This is going to be a quicker post today. I am sorry that I have not been writing, I have been swamped by life. But there are a few things I want to discuss in the future, including today!
I have been mauling over a lot of different ideas about how we live out our faith. Some ideas such as authenticity, being inclusive instead of exclusive, and our obsession with the term "revival" come to mind. I am probably going to cover the other two subjects in coming weeks, but I will start with one right now.
As I hang around Charismatic Christians more and more, I am finding that there are a few trends that are popular across the country. One of them is the idea of revival. When most people think of revival, they think of a big tent where signs and miracles happen. I know that is not the case, but it is the stereotype. With me, I often times get confused with the fascination for revival. The reason is that if our faith is so important to us, why don't we try to maintain it instead of letting it get to the point that we need to revive it?
I might get in trouble for the next comment, but it frequently seems that people are praying for revival in OTHER PEOPLE, not themselves. Instead, why are we not praying for God to change us so that he can enable us to care more for the people directly around us? We should also be praying that we can sustain his love in us to give to others without making them a number or treating them like an evangelism opportunity.
Recently, I was at a meeting in which it was mentioned that we need to be praying for revival on our predominantly Christian campus. This confused me because it does not seem that anything is wrong per-say, revival implies that something is dead and needs to be revived. When you go to a school that has become secularized or to a place that is devoid of God, that is where revival needs to be prayed for... because the faith is dead there. It just seems that we are wasting our time trying to minister to people who are already being ministered to.
But this is coming from me, who has not lived in a world where authentic Christianity is the norm. Christianity is looked at differently when it is not in a "climate controlled environment" such as church, school, or ministry outreaches. I had my life threatened at 16 for being Christian, I spent time in the Navy and other jobs in my past where I was subject to mockery and unfair treatment because of my faith. I have been threatened by other Christians as well, so I have learned that my enemies and friends are sometime the same thing. But I served my part, and in the end I was able to demonstrate what it means to be Christian and was given chances to be Christ to them. Those places needed revival. Maybe the school does need to be revived because it is dead, but the life that I see there is far greater than other places that I have been.
When I think about Jesus, He was dealing with the Pharisees who were dead spiritually. These guys felt that they could act holy but live a completely different way. Jesus threw the Torah in their face and told them how it was. Jesus went to the "sick", much to the chagrin of the religious elite, because he was being revival.
So my questions today are these...
1. Are we alive enough to instigate revival?
2. What are we reviving... and is it even dead?
3. Do we want it enough to go to darker places where we have to risk certain things dear to us?
Revival requires something being dead... can we go to the dead and bring life? My hope is that you will say yes.
