognised as the mother of the Pentecostal movement in India.

Prayer seems to have been the foremost activity at the Azusa Mission. One participant said, “The whole place was steeped in prayer. William Seymour spent much of his time behind the pulpit with his head inside the top shoe box praying. Seymour was consumed with a passionate desire for God.” Seymour said, “Before I met Parham, such a hunger to have more of God was in my heart that I prayed for five hours a day for two and a half years. I got to Los Angeles and there the hunger was not less but more. I prayed, God, what can I do? The Spirit said, Pray more. …I increased my hours of prayer to seven, and prayed to God to give what Parham preached, the real Holy Ghost and fire with tongues with love and power of God like the apostles had” (Hyatt, 1998, p 156).

The event that preceded Azusa Street by five years and actually precipitated the revival in Los Angeles began at the outset of the century in a student atmosphere. It was in a Bible School in Topeka, Kansas, where Charles Parham’s students searched the scriptures and where the Holy Spirit came on a student during a prayer and study vigil.

Along with the growing acceptance of their movement, Pentecostals were, at the same time, experiencing a loss of spiritual vitality that always accompanies the onslaught of institutionalisation. The 1930s and 40s have been described as a time when the depth of worship and the operation of the gifts of Spirit, so much evident in earlier decades, were not so prominent. Many were concerned to the point that systematic times of prayer and fasting were instituted to pray for spiritual renewal and revival. The answer to their prayers began with the advent of the Healing revival which began in 1946 and the Latter Rain Revival which began in 1947 (Hyatt, 19 98, p 183).

The ministries of William Branham and Oral Roberts signalled the beginning of a significant era of healing evangelism. Almost immediately a host of other evangelists began reporting miraculous healings and other supernatural phenomena in their meetings, These included AA Allen, Jack Coe, TL Osborn, William Freeman, WV Grant, Kenneth Hagin and many other evangelists. In 1947, after a seven month season of focussed prayer and fasting, Oral Roberts received inner assurance that it was time for God’s call to be fulfilled – to take God’s healing power to his generation. Many remarkable miracles occurred and Roberts eventually became the most prominent healing evangelist of that era.

Before God began the revival that swept across Borneo in the 1970’s he had been preparing the ground by giving the missionaries the burden to pray. Ravenshill (1958, p 155) states that for this sin-hungry age we need a prayer-hungry church…prayer does business with God. Prayer creates a hunger for souls; hunger for souls creates prayer.

Cho (in McClung, 1986, p 99) states that before 1980 individual revival movements took place with such prominent figures as Billy Graham and Oral Roberts. More recently it appears that the individual revival movements have abated and revivals have burst forth in the local church. In Korea, where the church has grown from almost zero to a projected 50% of the entire population in this century alone, Pastor Paul Yonggi Cho attributes his church’s conversion rate of 12 000 people per month as primarily due to ceaseless prayer (Robinson, 1993, p 5).

A dramatic revival took place at Whittier Christian High School in Los Angeles from 1987 to 1989. It had been preceded by fifteen years of secret prayer for revival by the mother of one of the students who had attended in the early 1970’s and by four parent/teacher prayer groups who were similarly praying through the early part of 1987. The revival spread to some of the other colleges in the area and to two campuses on the other side of the United States. A prayer movement for God to send out 100 000 missionaries in this generation has grown out of the awakening.

The Toronto Blessing erupted in January 1994 and by 1997 attendance had reached the two million mark. Even though the leaders of this revival consider evangelism to be their second priority – after the renewal of the Church and individual believers – over 25 000 conversions have occurred of which 8-10 000 are first time decisions (ibid, p 210).

The lost of the Apostle Paul’s day were the same as the lost of today. Paul desperately wanted them to be set free. This same burden for the lost is at the heart of the Brownsville revival (Hill, 1997, p 12). One obvious characteristic of the Pensacola revival is its intense evangelistic emphasis. The meetings are obviously geared towards getting those who are unsaved or backslidden to the front during the altar service. Since its beginning in June 1995 it is estimated that two million people have visited the revival with over 100 000 making decisions for Christ (Hyatt, 1998, p 211).

John Kilpatrick, pastor of the Brownsville Assemblies of God church in Pensacola, Florida highlights the value of prayer in revival when he reflects on the powerful moves of God in peoples lives: I see the scenes replayed week after week, and service after service. Each time, I realise that in a very real way, they are the fruit of a seven-year journey in prayer, and of two and a half years of fervent corporate intercession by the church (Waugh, 1998, p 137). Stephen Hill (1997, p 2) notes that it was a deep-rooted motivation to do the ministry God had given that caused Kilpatrick to rise up for over two years, take hold of the horns of the altar, grab them firmly, and scream out, “Dear God, send revival to our church. Revive us, oh God!’ He also notes (p 5) the ministry of Lyla Terhune and the intercessors who spend time in the back prayer room during the revival services agonising over the souls of the lost. They can be found weeping and wailing, often travailing as a woman giving birth, not for themselves but for the salvation of others. They do not flinch at the thought of waging heated spiritual warfare during this revival.

