Last Sunday Revival came to Dartford! However, this wasn't Revival in the Pentecostal sense. On this occasion Revival was the name of a Christian from Zimbabwe who had come to the meeting to be the witness at the dedication of a little baby girl - Vanessa (also from Zimbabwe). In fact we had over 50 visitors all of whom heralded from that troubled country. It was a fantastic meeting and our African visitors certainly added to the occasion in a memorable and stirring way.
It was grteat to have Revival with us but not as great as it would have been if this blog entry had been about the arrival of that more familiar form of revival.
I've been thinking a lot about revival and it seems to me that there are three common denominators within the church which can be identified during times of revival.
The first is the fact that Christians during times of revival believed that salvation was important - they believed that the converts they made were actually being saved from a fate worse than death. They believed in heaven and hell and therefore as a consequence there was a compassion and urgency about their evangelism.
Secondly, believers during times of revival are obsessed with saving the lost! They didn't have any other interests apart from soul saving. They didn't go to the theatre or watch football or spend time at parties - all their time was given to the task of getting people saved. This obsession of course was directly linked to the first point above - if people died without knowing Christ then there was the possibility they had gone to hell. Believers in times of revival work with the same committment and sense of urgency that people would work to rescue someone from a burning building - the consequences (both for themselves and the lost) of apathy and laziness were unthinkable.
Finally, revivals seem to happen when the church appears to be on the brink of collapse. Healthy churches don't appear to be visited by revival (if you follow my drift). Because of this widespread apostasy revivals seem to start with just a few people for whom points 1 and 2 above are true.
Well the good news is that the third criteria we (in the West at least) seem to possess in abundance. I guess revival (not the one from Zimbabwe) will come to Dartford when a few of us have discovered the first two.
Plenty to think about....
Love and prayers
A
