by Steve | Jan 26, 2001 | Archive - 2001
Archive: How Shall We Pray for Revival
By Nicky Gumbel
January/February 2001
Good News
“I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem, They will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth” (Isaiah 62:6-7).
In the autumn of 1857, New York was in the midst of what was regarded as a national disaster – a financial crash which ruined many of its 1 million population. On July 1, Jeremiah Lanphier, a middle-aged businessman, took an appointment as a missionary in the city center. Churches were suffering from depletion of membership as people moved out of town. Lanphier decided to start a lunchtime prayer meeting. On the first week, he prayed alone for half an hour until five others joined him. The following week twenty came. Within six months, 10,000 people came daily to pray and a revival in North America had begun. Samuel Prime comments, “the places of prayer multiplied because men were moved to prayer. They wished to pray. They felt impelled, by some unseen power, to pray.”
If we, too, want to see revival, how are we to pray?
First, we are to pray constantly. The watchman “will never be silent day or night” (v. 6a). We are to be different from Israel’s watchmen of the past who “lie around and dream, they love to sleep” (Isaiah 56: 10). lnstead, we are to “pray continually,” as the New Testament encourages us (1 Thessalonians 5:17). Paul wrote to the Christians in Rome and told them, “Constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times” (Romans 1:9-10).
The source of the river of prayer which flows in the South Korean church today originated in the dedicated prayer among missionaries and South Korean church leaders at the turn of the century. The Pyongyang revival of 1907, for example, began at a mass meeting in which thousands were caught up in a wave of the Spirit which swept over the entire Korean church. An eye witness account described it like this:
“After a short sermon Dr. [Graham] Lee took charge of the meeting and called for prayers. So many began praying that Dr. Lee said, ‘if you want to pray like that, all pray,’ and the whole audience began to pray out loud, all together. The effect was indescribable. Not confusion, but a vast harmony of sound and spirit, a mingling together of souls moved by an irresistible impulse to prayer. It sounded to me like the falling of many waters, an ocean of prayer beating against God’s throne …. As the prayer continued, a spirit of heaviness and sorrow came upon the audience. Over on one side, someone began to weep and, in a moment, the whole congregation was weeping …. Man after man would rise, confess his sin, break down and weep, and then throw himself to the floor and beat the floor with his fists in a perfect agony of conviction …. Sometimes after a confession, the whole audience would break out in audible prayer and the effect … was something indescribable …. And so the meeting went on until 2 a.m., with confession and weeping and praying.”
Another example of constant, steadfast prayer is Dr. Jashil Choi, mother-in-law of David Yonggi Cho, pastor of the world’s largest church located in South Korea. Dr. Choi gave herself to praying for long periods on a mountain, living in fact, for three years in a tent on the site. In 1974 a permanent building was erected and prayer meetings which attract large numbers of people have been held every day since. Prayer Mountain has grown to be a place where thousands of people come daily to fast and pray. A modern 10,000-seat auditorium has been added which is now too small to hold the crowds that come. Attendance varies, but normally at least 3,000 people are daily praying, fasting, worshipping, and praising our holy and precious Lord. In this atmosphere of concentrated prayer, healings and miracles are a common occurrence.
David Yonggi Cho writes, “I am convinced that revival is possible anywhere people dedicate themselves to prayer … it has been historically true that prayer has been the key to every revival in the history of Christianity.”
Secondly, our prayer should be disciplined. Those who call on the Lord are exhorted to “give ourselves no rest” (Isaiah 62:6), to pray regularly, day in and day out. This is not always easy.
John Arnott, the senior pastor of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, which has been at the center of a remarkable move of God’s Sprit, wrote of his struggle to maintain a disciplined prayer life:
“In my own case, the struggle has been desperate and intense. There have been seasons of wonderful times ‘in the closet with my heavenly Father, praying to him in secret and being rewarded by him openly.’ During such times, one feels that everything is working out for the good, and one wonders why we could ever be so foolish as to not spend generous hours in communion with God. Then suddenly the cares of this life descend with such fury that the now-found prayer route is derailed once more, and the battle to regain it continues.”
