I found this quote from my old pastor John Wimber:

We need to be aware that in times of great blessing, there is also the potential for great testing and trial. This is not the time for ‘business as usual’: This is the time to get deep into prayer and God’s Word, and deal with those cracks and holes in our spiritual lives, to get our lives in order – because with great blessing goes great pressure.

Some of the activity that is going on is quite extreme, and it’s incredibly easy in these times to become so enamored of some aspect of the outflow of God, that in trying to protect or champion it, you will find yourself out of line with orthodoxy. Down through the history of the church many wonderful things have happened that have produced much fruit. But certain aspects of these things have led people to get out of line with Scripture and the church, simply because of the excitement of the movement and the intensity of the phenomena, often resulting in the birth of a cult.

As leaders we need to remain congruent with orthodoxy and orthopraxy, to maintain our focus on the ‘main and the plain’ in Scripture.

Response:

This is really good counsel for all of us, particularly in times of revival or during special moves of God. We can get so caught up in what going on that we forget and actually ignore the basics. Pastor Stephen Winters (SLW) recently posted about some of the unwanted ‘side-effects’ of revival. I have been chewing on some of his comments for a couple of weeks now. His observations are well taken. I believe that we need to remember the counsel of my old pastor John Wimber and stick to the basics especially in times of extraordinary spiritual blessing when we start to think that we are ‘bullet proof’.

‘Business as usual’ is not adequate during times of great outpouring. Exceptional responses are called for. We need to listen and respond to the Holy Spirit, our feet need to be firmly placed upon the rock of our salvation (Jesus Christ), and we need to stand up completely balanced by the basics of our faith (especially prayer and Scripture).

Today (Sunday) marks the 150 year anniversary of the beginning of the Fulton Street Revival, one of the greatest ‘unreported’ revivals of all time. It started with a few laymen meeting together for prayer on Wednesday 23, 1857 and grew until over 50,000 in New York city were pausing at noon to pray everyday. It spread across the entire country and in a year and a half over a million people were converted to Jesus Christ.

This was not a movement with major preachers or any prominent leaders, but was started and fed by laymen and women hungry for greater daily relationship with God, and was called “the Layman’s Revival” by some.
Services are planned in New York to commemorate the Revival with a hope that revival will come once more to our land.

We have been posting about revival for some time on this blog, I thought you might be interested in reading a Baptist vision of revival.I found this article on the Baptist Press. Here, Southern Baptist Convention President Frank Page calls for continued prayers for Revival and then gives a glimpse of what he believes revival would look like. Page sees at least three key elements of revival “when the Holy Spirit Comes”:

— A love for God’s Word.

— A focus on evangelism.

— A unified focus.

Response:

Actually Rev. Page’s comments are quite good and I do agree that those three elements will be part of any revival. However, I believe that a coming revival will bring us closer to God in a more personal way. Also, I look forward to much more “when the Holy Spirit comes” in power.

Rather than write more about my own expectations, I would like to hear from some of you. What do you look forward too and what is your vision of revival?