(pic credit: ‘Birthright’ ©2024 by Nicole Griffith. This beautiful work of ‘prophetic art’ is used with her permission)
The ‘Pursuing Revival Culture’ blogs are essentially ‘Part 2 – 4’ of a series, attempting to describe and give form to ‘what’s going on’ around the world in this new Revival…
The first ‘part’ of this is the previous Blog, ‘We Are the New Jesus Awakening’, which can be read at:
Enjoy… join us!
A CONVERSATION…
The room was a-buzz with the usual energy of a couple dozen SoCal church leaders and pastors putting their best out there. It was a free luncheon around a University’s attempt to enroll leaders in a new Evangelical ‘Masters’ program.
The buzz in the dining hall was how a number of SoCal churches were trying so hard to attract ‘young people’ and ‘young couples’ into their membership.
“We’re a really on-fire, Spirit-led church, with a really kickin’ worship band and a lot of freedom…” announced this young, well-dressed leader to the group of eight around the table. His name-sticker had a well-known, traditional, conservative Evangelical denominational church listed under his name.
I was curious… and emboldened by the strong coffee.
“On-fire, Spirit-led?” I asked
“Oh, yeah, we see the Holy Spirit move a lot in our services.”
I continued. “Meaning, you have times of healing and miracles? Signs and wonders? Deliverance”
This young, upwardly-mobile career-minded professional blanched. “Oh, no.” he insisted. “We have on-fire people passionately singing and raising their hands during the song-service… hearts moved during the preaching…” He smiled a grimace, adding “we don’t do that Bethel stuff…”
He could see the variety of glances and glares at the table. “Oh, we have a great statement of belief at [name witheld]… sure, God can still heal…”
He perked up. “We have revival every Sunday at [name still with-held]…”
I decided to focus on the fruit tart just served…
WHAT IS REVIVAL CULTURE?
The unfortunate reality around ‘labels’ that have been around for generations is that the same words can mean many and different things to people.
‘Revival’ is one of those words.
In the new Jesus Revolution, we define revival in a new way… and work to step aside of arguments and ‘statements’. We strive to make revival a lived reality.
“Real revival is actually meant to be the normal Christian experience” says Pastor Bill Johnson in his book Open Heavens.
Adding a new angle to these old words, the term revival culture is now being used in the Revolution.
Loosely, revival culture refers to ‘revivalists’ who, together “are learning to live in the Kingdom of God and extend its borders through a supernatural lifestyle. Bringing Heaven to earth wherever they go while being naturally supernatural, they collectively release joy and live out their God-given and unique identity, gifting, anointing, and destiny.” [see https://bssm.net/culture/revival ]
Revival culture will also involve my new favorite ‘abbreviation’ SHMSWDS… Sozo Healing Miraculous Signs Wonders Delivered Saved…
Historically, this was the realm of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movements, but now ‘out in the open’ and invading the other flows of Historic/Liturgical and Evangelical/Fundamental through revival culture.
‘…IT IS WRITTEN…’
Of the literally hundred-thousand churches that exist in America, and the 2.6+ billion people who hold to a Christian ‘confession’ world-wide, most would consent to the concept or idea that ‘God can heal’, ‘the Holy Spirit can do miraculous things’… IF they wanted to…
Undeniably throughout the Biblical narrative, God did a number of miracles, healings, signs and wonders, and deliverances. Old and New Testament. Many modern denominations and church movements have written that narrative into their ‘statements of belief’, theologies and creeds.
The operational word here is ‘did’. God did those things, they agree.
However, many modern denominations and church movements have built a careful position to say that God did those things, but essentially does not do those things anymore.
[Look up Cessationism or Cessationalism.]
There are also many, many post-Revival movements [like the Assemblies of God] who have written into their ‘statements of belief’ that God can do these things today, and sometimes does… but…
Depending on the region of the country or world, many of the leaders and pastors of these post-Revival churches were educated in hard-core Evangelical seminaries, and have buried their pursuit of ‘revival culture’ by adopting a practice and building a ‘non-experiential’ culture, while embracing the practices of Cessationalism.
I call this the ‘Protestant-Luther Illusion’; ‘if it’s written down, then that’s what we really do!’
Not.
THROUGH HEARTS AND LIVES
How do you know you are in a ‘revival culture’ church, community or group?
Don’t look at their ‘statements of belief’ or theologies.
Don’t listen to hours of their preaching, trying to extract Holy Spirit references.
Don’t watch their on-line worship services, to hear if they do up-beat music and people raise their hands, and the song-service goes for four songs, not three…
Look at what they do in their gatherings… it leaks through their hearts and lives
Look at what they give time to when they are together.
Look at what they give space for when they are together.
Look at what they actively prepare for when they are together.
Look at who they have ministering when they are together.
What we DO, not just what we SAY.
When they are together… ‘gathering’, as we call it:
[] Time… they have times of calling out healing… they take large chunks of time to pray for the sick, pray for needs, pray for impossible situations… time to pray for people who have deep emotional issues ‘going on’… praying for people who need a miracle in their bodies, their families, their lives… times of prophetic ministry, more than “My people, I love you…” encouragement.