Thirdly, we are to pray with urgency. Not only are we to give ourselves no rest but we are to “give him no rest” (v. 7). We are called to be passionate and pressing. Jesus told his disciples a parable “to show them that they should always pray and not give up” (Luke 18: 1). Although the judge in the parable “neither feared God nor cared about men” (v. 2), he gave a persistent widow justice because she kept on asking until he was concerned that she would wear him out – “I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!” (v. 5). Jesus comments, “And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off! I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly” (v. 7-8).
The persistent widow is a good model for us as we pray for revival because she challenges us to be honest about our present state and to ask God passionately for change. “Only when we realize and admit our true condition will we long for revival,” writes Brian H. Edwards in his book Revival! A People Saturated with God. “Praying for revival is not enough: we must long for it, and long for it intensely.”
The historian of revivals, R.E. Davies, wrote: “The most constant of all factors which appears in revivals is that of urgent, persistent prayer. This fact is acknowledged by all writers on the subject.”
Fourthly, our prayer should be persevering. The watchmen are to pray “till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of all the earth” (v. 7). They are to pray until the whole earth gives praise to the Lord.
Duncan Campbell writes of the 1949 Hebrides revival: “I believe this gracious movement of the Holy Spirit … began in a prayer burden; indeed there is no doubt about that. It began in a small group that was really burdened. They entered into a covenant with God that they would ‘give him no rest until he made Jerusalem a praise in the earth.’”
They waited. The months passed, and nothing happened, until one young man took up his Bible and read from Psalm 24: “Who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart …. He shall receive the blessing from the Lord.” The young man closed the Bible and, looking at his companions on their knees before God, he cried, “Brethren, it is just so much humbug to be waiting thus night, month after month, if we ourselves are not right with God. I must ask myself – ‘Is my heart pure? Are my hands clean?”‘ He asked God to reveal if his hands were clean and his heart was pure. As they waited on God his awesome presence swept the barn. These men came to understand that revival is always related to holiness. Three men were lying on the straw having fallen under the power of God. They were lifted out of the ordinary into the extraordinary. They knew that God had visited them and a power was let loose that shook the parish from its center to its circumference. In a house four miles away from the barn, two sisters – one was 82-years-old and doubled-up with arthritis and the other was 84-years-old and blind – had a vision of God. They saw the churches crowded, especially with young people. They had a “glorious assurance that God was coming in revival power.”
Their minister sent for Duncan Campbell to come for a 10-day mission, but he was booked up until the following winter. The minister read Campbell’s reply to the two old ladies. They said, “That is what man hath said, but God hath said otherwise. Mr. Campbell will be here in a fortnight.”
His convention was cancelled and he arrived on the island and went to the parish church. The meeting began at 9 p.m. and continued until 4 a.m. There was a crowd of more than 600 inside, with still more listening outside. No one could explain where they had come from. Strong men trembled in the presence of God, and many fell prostrate on the floor. Within 10 minutes Campbell’s voice could not be heard, as so many were crying out to God for mercy. The sound of singing had been replaced with a cry of penitence – “God be merciful to me, a sinner.” As people experienced the holiness of God, they committed themselves to seeking after him. The movement swept into the neighboring parish. There was such a sense of God there that one businessman visiting the island said, “When I stepped ashore I was suddenly conscious of God. He met with me and saved me.”
The challenge facing the church today is to pray for God to “rend the heavens and come down” (Isaiah 64: 1), to give us “a consciousness of the presence of God, the Holy Spirit literally in the midst of the people.” We need a new righteousness, a new freedom, a new identity and new love. It is easy to give up interceding and to grow despondent when we do not see instant results, but we need to pray constantly, calling on the Lord in a disciplined and urgent way “till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth.” Individual and corporate prayer are a vital part of preparation for revival which in turn leads to greater individual and corporate prayer. As Billy Graham once said, the three keys to revival are prayer, prayer, and prayer.