Derek Prince notes in Hill (1997, p xxii) that Tuesday night is prayer night at the Pensacola revival. The seventeen hundred people present represented quite a large turn-out by most standards of prayer meetings … one distinctive feature was the presence of ten or more banners, each one representing some major theme of prayer. People focussed their prayer on a theme by gathering around that particular banner. There was none of what I would call ‘shotgun praying’, rather it was very directed.

There have always been pockets of believers, sprinkled throughout the land – earnestly seeking God – motivated by a desperate desire for revival. God has always had His remnant. They took hold of the horns of the altar. The darkness of night was pierced by their agonising pleas for a visitation from God. Their white-hot prayers lit up the sky just as lightning displaces utter blackness (Hill, 1997, p xviii). I know not what course others may take; but as for me, GIVE ME REVIVAL in my soul and in my church and in my nation – or GIVE ME DEATH! (Ravenshill, 1958, p 161).

POWERFUL PREACHING AND TESTIMONY

The second consistent principle of revival is powerful, urgent, relevant Christ-centred preaching.

On the day of Pentecost the 120 disciples were filled with the Spirit and immediately began to speak in various languages about the wonderful works of God. This was followed by Peter’s preaching which was accompanied by such spiritual power that 3 000 were convicted and converted (Acts 2). The work continued and spread as the Christians preached publicly and testified personally to the great saving acts in Jesus Christ.

Often in revivals, an individual or a small group, have experienced powerful awakening and renewal as they have waited on God in prayer and then their personal testimony and public proclamation have been the means of communicating that blessing to other believers as well as awakening and converting non-believers.

True revival is a revival of gospel preaching (Edwards, 1997, p 101). Powerful, urgent,

relevant Christ-centred communication of the gospel emphasising the holiness and grace of God and the need for personal response is a hallmark of revival. It is often because the preachers themselves have been revived and quickened, and the content of their preaching as well as their method of presentation bear evidence to what has happened.

Davies (1992, p 222) notes that preachers in revival are never flippant. They know they are the servants of the Most High God and they are aware of their awesome responsibility and of the seriousness of the task. They have a sense of the awfulness of men dying without Christ and are extremely concerned to communicate the gospel faithfully. They have an urgent desire to bring men and women to repentance and faith before it is too late. Preachers in revival are concerned to make the truth plain and to show each person its relevance for them. They are also conscious to avoid superficial and therefore false conversions.

The description of Duncan Campbell as a preacher shows how seriously revival preachers took their task: There was nothing complicated about Duncan’s preaching. It was fearless and uncompromising. He exposed sin in its ugliness and dwelt at length on the consequences of living and dying without Christ. With a penetrating gaze on the congregation and perspiration streaming down his face he set before men and women the way of death. It was a solemn thought to him that the eternity of his hearers might turn upon his faithfulness. He was standing before his fellow men in Christ’s stead and could be neither perfunctory or formal. His words were not just a repetition of accumulated ideas but the expression of his whole being. He gave the impression of preaching with his entire personality, not merely his voice (Edwards, 1997, p 103).

In revival Christ, and the blood of the cross particularly, is central to the preaching. Perhaps this is why many records of revival refer to the special blessings experienced at communion services when the blood of Christ is preached both from the Word and through the bread and wine. At Cambuslang in 1742 the presence of God was so real at the communion service held on 11 July that it was agreed they must celebrate it again, and very soon. Untypically for the Scottish Presbyterians, they arranged another service for 15 August and this was attended by some 20,000 people! Though only a few thousand were allowed to participate, hundreds were converted.

In the eighteenth century Whitefield and Wesley found that the preaching of the cross was hated, just as it is hated now. But thousands found in the blood of Christ justification, redemption, propitiation, peace, reconciliation and cleansing, whether or not they understood all those terms.

Joseph Kemp returned from a visit to Wales in 1905 and reported to his congregation at Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh that the dominating note of the Walsh revival was ‘redemption through the Blood.’ Whenever we hear or read that the Spirit is at work we can assess the genuineness of the work by how central the blood of Christ is to the preaching and the worship. And if the cross is central in the preaching and the worship then it will be central in the lives of the converts (Edwards, 1997, p 108).

