How to Bring Revival to Your Church
He did this to present her to himself as a glorious church without a spot or wrinkle or any other blemish. Instead, she will be holy and without fault (Ephesians 5:27, NLT).
Dear friends:
Previously, I provided some suggestions for your personal spiritual revival.
After you experience revival inside the little circle that in your mind you symbolically drew around yourself, as I described, it is time to reach outside your circle and yourself, to your family, and then to your spiritual family — your church.
Below are some suggestions for helping to bring revival to your church. Whatever you do, do it with humility, with a servant’s heart, and not as though you are suddenly a spiritual giant and everyone else is spiritually inferior to you. God will bless your efforts.
Here are some ideas:
1. Encourage your pastor and church leaders to preach and teach on the attributes of God as a basis for first love, faith, and obedience.
2. Organize a 24-hour prayer chain divided into 96 fifteen-minute periods. Ask participants to pray around the clock for revival among church members and for a great spiritual harvest of new believers.
3. Choose seven different church members to meet with the pastor early each Sunday morning for prayer and to receive his prayer requests for each day of the week, each day assigned to one of the seven.
4. Invite several church members to gather for prayer during each church service, especially while the pastor is preaching.
5. Encourage all church members to fast and pray on behalf of the pastor and the church for one 24-hour period each week.
6. Ask your pastor or church leader to emphasize biblical truths on repentance, confession of sin, restitution, and reconciliation among church members.
7. Teach members how to be filled with the Holy Spirit and walk in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit by faith as a way of life.
8. Train church members and other Christian groups on an ongoing basis to share their faith more effectively in the power of the Holy Spirit.
9. Designate one night each week for positive, aggressive evangelism as a part of church visitation.
10. Challenge members to help fulfill the Great Commission in their neighborhood and develop a vision for the world.
11. Encourage members to understand the law of sowing and reaping and honor the Lord through obedient and faithful stewardship. Teach them the joy of giving tithes and offerings.
12. Teach the history and conditions of revival. Encourage members to read biblical and historical accounts of revival.
Yours for helping to fulfill the Great Commission each year until our Lord returns,
Bill Bright
About the Author
The late Dr. Bill Bright was Founder and President/Chairman Emeritus of Campus Crusade for Christ, an organization which began as a campus ministry in 1951 and now has more than 27,000 full-time staff and up to 500,000 trained volunteer staff in 196 countries in areas representing 99.6 percent of the world’s population. In the past 50 years, Campus Crusade for Christ has seen approximately 6 billion exposures to the gospel worldwide. The film, “JESUS,” which Bright conceived and funded through Campus Crusade for Christ, is the most widely translated and viewed film of any type ever produced. Since its use began in 1980, the film has been translated into 839 languages and viewed or listened to by over 5.7 billion people in 228 countries. Dr. Bright was also the author of more than fifty books. Dr. Bright recently co-founded Global Pastors Network to “Touch, Teach and Train” a group of 5 million new house churches around the world 24/7/365 at http://www.globalpastorsnetwork.org.
Copyright (c) 2003, Bill Bright. All rights reserved. Used with permission.