Nicky Gumbel studied law at Cambridge and theology at Oxford, practiced as a lawyer, and is now ordained and on the staff of Holy Trinity Brompton Church in London. He is the author of the Alpha Course. He is also the author of Why Jesus?, Questions of Life, Why Christmas?, Searching Issues, and numerous other books. This article is excerpted from his book, The Heart of Revival. © 1996 Cook Communications Ministries, Heart of Revival by Nicky Gumbel. Reprinted with permission.
by Steve | Jul 10, 1996 | Archive - 1996
The Pensacola Outpouring
By Steve Beard
July/August 1996
The final evening after a week of revival services is always bittersweet After all, God has been at work in the lives of the faithful. The preaching has been challenging, the praise and worship music has been inspirational, and hearts are transformed at the altar. God’s presence seems almost palpable. In response, men and women make heartfelt commitments to spend more time in daily worship, Bible study, and prayer.
After all of this, the evangelist packs up and travels to the next town. Slowly we adjust to the absence of the fiery sermons and altar calls. Not long after, we appoint a committee to plan for next year’s revival.
What would happen, however, if the evangelist never left? What would happen if revival never ceased? How would we adjust?
That has become a major question at the Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida. On Father’s Day Sunday, June 18, 1995, evangelist Steve Hill shared about a life-changing experience of literally being overcome by God’s presence and overwhelmed by his love several months before at Holy Trinity Brompton Anglican Church in London. When Hill asked how many would like to receive a refreshing of the Holy Spirit, more than 1,000 people responded. As he laid hands on people, the Spirit of God swept over the congregation in an unusually powerful way.
The morning service lasted till 4 p.m. Needless to say, the Lord had more in mind on this Father’s Day than merely taking the dads out for lunch. One year later, Hill is still there preaching. From all indications, the church has happily adjusted and is praying, “More, Lord, more!”
Since that Sunday, more than 20,000 people have made public commitments to Jesus Christ at the Brownsville Assembly – many of them actually running and diving for the altar. Punk rockers and lawyers, strippers and bankers, truck drivers and crack addicts have all found new life in Christ at the church. One couple who had been divorced for a year discovered one another at the altar after each had independently given their lives to the Lord. They are now remarried.
Simultaneously, untold thousands of Christians from virtually every denomination – including United Methodism – have experienced renewal by receiving prayer. Pastors testify to having received a fresh evangelistic anointing. Some believers respond to the prayer ministry with unusual manifestations such as trembling, groaning, shaking, and falling under the power of the Holy Spirit. Men and women from all socio-economic levels flock to the church in search of salvation, deliverance, Holy Spirit empowerment, and physical healing.
The Brownsville Assembly now holds revival meetings every Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evening. Cumulative attendance has been more than 650,000. On weekends, people arrive in the afternoon in order to find a place in the 2,300-seat church. The parking lot is usually still filled after midnight. License plates indicate that some have driven from halfway across the United States. As word has traveled across Christendom regarding what has become known as the “Pensacola Outpouring,” international visitors from throughout the globe have made pilgrimages to the panhandle city.
The revival has caused the church to make several adjustments – all of which they were more than happy to make. The financial burden alone includes additional phone lines, child care helpers, drinking water, electricity, and parking-lot security.
“We’ve prayed for revival for two-and-a-half years, and we knew one was coming,” said Pastor John Kilpatrick of the Brownsville Assembly. “But this magnitude has shocked us.”
Preparing for revival
Dr. David Yonggi Cho, pastor of the largest church in the world located in South Korea, was praying in 1991 for revival in America. He believes that the Lord led him to point his finger at Pensacola on a map of the United States. “I am going to send revival to the seaside city of Pensacola,” Cho sensed the Lord saying, “and it will spread like a fire until all of America has been consumed by it.” Pastors in the area have been mindful of the prophesy ever since.
