Helping people make connections with God…

captain’s blog

I’ve been corresponding with some people and thinking some more on the subject of revival since my last post. I’m grateful for the enthusiasm with which prayer (including prayer for revival) has been embraced by many here, following the successful launch of the Prayer Room initiative in St Andrews a couple of years ago. Now I’d like us to work towards focussing our ideas a bit more. In reply to some guys who believe good, old-style Revival is coming to St Andrews, I wrote the following. It’s not meant to sound negative; just to focus our attention a bit more strategically…..

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If indeed Revival does strike St Andrews, it will be essential to avoid the mistakes of the past. The recent revivals in the UK, including that spearheaded by Billy Graham in the sixties, when church attendance in Scotland DOUBLED in a matter of weeks, have all foundered on the lack of church structures capable of containing the New Wine. Three years after Billy Graham left, the status quo had been restored. Why? Because so many of the new and revitalized believers had not been drawn into accountable (“discipling”) relationships in well-led, Spirit-filled churches.

Revival, like the moment of salvation, is not the end: it’s a beginning, and as such it cannot be our goal. If it’s going to be worth the effort of praying for in the first place, we’ll first have to become a local church/churches full of leaders: self-sacrificing, dedicated, wise, patient, teachable leaders who are ready, willing and able to take the lead when the new people come in. Otherwise we’ll be like a thirsty man in a desert praying for a shower of rain. Actually, the first thing he needs to pray for is a bucket…… or perhaps he just needs to expend some time and energy making one. (That’s kind of what Carol and I are trying to do here.) Once he has a bucket he can sensibly pray for rain, knowing that when the shower comes he’s not merely going to move from a state of dry-and-thirsty to one of wet-and-thirsty.

In short it’s not much use praying for revival if you aren’t also planning for revival and preparing for revival. Consider how the St Andrews churches would cope if their congregations suddenly doubled or tripled, and that with completely unchurched people. How would we cope and how long would those new “converts” stick around?
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……I believe that as we work patiently to build up the church(es), through our relationships and every gift of the Spirit, we are approaching nearer to a state of readiness for Revival with a capital ‘R’, whilst witnessing every day the creeping, small ‘r’ revival we already have. “Do ye not perceive it?”, as the old-timers used to say!