Jonathan Edwards complained, in 1733, that the young people, especially, were very careless and were not interested in listening to what God had to say through their parents or through the ministers of the gospel. But when the Spirit of God came in revival, ‘The young people declared themselves convinced by what they heard from the pulpit, and were willing of themselves to comply with the counsel that had been given; and it was immediately, and I suppose, almost universally, complied with.’ Submission to leadership is a biblical condition of worship and it runs tight through both Old and New Testaments. The description of the Christians in the Acts of the Apostles was that they were dedicated to the apostles’ teaching (Acts 2:42). And when revival comes, one of its hallmarks is not independency, but a holy dependence upon Scripture and a respect for those whose task it is to explain and apply it (Edwards, 1997, p 111).

The twin activities of public preaching and personal testimony provide the ideal combination which has so often been the way that awakening and revival have spread. Even when the preaching has been limited to ‘properly ordained ministers’ the witness of ‘ordinary Christians’ has been a major factor in the spread of revival. It is the emphasis upon living, vital and urgent preaching, together with the people’s confidence in Scripture and love for it, that produces such a powerful force in revival. Revival never begins with those who deny or despise the authority of the Word, and if people who do deny Scripture are effectively influenced by the revival it will always change their theology of the Bible.

At times of revival there has been a paramount need for sound teaching and instruction. When those who are revived are themselves soundly taught in the truth of God’s Word, they can properly interpret their own experience, adequately proclaim the truth to others, and also correctly instruct new converts. When this is not the case or when they fail to properly instruct new converts of the revival there is a strong possibility that there will be dangerous extremes of belief and practice and that the whole movement of revival will not produce lasting fruit. In the case of the Welsh Revival of 1904 many believe that Evan Roberts’ neglect of preaching and instruction was the cause of the revival’s failure to achieve its full potential (Evans in Davies, 1992, p 223).

One commentator on the eighteenth-century Awakening rightly claims that the uninhibited and compelling urge to preach the Gospel was the basic characteristic of all the personalities involved, whatever other gifts they might have: Both Harris and Wesley had keen organising ability, both William Williams and Charles Wesley had unsurpassed genius to write hymns, Whitfield’s compassionate heart and breadth of vision well-nigh encircled the globe, and Rowland’s communion seasons were heavenly, but each felt deeply the absolute priority and unique authority of preaching in the power of the Holy Spirit (Edwards, 1997, 104).

DEEP AWARENESS OF THE PRESENCE AND HOLINESS OF GOD

Another key principle of revival is the deep awareness of the presence and holiness of God leading to a strong sense of conviction of sin and repentance followed by extreme joy when peace with God is received.

In Israel’s time, under God’s judgement, people awakened to a realisation of better days and linked this back to their previous relationship with him. Prayer went up in agony for deliverance and God raised up another leader and another restoration. Right relationship to the righteous standards of the Word of God was also confirmed by Charles Finney who succinctly defined revival as nothing more or less than a new beginning of obedience to the Word of God (Pratney, 1984, p 19).

There is an observable connection in the history of awakenings between revival and holiness. An overwhelming sense of the holiness of God frequently characterises revivals bringing with it a crushing sense of personal and often corporate sin and guilt. The repentance which is produced in revival is a deep, radical, complete abhorrence of sin and turning away from it, with a heartfelt desire to have done with it completely. Sin is seen for what it really is, as God sees it, and it continues to be hateful to the young convert. Holiness is seen as beautiful and infinitely desirable. The new Christian longs after holiness, seeing it as a characteristic of his God.

Waugh (1998, p 136) quotes Kilpatrick regarding the Brownsville revival – corporate businessmen in expensive suits kneel and weep uncontrollably as they repent of secret sins … drug addicts and prostitutes fall to the floor on their faces beside them, to lie prostrate before God as they confess Jesus as Lord … souls who come to Christ, confessing their sins.

Revival is always a revival of holiness. And it begins with a terrible conviction of sin. It is often the form that the conviction of sin takes that troubles those who read of revival. Sometimes the experience is crushing. People weep uncontrollably. There is no such thing as a revival without tears of conviction and sorrow. In January 1907 God was moving in a powerful way in North Korea and a Western missionary recalled one particular scene: As the prayer continued a spirit of heaviness and sorrow for sin came down upon the audience. Over on one side someone began to weep and in a moment the whole audience was weeping. Man after man would rise, confess his sins, break down and weep, and then throw himself to the floor and beat the floor with his fists in perfect agony of conviction … sometimes after a confession the whole audience would break out in audible prayer and the effect of that audience of hundreds of men praying together in audible prayer was something indescribable. Again, after another confession, they would break out in uncontrollable weeping, and we would all weep, we could not help it. And so the meeting went on until 2 am, with confession and weeping and praying (Edwards, 1997, p 115). Scenes like these are typical of almost every recorded revival. There is no revival without deep, uncomfortable and humbling conviction of sin.