Pastor Kilpatrick sought God’s direction for their Sunday night services. The Lord reminded him of Matthew 21:13: “My house will be called a house of prayer.” He asked the women of the church to sew banners in order to focus specific prayer on issues such as spiritual warfare, family, souls, leaders of our country, healing, pastors, peace of Jerusalem, schools, and revival.
The night that the banners were paraded in, Kilpatrick didn’t know how to divide the congregation evenly between the banners, but he noticed that as each banner was carried in, different people began to weep. As the banner representing prayer for the leaders of our country came in, he lost all composure himself. At the Spirit’s leading, he encouraged the congregation to go to the banner that they had cried over. “As soon as I made that announcement, everyone got up and joined others around a particular banner,” Kilpatrick explains in his book, Feast of Fire. “No one was left in his or her pew and the people were evenly distributed. Prayers were lifted up that evening as our congregation set a precedence of intercessory commitment that continues weekly to this day.”
As the weeks went on, the congregation saw many prayers answered, but there was a special emphasis around the revival banner. More and more people joined the prayer for revival each week. “They would gather around it for long periods of time, seemingly in deep travail and especially intense intercession,” reported Kilpatrick.
Pastor Kilpatrick and evangelist Steve Hill are both very quick to point out that what is taking place is not only for Brownsville, let alone for the Assemblies of God. Instead, this revival is for all. Southern Baptists, Episcopalians, Roman Catholics, and independents have all been touched.
One group that has been blessed is the United Methodists in the Pensacola area, most notably the congregation at the Pine Forest UM Church.
A family revival
Marilyn and Ted Bridges attend Pine Forest. Prior to the revival, they had been separated for more than six months. “I thought things were going along real well, but evidently they weren’t,” Ted, a retired Army colonel, told Good News. “I wasn’t a drunk, but I abused alcohol. It was really weighing on my heart.”
Marilyn told Ted that she would come back if he would hold his drinking. “I could see that he was coming to grips with it,” she reported. “We were struggling because his anger was coming back. I could see him dealing with that anger, but he still had a long way to go.”
Shortly before the revival, the two of them ended their separation. However, neither of them could have anticipated the transformation in their marriage that was about to take place.
On the first night Marilyn went to the services, she came home at two o’clock in the morning. Her husband said, “Good gracious, where have you been?”
“To the revival!” she responded. Marilyn told him he needed to join her. Although he didn’t want to go, Ted gave in under one condition: “I’ll go, but I’m not going to stay until two o’clock in the morning. I’ll take my car because when I get tired I’m coming home.”
At the conclusion of the service, the ministry team attended to those desiring prayer. “I knew that if this as really of God then there was going to be some kind of dynamic force there,” said Ted. “And there was.” Ted received prayer and “it was like my legs were knocked out from under me, and I couldn’t get enough of it after that.” They returned the next night. Ted received more prayer and knew that he was different.
“I still have a long way to go,” says Ted, “but I’m a lot better person than I was.”
“From that very first night that Ted and I were together at the revival,” Marilyn told Good News, “God healed all the hurt of 30 years of struggles that we had had. It was a miracle.”
The revival has had an effect upon the entire family. Their 19-year-old daughter Leah remembers the night well. “I was praying for Dad too,” she said. “The Spirit of God fell on me as I was praying for my father and I started crying. I had gotten to the point where I couldn’t talk to my father because I had so much anger. And he had told me many times, ‘Sorry,’ but I had not let that go, and that was sin in my life. God was pulling that out.” Reconciliation within the Bridges family has been one of the faith-filled outcomes of the Brownsville revival.
Needless to say, Ted’s life has not been the same. It was not long thereafter when he stood up in church and said, “There cannot be anything going on in your life that is important enough to keep you away from the revival service. You need to go and experience it.” He couldn’t contain himself. “I had to say it,” he says. “And now I can’t keep quiet.”
