Tuesday, October 11, 2011

What I Learned by Praying for Revival

Cross Road met at my house Sunday night for a revival prayer meeting. We talked a lot and prayed a lot. I appreciate everyone who came. Why people stay away from prayer meetings astounds me, but that is another topic.

As we talked about what revival is and how much we need it, three ideas became the fabric of the conversation.

People need Jesus. We all agreed that a personal relationship is absolutely necessary to gain eternal life and that the current life would be greatly enhanced by it. Our church is small in number. The other churches within five miles of ours are small, too. But there are as many people living in this area as in the small town I grew up in. A few hundred people attend church regularly among all our churches; the community is home to a few thousand people. Most of the people living around us are either lost or, if saved, have decided that participating in a local church is not important. The New Testament will not support that position. Daily Christianity is experienced through the context of the local church. Certainly, the people living around us who do not know Jesus as Savior and Lord need him.

The church must do all it can to reach them. That is the specific command given by the Lord Jesus in the Great Commission. For a reason know only to God, he chose the church as the vehicle by which the gospel will be taken to the nations. We are to be his witnesses to everybody everywhere. We need to focus on that task and, quite honestly, quit doing stuff that makes no impact on lostness. And we have to step outside our boundaries of tradition and preference. They (those not participating in our churches) are telling us they don't like it. Without changing the message, we must change our methods. The message is always relevant; the methods must be continually assessed for relevance.

Too many people who come into our building now and then are just playing church. They get their ticket punched. They check "church" off their "to do" list. They come in and out - at whatever frequency - without experiencing the change that ought to be indicative of a real walk with Jesus. I'm talking about people who may only come a few times a year to those who may come a few times a week. Being in the building is not the same as being part of the church. People who are part of the church participate in the mission. They encourage one another on to Christ-likeness. They support the ministry. They do all this inside and outside the building; during and away from scheduled service times. We all need to regularly check our motive for coming to church and repent when we realize we've just been playing the game.

CRBC (and your church, too) will experience revival when we humble ourselves before God, pray earnestly to him, seek his face and his ways, and turn from our sins. Then we'll be able to impact our world with the eternal message of God's loving gift of salvation.

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