When you look at the culture around you—when you consider the spiritual state of our society—what do you think? Does a Christlike spirit define the words and actions of our leaders, our neighbors, our families? Is the church of Christ boldly proclaiming the Gospel and successfully modeling Christian love and integrity to a watching world?

In the eyes of many Christians, the answer is a definite no—looking around us, we see violence, immorality, and dishonesty where there should be peace, righteousness, and integrity. We see a Christian church struggling to preach the Gospel message in a way that the world can understand… and we see the church struggling even to train and disciple its own to become effective followers of Christ. Maybe, looking around at all this, you even think to yourself something like: If only a spirit of Christian revival would take root in our culture today, we could truly impact our world for Christ.

If you’ve ever thought something along those lines, you’re not the first person to do so: at different points in history, there have been periods of spiritual revival that witnessed outbreaks of large-scale, sometimes nationwide fervor for Jesus Christ. From the so-called “First Great Awakening” in the early 1700s to the “Jesus people” movement of the 1970s, there have been times when the conditions were just right to kickstart a spiritual revival in which thousands or millions committed (or recommitted) themselves to Jesus. Sometimes those revivals were short-lived and quickly faded from memory… but others had long-lasting effects on the church and popular culture.

Some have suggested that the conditions are right once again—that the world is primed for another Christian revival movement to sweep through hearts and minds. In fact, there are Christian ministries working toward that very goal, through prayer, evangelism, and missionary work. Some of those ministries are plugged into the Gospel.com community. This week, we’ll be talking about revival in all of its incarnations, from personal, individual revival to worldwide revival, and we’ll be highlighting a few of the ministries that are working to make it happen. (You can take a look at some of them at our Revival topic page.) So as we kick off the new week, take a few minutes to ask yourself: is the time right for a revival in my country? My community? My own heart?

By: Andy. This entry was posted on Monday, April 7th, 2008 at 6:20 pm and is filed under revival. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.