An initially skeptical pastor
The Rev. Perry Dalton, senior pastor of Pine Forest UM Church, was on vacation when the Brownsville revival broke out. Youth director Linda Smith alerted him to what was going on. After all, she had begun attending on the third night with members of her youth group.
Dalton was encouraged to attend but initially thought to himself, “I don’t really need this. I’m a very happy pastor with a growing church where a lot of things going on.” Nevertheless, he agreed to go, secretly hoping it would die before he got there. Of course, it didn’t. “After the first or second revival meeting, I realized that God was doing something here and I needed to be a part of it. And my church needed to be a part of it,” he told Good News.
The relationship between Brownsville Assembly and Pine Forest UM Church is wonderful, reports Dalton. “There is a real ecumenical spirit towards the Methodist Church. There has been no effort to steal sheep away,” he reported. “There has been no effort to ask [UM] people to give their time back to Brownsville. There has been every opportunity to include them in what they were doing.” Dalton is one of several local pastors that participate in Friday evening baptism services at Brownsville.
“I have more committed Christians now than I have ever had,” he says. “The Brownsville situation really created a holiness in the lives of the people, a real desire for righteousness.”
Because of the revival, Pine Forest UM Church has made a few adjustments- primarily by offering several different kinds of worship services. “That has worked fairly well,” reports Dalton.
Of course, the manifestations – particularly the shaking and trembling under the Holy Spirit among the youth – can create quite a stir. Recognizing that manifestations are certainly not common within contemporary United Methodism, Dalton says, “We don’t encourage the manifestations but we don’t discourage them. I don’t really see it as an obstacle or a problem. I had never seen the manifestations within the Methodist church before this, so my concern was what it was doing to my congregation and how I was going to come back and relate to it.”
The revival also caused Dalton to examine his own Methodist roots. “I have a new appreciation for the Wesleyan revival.” Some of what he sees in Pensacola is reminiscent of what John Wesley observed in his journals. “That’s part of my heritage I didn’t know,” he says.
“The aspect that is new to me is the depth and length of time that this has gone on,” Dalton says. “What God has done here is let it go on long enough that it has had some good lengthy results.”
Youth ablaze
Most of the young men and women in the Pine Forest youth group were Christians before the revival. As one girl described the situation, “We were Christians before, but now we’re on fire.”
“Before this summer, I was backslidden,” says Jennifer Coe, 17, president of the youth group. “I knew right from wrong. I knew enough to know that what I was doing was wrong, and I was miserable where I was at.” Throughout the summer, God had created a spiritual hunger in Jennifer. She has been a part of the revival since the second night. She prayed, “God, I just want more of you.” She didn’t know what to think of all of the aspects of the revival, but she knew God was there. “I could feel the presence of God so strongly,” she told Good News. “It was like soaking in his love.”
These young people have become very serious about intimate worship and repentance. “I just want to go praise God,” says Tamara Nowin, a 17-year-old who attends Aldersgate UM Church in nearby Molino. “I wasn’t really committed until I went to Brownsville. I knew there was more I had to give up. I saw how powerful God was and I didn’t understand why I was holding on to these things anymore. I just wanted to give it all up.”
“The first thing it affected was my desire to worship the Lord,” says Terrie Taylor, a youth counselor at Pine Forest. “I had a new hunger to praise Jesus. I was excited about coming to church. I don’t think I ever really worshipped until now. I had a new hunger to read the Bible. I noticed right away being able to focus on Jesus without any distraction in my quiet time.”
For the two year before the spiritual awakening came to Pensacola, youth pastor Linda Smith had encouraged the young people to pray for revival. She even helped initiate what would become the Pacesetters Bible School in order to provide in-depth theological and Biblical studies for young people. She has “never seen such fast-forward spiritual growth” in all of her years of ministry. Smith believes that this generation holds the promise of great spiritual destiny. It has been through her encouragement and discipleship that so many youth in Pensacola are seeking the deeper things of God.