This issue of time really stands out… not just a passing or general prayer, but sometimes allowing HolySpirit to over-run the gathering, and the ‘preach’ gets moved to another gathering.
Time, in that the usual 90-minute space becomes 3 hours, half worship, half ministry time.
In ‘revival culture’, times of passionate worship grow and expand, so that we find ourselves worshipping for 20-30-40 minutes, and ministry begins to be called out and break out… and 90 minutes later, the sick experience healing, and people have hope imparted in their lives!
For all you leaders and pastors, if this doesn’t happen regularly… regularly!… sorry, you are not a ‘revival culture’ church!
[] Space… every gathering is truly ‘given over to HolySpirit’, and the ‘service plan’ easily gets re-arranged… in the space given, there is no anxiety, tension, anger or perturbed people because ‘God showed up, and people were getting ministered to…’
We in the Revolution hold to the new metric of gatherings. When we come together, we consider a ‘successful and productive’ gathering IF [a] God showed up in a powerful way, and [b] anything He told us or led us to do, we did it.
Period.
In today’s church culture, those are truly radical metrics. We don’t have any regard for numbers of attendees, numbers of visitors, level of excitement or emotion, or the $$ of the offering. Revolution, revival culture churches and gatherings have rejected these metrics of the invitational church movement that has dominated the last half-century.
Space also means that there are places to pray with people, areas in the room dedicated for ministry, bottles of anointing oil, Bibles ready to be given away to newbies who confess Jesus at that meeting. Space to move about.
Space also means that ‘words’ and ‘the prophetic’ has space, that trusted prophetic people are allowed to share words, that leaders can call out a move of HolySpirit for that moment [‘I feel the Lord wants to give courage to those of you who are hugely dis-couraged right now… raise your hands if you need that released and prayed over you…’].
Space also means that the poor, the homeless, the lost, and the hurting can come to the meeting and be truly welcomed. ‘Revival culture’ and ‘religious culture’ are never synonymous, and creating a gathering where all are welcome requires intentionality.
[] Actively Prepare… this means people who are ready to take the wild ride into HolySpirit ministry, both theologically/Biblically, and emotionally… prayer teams who are mature and trained… people who know how to hear HolySpirit as He whispers words of ‘strengthening, encouragement and comfort’ (1 Cor 14) in ‘personal prophetic prayer’ [my new term]… people who meet together outside the general gathering and ‘hone their gifts’ of praying for the sick, the suffering, the oppressed, the demonized, and anyone who desperately needs miraculous breakthrough… the prophetic people [ie, people who are ‘going after’ prophetic words… not ‘prophets’; that’s a whole other thing…] meeting together, encouraging and exhorting each other ‘pressing in’ and ‘speaking to the Body wisely’, learning that the ‘spirits of those who prophesy are subject to those prophetic people’ [1 Cor 14:32]…
Leadership in ‘revival culture’ environments requires maturity, humility, extraordinary Godliness and personal pursuit of holiness, and a very big willingness to ‘wisely let it get weird and wild’ in the gatherings, but never outside the two ‘channel-curbs of HolySpirit’ [don’t quench the Spirit, don’t grieve the Spirit… 1Thess 5, Eph 4]. They are comfortable with loud and seemingly out-of-control, but can clearly know and discern when it’s OK to ‘let HolySpirit have His way’, and when something needs to have some leadership exercised. HolySpirit brings the gift of Discerning of Spirits for leaders when He shows up [1Cor Ch 12-14]. These leaders have learned to curb a demonic or a show-off person from making a scene, but also to allow a weeping and wailing soul to ‘let loose’ as God is pouring grace and mercy out.
‘Actively prepare’ means teaching and raising up other leaders in those areas, and those leaders build and pastor ‘teams’ around those areas of ministry… healing prayer, ministry to hurting, deliverance, worship, counseling afterward, teaching classes on praying and prophesy and Bible study and home groups and worship and…
Oh, yes, ‘actively prepared’ means music and worship, with totally God-directed tunes, knowing how to ‘take out a song’ for 15 minutes as need-be, that the worship ministry isn’t the warm-up band for the ‘Holy Man’ coming up with the mic and doing a belting solo… worship musicians whose hearts are set for the ‘audience of One’, and not doing arena-rock shows goaled at ‘look at me!’ solos and vocal lines…
THE test of this is how prepared is the band and singers to have to ‘riff it’ with directions from the ‘lead worshiper’ of that song… and look totally like Jesus is sitting right there in the middle of the stage the whole time, facing them, watching them, and totally pleased!
The other ‘test’ is what percentage of any worship-leader talk-talk is TO God, or to the Congregation… I totally goal for my stage-chatter to be 100% God-directed: “if it needs to be said from stage, it can be prayed… if you can’t pray it, don’t say it…”]
[] Who They Have Ministering… is it a one-man [or one-woman] show, or a huge team inter-working well? A great deal of talk-talk and not pray-pray? Lights and stage and camera-angles that focus on ‘look at me!’? When it’s time for ministry, is it the ‘Holy Man’ out there with a mic, yelling and making a scene, or is it the whole room coming un-glued with HolySpirit moving? Is the congregation released to be the ministry team at certain junctures? Are the people in the prayer teams comfortable and well-prepared for kind, careful, Godly ministry? Are women and men ministering together, or are there imbalances? How appropriate is the ‘laying on of hands’ during prayer, and are those doing the ‘laying on of hands’ displaying appropriate training and discretion? Are ‘cover-up coverings’ available for women who are wearing skirts and dresses and ‘hit the deck’ in the HolySpirit?
