June 30, 1999
EDITORIAL:
Another revival? Are you ready?
___Can we experience revival again?
___That question echoed throughout the Revival Revisited symposium at Samford University this month. Old men who once breathed the sweet fragrance of God's presence gathered to recall those heady, wonderful days. They were the human catalysts for the youth revival movement that began at Baylor University in 1945, engulfed Texas and swept across the South. (See a report of their reflections beginning on page 1.)
___Fifteen veterans of this century's greatest American revival laughed and cried as they recalled sermons and songs, fun times, the movement of the Holy Spirit and the intensity of those days long ago.
___Yet speaker after speaker also turned to the future. Aging men assessed America's need for spiritual renewal. "Can we experience revival again?" they asked.
___A great gulf lies between "can" and "will." If the question is, "Will we experience revival again?" the answer is uncertain. But if the question is, "Can we experience revival again?" the answer is a resounding yes. The ingredients for revival that existed 50 years ago remain available today.
___First, of course, is God's blessing. The revival veterans noted the movement would not have happened without God. The Lord touched them and their audiences remarkably and unforgettably. As Howard Butt noted, the Holy Spirit "breathed" upon the movement, giving it life.
___And God seemed strangely moved by the prayers of young people. College students set aside large blocks of time to gather and pray. These prayer meetings focused the students' attention on the spiritual needs of a generation. But their prayers were not generic; they were specific. Speaker after speaker recalled agonizing prayers of confession and focused prayers of petition for the souls of their friends and classmates. "We were prayed up into assurance," Jess Moody reported. "You can't pray enough, but you will know when revival is going to come because of God's assurance, which comes as a response to confession."
___The youth revival movement also progressed because its leaders made themselves available to God and sublimated their egos. Looking back, they joked about how inexperienced they were. They teased about having "only one sermon" to preach. They acknowledged their utter dependence upon God for spiritual harvest. W.F. Howard, mentor to the youthful preachers, described young Buckner Fanning in a way that fit many of his fellow student leaders: "One of the things that made you have confidence in him was that he didn't have any confidence in himself; he had confidence in the Lord." Those revivalists, old men now, described their days together without a trace of envy or jealousy. They seemed to focus on God and set self interest aside.
___The South and Southwest experienced revival because the young leaders tailored their worship to the needs of their young audiences. BO and Dick Baker composed hymns and choruses that spoke to the spirits of young Americans searching for significance in their lives. A phalanx of preachers pointed their sermons at the concrete need for Christ, using the language and expressions of their peers. Young people intuitively sensed this revival was for them.
___And revival spread because the time was right. America rebounded from war, and her youth entered adulthood with firsthand knowledge of mortality and cruelty. Their search for meaning left them remarkably open to deep issues of the soul. Revival flourished because a relationship with Christ filled a spiritual vacuum that depression and war had made palpable in the lives of a rising generation.
___So, will America experience revival again? God still loves and blesses, that is for certain. Can we get on our knees and pray, confessing our sins and pleading for the souls of others? Will we place our lives in the hands of God, to be used as living instruments to touch others on God's behalf, to speak loving words in the name of Jesus? Are we willing to express the gospel in fresh, new ways that resonate with the inner longings and overt needs of Americans today? And can we interpret the times so that, despite relative peace and prosperity, Americans realize only Jesus meets a need that money and possessions cannot fill?
___We can experience revival again. It is flourishing throughout much of the Third World. Whether we will experience revival depends upon whether we respond to God's spirit and commit ourselves to the spiritual disciplines that fertilize the seeds of revival.
___ --Marv Knox
E-mail the editor at marvknox@flash.net
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