In some mines in Wales in 1904 the work came to a standstill because the pit ponies could no longer understand the orders that were given to them; the hauliers, classed as the worst group of men in the pits, proverbial for their profanity and cruelty, were no longer cursing their commands and the ponies were confused (Edwards, 1997, p 187).

Revival rectifies the impoverished spiritual conditions of people, some of which are outlined in an internet bulletin from www.highwayman.net/prayernet titled A27 Evidences of the Need for a Fresh Visitation of the Spirit. A sample includes – we need revival:

1. When we would rather make money than give money;

2. When we make little effort to witness to the lost;

3. When we seldom think thoughts of eternity;

4. When we know truth in our heads that we are not practicing in our lives

5. When we are more concerned about what others think about us than what God thinks about us.

The full list has been reproduced and is available in the Appendix. Revival will always vitalise God’s people. In the revival in Kentucky in the late 1700s sleep and physical comforts seemed to be forgotten as things eternal gripped the hearts and minds of the people…cries of distress over sin soon gave way to shouts of joy arising out of assurance of salvation (Hyatt, 1998, p 123).

The deep, uncomfortable and humbling conviction of sin can be demonstrated in the Brownsville revival in 1995. Stephen Hill (1997, p 74) noted that as in the revivals of old, people fell to their knees, prostrate or backward on the ground, weeping and wailing and crying out to God. John (Kilpatrick) and I prayed for individuals, and I realised that repentance was on the hearts of these people. I heard them cry out to God about their lukewarmness and stale Christianity, confessing their sins, and wanting desperately to get right with God. It seemed that everyone in that sanctuary desired a renewed relationship with their Lord Jesus Christ.

OTHER REVIVAL PRINCIPLES

There has been much written and spoken of about the dynamics and principles of revival. Nine outstanding characteristics of the major revivals have been articulated by Fischer (in Pratney, 1984, p 19) as follows:

1. They occurred in times of moral darkness and national depression

2. Each began in the heart of a consecrated servant of God who became the energizing power behind it

3. Each revival rested on the Word of God and most were the result of proclaiming God’s Word with power

4. All resulted in a return to the worship of God

5. Each witnessed the destruction of idols where they existed

6. In each revival there was a recorded separation from sin

7. In every revival the people returned to obeying God’s laws

8. There was a restoration of great joy and gladness

9. Each revival was followed by a period of national prosperity

Revival brings vitality to God’s Church and His people. A principle of revival is that it brings results. There is an increase in evangelism, mission, social action and the increased involvement of the laity. A revival always has an effect upon the nation. Edwin Orr (in Edwards, 1997, p 185) claims that the evangelical awakening in the eighteenth century saved Britain from the revolutionary experience that ravaged the continent of Europe at that time. Wesley, the English evangelist, defeated Volataire, the French philosopher and Deist.

2 Kings 18: 7-8 notes the success of King Hezekiah during the revival – And the LORD was with him; he was successful in whatever he undertook. He rebelled against the king of Assyria and did not serve him. From watchtower to fortified city, he defeated the Philistines, as far as Gaza and its territory (NIV). The nation was sufficiently strong to throw off its slavery; the revival gave the people of Judah moral and military fibre and it was this that led Hezekiah to make a bid to secure spiritual unity in the nation after 200 years of warfare between the north and south. The revival was also a time of his brilliant engineering.

There are also hindrances to revival which the believer needs to be aware of. Some of these have been outlined in Waugh (1999, p 9) and include pride (when Christians become proud of their great revival); exalting self over God; prejudice (when Christians lose the spirit of brotherly love); exhaustion; self-reliance (when dependence on the Spirit in replaced by human effort); conflict (when there is continued opposition of the >old school’ combined with a bad spirit in the >new’ school); and neglecting missions.

CONCLUSION

The life of a believer of prayer, striving for holiness, and wholehearted evangelism must all go on as if the future of the Church depended on them. At the same time believers should long for the community to be saturated with God, should talk of the great acts of God in revival, and should pray to continually remind God that a special occasion is needed for this generation.

When the prophet Micah looked around him he could find little to encourage him in the nation. An honest assessment convinced him that the forces of evil were gaining ground. In spite of this, or perhaps because of this, Micah set out his own position:

But as for me, I watch in hope for the LORD,

I wait for God my Saviour; my God will hear me

Micah 7:7 (NIV).

REFERENCES

Davies, R.E. 1992. I Will Pour Out My Spirit: A History and Theology of Revivals and Evangelical Awakenings. Tunbridge Wells: Monarch Publications.

Edwards, Brian H. 1997. Revival! A People Saturated With God. County Durham: Evangelical Press.

Hill, Stephen. 1997. The Pursuit of Holiness. Lake Mary, Florida: Creation House.

