New Ways to do Important Things
The church still holds to the Great Commission. Thank God this is still important to us today. As society and culture changes, the message of the Gospel and the command to propagate it remains the same.
The challenge of a changing society comes in how we accomplish the tasks facing us. How can we be successful in spreading the good news of Christ effectively? Over the years and decades we have tried many different methods. There was a day when bus ministry was a powerful tool (my wife is a product of a bus ministry). Sunday School drives and VBS have reached scores of children (end even adults) during different time periods.
Revivals use to last a week (even more in some cases). Over the years we have seen the duration of revivals decrease to Wednesday through Sunday, or Sunday through Tuesday, or weekends only. There are many reasons for this and we could debate them all day. Regardless of the causes it is a reality that revivals are not as widely attended and we have decreased both their frequency and their duration because of it. This is what my ‘This Week’s Featured Service\Tool’ is about. You can read about it below.
Our methods can change. They aren’t sacred and we should guard against them becoming so. What worked years ago may not be as effective today. There will likely be a time when what works today will be ineffective. In the 19th century a progressive group brought an item into the church and several of the people looked upon it as worldly and evil. It took quite awhile for it to be accepted. What was this item? It was the organ. Now in many churches it is being replaced with other instruments and there are people who think that is worldly and evil. Methods will change but the message of Christ and His atonement never changes.
This Week’s Featured Service\Tool
The Multiple Week Revival
We talked about Revivals above. Revivals have gone through quite a metamorphosis over the years. We have decreased the frequency and the length gradually. We have debated the purpose - are they for evangelism or for ‘reviving the church’?
One of the biggest challenges for holding a revival is that many families today cannot attend every service of a week long, or even an abbreviated week or revival. In many cases they cannot attend even a majority of the services. We wring our hands over this and bemoan the problem or we can try and come up with ways to still reach these people with the benefits of revival.
One solution is the Multiple Week Revival - schedule revival one night per week for multiple weeks in a row. This extended revival has the benefit of enabling families to set aside that one evening per week to attend, which is far easier than 4, 5 or 6 nights in a row. The other benefit is that after the first evening it is far easier to invite a friend to come with you to the next service since it is a week away rather than the next evening. It gives your friends the opportunity to plan their schedule. Plus if the revival is good, people are excited and they use that week in between to convince their friends to attend.
The obvious limitation to this kind of revival is that a traveling evangelist can’t stay in a location for several weeks. Isn’t interesting though that this model is much like the method the Apostle Paul used? The evangelist\revivalist must be able to be in the area for several weeks, meaning most likely they will have to be local. This is merely a limitation not a problem. For those churches that are in reasonable travel distance I will bring Refreshing Rain Ministries to your church for revival for multiple week services. I will provide the preaching as well as special music which will include myself as well as some other special musicians and\or singers. Think about this option and contact me to discuss.
Until then and next time, God bless you.
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