The young people claim that the change in their musical tastes is probably one of the most noticeable responses to the revival. The majority of them have given up on secular radio altogether. Instead, they prefer to listen to Vineyard-style praise and worship music.
Brian Hansen, 17, got rid of a sizable musical collection. “It was tame music compared to what’s out there, but when you put it next to God’s light, it’s still moral filth,” he told Good News. “It was a big purification thing in my life and God blessed me though it.”
Others in the group spoke of their declining interest in television. “’Ricki Lake’ was the best talk show in the world,” says Janet Webb, 17. Now she only watches Christian programming and the news.
“God has changed so much in my heart,” says Missy Gandy, 14. “Before the revival, being a Christian meant not doing certain things and coming to church once a week. Now its a lot more. It’s my life. It’s everything. It’s wanting to live for God, and that’s all I really want. It’s my heart’s desire.”
Caleb Phillips, 14, is relatively new to the youth group. He has only been to Brownsville once but he says that the changes in his friends and the around the church are obvious. “Our Bible studies have been stronger, more powerful; we can sit there for hours and talk about God.”
Caleb has been involved in many youth groups because he is part of a Navy family that travels frequently. “I never would have even imagined a church group like this,” he said. “At other churches, you go on Sunday and Wednesday night, and it becomes repetitive … .I’ve gotten to the point where I like coming to church. I used to do different things so I wouldn’t have to go. I’d be sick that morning or something else. Now I even enjoy the preaching. God really opened my ears so that I could hear and understand.”
The revival has also given many of the young people a deep realization of God’s love. “Lately, God has been trying to tell me that he is going to be my Daddy,” says Erin Butler, 15. “Not ‘O Heavenly Father,’ but Daddy. I’m starting to find verses in the Bible about the Father. Whenever I pray, I picture myself running up and sitting in his lap and hugging him really tight. I tell him everything like he was my daddy.”
“Before the revival the whole concept of God was a philosophical discussion for me,” said Brian Hansen. “The theology and the ethics were interesting, but I couldn’t understand how God could be personal to me. After this revival, he became so real to me. I used to be plagued with doubts and now they are gone.
“When we pray we are not praying to a God who is an infinite number of miles away,” he continued. “Our God is closer to us than anyone else can be.”
The Pine Forest youth group is confident that it is part of a special generation that is in the midst of a historic moment. Some of them testify to having seen angels at Brownsville and other visions from the Lord. Others have shaken under the power of the Holy Spirit while in school – public and private. Yet Terrie Taylor simply summarizes the change within the members this way: “Increased hunger for the Lord and for witnessing. They had that already, but it just grew. An increase in their wanting to speak and share with others. An increased burden for others to get saved. There’s fire in their hearts.”
Spreading the fire
“A revival of this magnitude occurs once, perhaps twice in a century,” says youth pastor Linda Smith. “True revival, according to church history, is spontaneous and occurs sovereignly among church people much like spontaneous combustion where the conditions are perfect to create a fire.” With all the prayer offered for revival, Pensacola was ready for this outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
“What’s happening lines up with the inner witness of believers,” says Smith. “It lines up with church history, and it lines up the Scripture.”
Those in Pensacola are looking to spread the revival fire. Like others of her generation, college student Leah Bridges is grateful for the revival but does not intend to merely live off of the fumes of old memories. “We need to come back to this river to be cleansed and washed and renewed, but He is telling us to take it other places,” she says. “I have no idea how long God’s going to have this revival here, but if it does stop, my heart’s desire is that we’re not sitting around going, ‘Remember the days when we had revival at Brownsville.'”
She believes that her generation must take the revival fires to other cities and countries. “I feel like that’s the burden God has laid on my heart and many other youths. My generation, we are the ones that God is going to use.”
Steve Beard is the editor of Good News.