Hyatt, Eddie L. 1998. 2000 Years of Charismatic Christianity: A 21st Century Look at Church History from a Pentecostal/Charismatic Perspective. Dallas, Texas: Hyatt International Ministries Inc.

McClung, L Grant Jnr. 1986. Azuza Street and Beyond: Pentecostal Missions and Church Growth in the Twentieth Century. South Plainfield, New Jersey: Bridge Publishing Co.

Orr, J. Edwin. ‘Prayer and Revival’. Renewal Journal: Revival. Vol 1, Number 1. Summer 1993. pp 13- 18.

Pratney, Winkie. 1984. Revival: Principles to Change the World. Springdale: Whitaker House.

Ravenshill, Leonard. 1959. Why Revival Tarries. Tonbridge: Sovereign World.

Robinson, Stuart. ‘Praying the Price’. Renewal Journal: Revival. Vol 1, Number 1. Summer 1993. pp 5-12.

Wallis, Arthur. 1956. In The Day of Thy Power. Christian Literature Crusade.

Waugh, Geoff. 1998. Flashpoints of Revival: History’s Mighty Revivals. Shippensburg, PA: Revival Press.

Waugh, Geoff. 1999. Class Notes for PB110 Renewal History. Mansfield: COC School of Ministries.

APPENDIX

27 Evidences of the Need for a Fresh Visitation of the Spirit.

We need revival:

1. When we would rather make money than give money;

2. When we make little effort to witness to the lost;

3. When we seldom think thoughts of eternity;

4. When we know truth in our heads that we are not practicing in our lives

5. When we are more concerned about what others think about us than what God thinks about us.

6. When we do not love Him as we once did.

7. When earthly interests and occupations are more important to us than eternal ones.

8. When we would rather watch TV and read secular books and magazines than read the Bible and pray.

9. When we have little or no desire for prayer.

10. When our Christianity is joyless and passionless.

11. When we have time for sports, recreation, and entertainment, but not for Bible study and prayer.

12. When we do not tremble at the Word of God.

13. When we are more concerned about our jobs and careers than about the Kingdom of Christ and the salivation of the lost.

14. When Christian husbands and wives are not praying together.

15. When our children are growing up to adopt world values, secular philosophies and ungodly lifestyles.

16. When we watch things on TV and movies that we would not show in church.

17. When our prayers lack fervency.

18. When our hearts are cold and our eyes are dry.

19. When our singing is half-hearted and worship lifeless.

20. When we aren’t seeing regular evidence of the supernatural power of God

21. When we are bored with worship.

22. When we are making little or no difference in the secular world around us.

23. When we are unmoved b y the thought of our neighbours, business associates and acquaintances going to hell.

24. When we have ceased to weep and mourn and grieve over our sin.

25. When we aren’t exercising faith and believing God for the impossible.

26. When the fire has gone out in our hearts, our marriages and our church.

27. When we are blind to the extent of our need and don’t thinks we need revival.

(Source: www.highwayman.net/prayernet 11 May 1999)

ANDREW STAGGS MINISTRIES – WITH CHURCH HEALTH INSIGHTS·
SATURDAY, APRIL 22, 2017

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Christian mission, evangelism, South Pacific mission, revival movements

Pentecost on Pentecost and in the South Pacific

by Geoff 22 June 2017 1 Comment

Pentecost on Pentecost & in the South Pacific

Pentecost on Pentecost & in the South Pacific PDF

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Link to Blog: Pentecost on Pentecost Island

2-minute video prayer for Vanuatu after category-5 cyclone flattened villages at Easter 2020 – recorded by grandson Dante. If you would like to help you can give via my PayPal:
Geoffrey Waugh, PayPal – geoffwaugh2@gmail.com

Podcast link: 21st-century revivals – Riverlife Church: Geoff & grandson Dante talk with staff about revivals they’ve seen

Amazon link – eBook

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Link to Amazon/Kindle Australia

READ SAMPLE

Link to Blog: Pentecost on Pentecost Island

Contents:

Chapter 1 – Elcho Island (1994)

Chapter 2 – Papua New Guinea (1994)

Chapter 3 – Solomon Islands: Tabaka (1994)

Chapter 4 – Vanuatu, Australia (2002)

Chapter 5 – Vanuatu, Solomon Islands (2003)

Chapter 6 – Vanuatu: Tanna & Pentecost (2004)

Chapter 7 – Vanuatu: Pentecost ( 2004)

Chapter 8 – Vanuatu: Pentecost (2005)

Chapter 9 – Vanuatu: Pentecost (2005)

Chapter 10 – Fiji (2005)

Chapter 11 – Fiji – KBC and COC Teams (2006-2007)

Chapter 12 – Vanuatu, Solomon Islands (2006)

Chapter 13 – Solomon Islands (2007)

Chapter 14 – Fiji (2008-2009)

