Pastor's Thoughts: April

Have you ever wondered why we hold revivals in our churches? I know that I have asked that question before. At one time, I thought revivals were useless. I thought it was an antiquated practice that needed to be removed from the life of the church. I had witnessed revivals where church members invited members from other churches to come and listen to the revival pastor preach a sermon. It seemed to me that revivals were a way for church members to show off their churches to their friends who attended other churches. In my mind, I thought this was not the purpose of revival.

I could not be further from the truth. That is exactly the purpose of revivals. I thought that we should be witnessing many people coming to faith in Christ at these revivals. However, the reality is, that revival is for the church, not the community. The community can't be revived because the people in the community have not experienced spiritual life to begin with. The very nature of revival is that God works in His people, those who have experienced spiritual life through faith in Christ, in a fresh and powerful way to revive them.

My desire to see people come to faith in Christ through revival is part of God's purpose for bringing revival to His people. When God revives the church, the church will have a renewed sense of purpose and mission. When God brings spiritual revival to the church, the church will naturally begin to reach the community with the gospel. When God is at work in drawing people to Himself through the reviving work He does in His church, He begins to produce an awakening.

An awakening is when the lost people in the community around a church (or other gathering of God's people) hear the gospel from the ministry of the church and many of them believe in Jesus for salvation. When our church experiences revival, the result should be an awakening in our community.

If you have not already made plans to attend our revival that begins this coming Sunday, let me encourage you to plan on attending. This is a great event to invite people to. Invite your lost friends and your friends that attend other churches. We want God to bring revival to New Hope and the other churches in our area. Let's all plan on gathering as God's people to allow Him to work in our hearts and lives in a mighty and powerful way that New Hope would be the starting point of an awakening in our community.

New Hope's revival will begin this coming Sunday (4/7) during both morning worship services, and Sunday thru Wednesday (4/7 - 4/10) evenings at 6:00 p.m. I cannot wait to see how God is going to use New Hope during this time. Join me in praying for revival to come to New Hope and pray that God would use Mike Landry as our revival preacher.