Just completed another great weekend at Christian Life International in Pascagoula, Mississippi! We saw many people commit their lives to Jesus in the morning service, and the Holy Spirit showed up and showed out last night!
I see a tremendous pendulum swing across the country; there are people and churches that are at the “top of the mountain”…then there are those churches that seem to be taking their last breaths…the undertaker is coming for them…soon!
I think part of the answer is hunger and thirst! In those churches that are moving, it’s not just the innovative ways pastors and congregations are using to spread the Gospel that’s bringing people in (that’s some of it); it’s the hunger and thirst for God and His Spirit that is drawing the Presence of God, convicting people, healing people, baptizing them in the Spirit.
And in those churches Pam and I have been in that are not moving…in everyone of them the majority of the people are not hungry for God and therefore are not hungry to see lost people come to Jesus!
Are you hungry?
Technorati Tags: revival, revival update, hunger and thirst, Christianity, Christian living
You are so right! I see people in our own congregation that is so hungry for more of the Holy Spirit and power. Yet there are those who are clueless to the atmosphere around them. It has amazed me at how transition can affect a congregation. Some it will cause a drawing to toward the Spirit and some it will cause an evasivness of others. My heart cry is drown me O’Lord in your Holy Spirit.
Hey Bro…. Great Post..
With your permission, I would love to copy and paste this in our weekly bulletin for this Sunday…
thks,
ss
I think you’ve found the pulse point with this one, David. My question is: “How do people become hungry and thirsty?” Is it a sovereign work of grace, do they need to be driven into the wilderness, do they have to hit bottom before they’ll look up, do we need camel knees like James? I’m sure most pastors would love to shepherd the First Assembly of the Parched and Ravenous, if they just knew the sure-fire means of developing spiritual hunger and thirst. It seems to me, there’s a Doolittlean quandary at work here, you can’t push them nor can you pull them.
Slw,
I think it’s a combination of all you mentioned. I wish it wouldn’t take a calamity to wake some folks up…but it will! At the same time, I realize there are times I have needed something major to happen to wake me up! I am at the place in my life (and I tell God this every day) I don’t won’t a disaster to have to happen to get me to the place where His Glory can shine through me! I have to believe the old saying, if we catch on fire people will come and watch us burn!
But I also heard the pastoral care and frustration (to a degree) you have that wants everyone in your congregation to want all God has for them!
And yes Shane, you don’t even have to ask permission…I don’t have anything to sell!!!!!
And Pastor Jack,
drown me too!
David you said” I have to believe the old saying, if we catch on fire people will come and watch us burn!” Now days they won’t watch you burn they try to put the fire out.
I forgot I HAVE been to those churches……well, I’m wanting to forget:)