Chapter 15 – Vanuatu: Pentecost (2010-2016)

Link to Blog: Pentecost on Pentecost Island

Some photos from the book:

Aborigines baptized on Elcho Island

Creek baptism on Pentecost Island

Ocean baptism on Pentecost Island

Mele Palm site of martyrdom on Pentecost

Pentecost Island Bible College site

South Pacific mission team in Australia

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charismatic renewal, evangelism, prayer, revival charismatic, evangelism, revival

Students ignite charismatic movement

by Geoff 6 April 2017 2 Comments

Global: How God used Catholic students to ignite a charismatic movement

Fifty years ago, Catholic Charismatics as a group didn’t exist. Today, there are around 120 million of them. Their emergence began when the Holy Spirit came to a dozen Catholic students in a Pennsylvania forest in February 1967.

They were from Pittsburgh’s Duquesne University, out to enjoy a spiritual weekend retreat at a place called The Ark & The Dove. The theme of the retreat was the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Retreat leaders had assigned each of the students coming to first read David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade – a miracle-filled story of a young Pentecostal pastor leading violent New York City gang members to the Lord.

As she read it, Patti Mansfield (then Gallagher) found herself asking, “Why isn’t the Holy Spirit doing these dramatic things in my life?” That led her to pray, “Lord, as a Catholic, I believe I’ve already received Your Spirit in baptism and confirmation. But if it’s possible for Your Spirit to do more in my life than He’s done till now, I want it.”

‘My spiritual life felt powerless and pedestrian. It was like I was pushing a car uphill.’

It first hit David Mangan, though, after he listened to a teaching that weekend that the Holy Spirit could still bring tongues and power like dynamite. Mangan wanted both – the tongues and the dynamite – and asked the Lord for it because his Christianity felt powerless and pedestrian. “My spiritual life could not be described as dynamite,” he said. “It was limping along. The way I describe it, it was like I was pushing a car uphill.” As for what he was hearing about the gift of tongues, he was so intrigued, “I wrote in my notebook, ‘I want to hear someone speak in tongues – me.’ I realized I did that because I don’t know how much I would’ve believed it if it was someone else.”

Mangan received a powerful answer as he sought the Lord alone that weekend in a chapel located on the upper floor of The Ark & The Dove, a location that’s become known now as the Upper Room. That’s the same name used for the place where the Holy Spirit fell in the Book of Acts on the disciples after Jesus had ascended to heaven.

‘I lost all sense of time. I was lost in Christ and happy to be so.’

“The presence of God was so thick, so powerful, you could cut it with a knife,” Mangan said of the atmosphere in that room. “It’s the most intense experience I’ve ever had in my life. Time meant nothing to me. I had no idea if it was two minutes or two hours; it made no difference. I was lost in Christ, and happy to be so.”

And he got his dynamite. “There were all these electrical explosions going on in my body,” Mangan described. Then he began to speak in tongues. The overwhelming feeling caused him to run and ask the retreat leaders if it was really possible. They said it is a valid experience which happened throughout history to a lot of saints. The experience infused him with a new dynamism and power in his spiritual life – or as he puts it, “It was like somebody told me that the car I’d been pushing uphill had a motor and now I had the key.”

Shortly thereafter, Patty Mansfield had her own Holy Spirit encounter as she was in the same chapel and His Presence came upon her. “As I knelt in that chapel, I actually began to tremble with this sense of, ‘My gosh, this is God and He’s holy!’” she said. Mansfield soon found herself prostrate, flat on her face. “And as I was lying there, I felt immersed in the love of God. I realized that if I could experience the love, the goodness, the sweetness, the mercy of God like that, anyone could.”

‘What happened to you? You look different! Your face is glowing!’

When right after her experience Mansfield encountered two young ladies, they said: “What happened to you? You look different! Your face is glowing!” She was so excited by what was happening, that she dragged the young ladies right up to the Upper Room so they, too, could experience what she just had. About a dozen ended up with her and David Mangan in the chapel.

As Mansfield describes it in her book As By a New Pentecost, like before, a heavenly Presence filled the Upper Room. “As we were kneeling, some were weeping, others were laughing for joy. Again others, like myself, felt like our bodies were on fire. My hands and my arms were tingling. Others, like David, knew that they wanted to praise God, but it wasn’t going to come out in English.”

‘He said: You’re praying in Arabic! I was astounded. I had no idea.’

At a prayer meeting soon after, a student of French was sitting next to Mangan when he started to pray in tongues. “David, I didn’t know you spoke French,” she said. He said: “Oh, I don’t speak French. I only studied Latin and German.” She told him he was praising God for streams of living water and thanking the Lord for the Divine Child who had come. Later, seeking confirmation, Mangan visited a linguist, who asked the young man to pray. After a few minutes, he jumped up with a look of shock on his face. “You are speaking Middle French!” The linguist asked Mangan to pray for him some more. “When we finished, he turned around and said, ‘Now you’re praying in Arabic!’ And I was astounded. I had no idea.”

In the months and years that followed, by word of mouth, the Catholic Charismatic Renewal spread from the The Ark & The Dove and Duquesne University across the world. Holy Spirit-baptized Catholics and non-Catholics gathered in interdenominational gatherings where their differences and conflicts melted away, and all that mattered was that they were one in the Spirit.

‘The charismatic movement is a current of grace.’

“Now we share this new alive faith in the Spirit and a personal relationship with Christ, I’ve seen many walls come down,” Mark Nehrbas, a Catholic Charismatic who frequently worships with non-Catholics said. Another one, Deacon Darrell Wentworth, points out how Jesus preached in John 17 that such unity is essential for the world to believe. “We need to love one another and be a bold witness for God, so that the world can see that the Father loves everybody.”

Pope Francis has encouraged the Charismatic Renewal, calling it ‘a current of grace’, and urged the Charismatics to bless the entire Church with what they have.

Source: Patti Mansfield and David Mangan, interviewed by Paul Strand, summarized by Joel News International, # 1031 | April 5, 2017

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Africa, Christian ministry, Christian mission, evangelism, healing, mission, Reinhard Bonnke evangelism, miracles, mission, prayer, Reinhard Bonnke

Reinhard Bonnke’s final crusade in Africa

by Geoff 30 March 2017 3 Comments

Reinhard Bonnke’s final crusade in Africa – November 2017

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See link for report – Lagos, Nigeria, November 2017

Reinhard Bonnke Preaches for the Last Time in Africa

We have just returned from a very special and very emotional service. Tonight, Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke preached the Gospel for the last time on African soil after 50 years of powerful ministry. His wife, Anni and his children were with him on the platform. Our national directors and many ministry friends from all over the world were there to be a part of the historic moment. More than 1.7 million people attended the five days of meetings. Countless miracles took place and many thousands of salvations were recorded. I cannot imagine a more fitting way to celebrate 50 years of Evangelist Bonnke’s ministry than with one more massive harvest of souls in Africa. It was truly a remarkable and historic event. It will stand out in my memory as one of the most precious days in my life.

We faced an unusual level of resistance this week – such as I have not experienced in my time with the ministry. But the Lord spoke to us clearly that what we were experiencing was birthing pangs. Although this crusade was Evangelist Bonnke’s Farewell in Africa, it is really just the beginning of something new and wonderful. God has given me the vision for a “Decade of Double Harvest.” I believe that over the next decade, we will see another 75-million people won to Christ and tonight was the beginning. No wonder we are feeling the pangs of birth. I will share more specifics on this in the days to come, but for now it is enough to say we are on the threshold of “even greater” things. As Evangelist Bonnke has often said, “Nothing diminishes in God.”

This also marks the last crusade of the year. As we approach the end of one year and the beginning of another, I am so thankful for those of you that have stood with us so faithfully through your prayers and giving. Please continue to stand with us as we enter this new season of harvest. All hands are needed on deck. The best is yet to come. We love and appreciate each one of you.

Yours in the Gospel,

Evangelist Daniel Kolenda

Together with Reinhard Bonnke, Peter Vandenberg, and the whole CfaN Team

Gallery

The number is staggering: 75,913,155. That’s how many people have come to Christ through the ministry of Reinhard Bonnke, as reported by his organization Christ for all Nations (CfaN).

The German-born evangelist said on CfaN’s website. “I want not only to see a gigantic harvest of souls but to pass my burning torch to a new generation of evangelists.”

Bonnke, his wife Anni, and their young son moved to the tiny African nation of Lesotho in 1969. The couple spent seven years working there as missionaries. It wasn’t easy. Bonnke says it was during those difficult years that he started praying to see more souls saved across the African continent. He says God gave him a vision for “a continent washed in the blood of Jesus Christ.”

The early days in Lesotho (1974)

In 1974, Christ for All Nations was birthed, and since then more than 75 million people have accepted Christ through the ministry. All these years later, Bonnke says the vision still burns in his soul. “Whether I am eating or drinking, awake or asleep, the vision is ever-present. It never leaves me.”

Now, at 77, Bonnke is passing the torch to a new generation of evangelists as he prepares to retire after more than 40 years in ministry. Lead evangelist of CfaN, Daniel Kolenda, has been tapped to succeed Bonnke.

The preparations for the final crusade involved “500,000 counselors, 200,000 intercessors, a choir of over 23,000 and a security force of over 10,000,” said John Darku, CfaN’s African director. “There is great excitement from all the churches in the country, and we are expecting a spectacular harvest of people coming to Christ.”

Source: Christ for all Nations

Joel News International, March 15, 2017

Bonnke’s Lagos campaign drew a crowd of 1.6 million people (2000)

See also: “This Disco is a Church”

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Christianity exploding in Bangladesh

by Geoff 30 March 2017 1 Comment

Bangladesh: The Christian faith is ‘exploding’

Sandwiched between India and Myanmar, Bangladesh is the third largest Muslim-majority country in the world. Despite persecution, the Christian faith is growing fast in this nation.

Bangladesh is 89% Muslim and nearly 10% Hindu, according to the Joshua Project, with Christians numbering less than one percent. Often beset by floods, cyclones and tornadoes roaring through the Bengal Delta, it also has the sad distinction of ranking number one in the world for children suffering malnutrition.

One ministry leader, who recently completed a fact-finding trip to the country, believes Christians are being undercounted. “Christianity is much larger and growing, especially in the rural areas,” says Jim Jacobson, president of Christian Freedom International (CFI). On his trip, Jacobson interviewed scores of indigenous Christian pastors, street evangelists, missionaries and converts to Christianity. “According to them, Christianity is on the increase, mostly underground, and the growth is a cause of concern for the Muslim majority, leading to persecution.”

‘20,000 Muslims have converted among the hill tribes’

One 60-year-old pastor, a former Muslim, reported to Jacobson that 20,000 Muslims have converted to Christianity among the hill tribes of northeast Bangladesh in the last 12 months. This pastor faces many hardships, has been beaten numerous times, and must pay bribes to the police to continue his ministry.

Another pastor and Muslim convert to Christianity told him that in his district more than 6,000 have converted to Christ since 1991. This pastor has been targeted for assassination by a radical islamist group. He told CFI, “Of course I am afraid, but when I think about my spiritual life I am not afraid. We continue to preach, no matter what.”

Jacobson believes the under-reporting of believers is because most tallies only count ‘traditional Christians’, people born into the Christian faith who attend government-approved churches. “But ‘converts’, those who change their religion from Islam to Christianity are not counted and no surveys have been made,” he contends. “The number of Christians in Bangladesh may be as high as 10 percent of the population.”

One pastor told Jacobson that after he converted in 2007, his rickshaw shop and tea business were taken away from him and he was disowned by his family. “Two imams caught him talking about Christianity in the market and attacked him. The imams beat him and tied him with ropes in front of a nearby mosque. His sons ransomed him only after they agreed that they would force him to reconvert to Islam.” When the sons failed to persuade him to return to Islam, they beat their father nearly to death, took all his possessions and left him for dead. In this pastor’s rural village, he has seen more than 700 Muslims convert to Christianity in the last two years.

‘Especially the young people are interested in Christ’

Babul, a Muslim who converted Christianity in 2013, once worked as a day laborer. After his conversion, his life was threatened and he was disowned by his family. He had to go into hiding in the jungle to survive. After eight months in the jungle, some Christian converts helped him. He is now a ‘street preacher’ and faces many hardships to share the gospel. He has been beaten numerous times but sees it as a badge of honor. “The young like me, are converting,” Babul told Jacobson. “Many more are interested in Christ.”

Bakar, another Christian convert told CFI, “Christianity is really growing in Bangladesh. The next generation is becoming Christian. We believe that Bangladesh will become a Christian nation one day. Islam has no mercy, no compassion, no love. It has nothing to offer. Christianity offers the assurance of eternal life, it offers hope.”

South Korea: How Koreans evangelized their own nation

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BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS FROM BOOKS)

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How I Learned to Pray for the Lost – PDF You could print this 2-page PDF and fold it.

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Like this:

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Like this:

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Global: How God used Catholic students to ignite a charismatic movement

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Gallery

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL (INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)

BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS (BLOGS FROM BOOKS)

BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES (PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)

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Bangladesh: The Christian faith is ‘exploding’

BLOGS INDEX 1: REVIVALS (BRIEFER THAN REVIVALS INDEX)

BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION (INTERNATIONAL STORIES)

How I Learned to Pray for the Lost – PDF
You could print this 2-page PDF and fold it.

***BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION* *(INTERNATIONAL STORIES)***

***BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL* *(INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)***

***BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS* *(BLOGS FROM BOOKS)***

***BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES* *(PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)***

***BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION* *(INTERNATIONAL STORIES)***

***BLOGS INDEX 4: DEVOTIONAL* *(INCLUDING TESTIMONIES)***

***BLOGS INDEX 6: CHAPTERS* *(BLOGS FROM BOOKS)***

***BLOGS INDEX 7: IMAGES* *(PHOTOS AND ALBUMS)***

***BLOGS INDEX 2: MISSION* *(INTERNATIONAL STORIES)***