In the New Jesus Revolution, there is a push hard against the cult of personality that has dominated the Church for the last half-century.
‘Who is ministering’ does mean we have tested-and-released people who take the mic and lead for a bit, wise and acknowledged leaders who preach and open up the Scriptures to us, times where it even looks like the modern-day ‘preacher in the pulpit and congregation listening’… but! In revival culture gatherings, it is always… always!… heading into a time of ministry, prayer for needs, ‘ministry teams’ at work!
TAKE-AWAY:
<>This particular blog focused of gatherings, not personal devotion or singular ‘revivalist ministry’.
That’s because ‘culture’ always involves a group of people, and how they interact together.
<>In ‘We are the New Jesus Revolution’, I wrote that most of us in the Revolution are ‘allergic’ to the ‘traditional’, ‘invitational’ or ‘3-songs and a 1-hour preach’ way most of American churches ‘do church’ in the 2020’s.
Unfortunately, it is also that we have received some pretty harsh and un-kind words from the people who are deeply invested in ‘evangelical culture’ and its’ expression for the last half-century.
Mix in the recent blight of ‘christian nationalism’ [lower case purposeful] and the politicalization of the Evangelical church, and people in that flow quickly realize the New Jesus Revolution won’t play well with them, since we only acknowledge Jesus as King.
I also wrote how most in the Revolution are repelled by the common model of church leadership today, which is ‘vertical’, ‘pyramid-shaped’ and very power-focused.
Many, many, many in the Revolution have some really terrible stories of mis-treatment by leaders and pastors of ‘regular churches’… mainly because they don’t fit in to the ‘mold’.
God is re-doing Ekklesia in our day. Just as hundreds of old churches are closing each week around the country, Jesus is building a whole new thing, and thousands are being saved and baptized into this New Revolution weekly!
Truth be told, every week I am coming into contact with another group of radical Revolutionaries who are gathering together in the most unique ways.
Ekklesia, built directly by Jesus, just like He said He would [Matt 16:18].
They are worshipping and praying and waiting and singing and ministering one-to-another. They are going out and feeding the homeless and sending money to ministries and supporting each other. They are banding together in intense study of the Scriptures. They are praying radical prayers, and the accounts of healings and miracles and provision and signs and wonders and deliverance and freedom are… are… well, huge and numerous and glorious!
Many of these revival-culture clusters don’t have pastors or staff or a budget. They don’t have buildings or property or land or overhead.
Interestingly, they use social media to communicate and edify, but focus on actual physical gatherings.
They usually don’t have a 501c3’s or charitable foundations. They encourage people to tithe to the needy, homeless, and ministries that are doing real things to meet needs.
God is paying their bills. I literally heard a story of one leader ‘in prayer to pay a bill’ related to their revival culture gathering. He went fishing, and literally found money in the mouth of a fish! Claiming that prophetic encouragement, they saw the bill covered within a week!
All ‘volunteer’. Every aspect of ministry covered. They gather in living rooms and back yards and loaner storage units and… well, anywhere they can. Loaner sound systems. Musicians buying and bringing their own gear and instruments.
“All you need is two or three gathered, He’s there… King Jesus… off we go!”
They do have leaders and wise coordinators and people who are deeply experienced and mature that lead, oversee and teach others. Their Scripture studies are mind-blowing!
There are people who are ‘going out’ as missionaries, sent out by their circle of radical Revolutionaries, some going to super-far-away places and seeing people come to Jesus, healed, set free, delivered. They are establishing churches in their extreme settings. It’s a missionary movement un-parallel in the last few centuries, more reminiscent of the Moravian-Herrnhut missionary movement of the 1700’s, with its’ passion and radical vulnerability in HolySpirit, without a denomination, governing body or board of directors.
Strangely, these new radical Revivalist-Revolutionaries are hugely connected together, know each other, help each other out, worship together whenever they can, do life together…
Ekklesia.
Horizontal.
Horizontal leaders and relationships.
Jesus as absolute King.
HolySpirit filled and connected.
Acts 2 community.
Oh, yeah, ‘Communion Revival’ keeps popping up.
<> Lastly, I would be remiss to not mention how ‘big gatherings’ seem to be having pups and off-shoots and are constantly becoming available, many are free to attend.
Huge stadium gatherings like… The Send. The Million Women March coming up. Christ Crucified. The Gathering. Passion. Heaven Come. BraveCo.
There are dozens that are happening internationally… I just saw a video from a gathering in Nigeria, literally 200,000 people, worshiping for hours!
The ‘big gatherings’ have also gone digital. I was just in a week-long, daily ‘Prophetic Healing Explosion and Activation’ that connected over 2,000 people via social media and streaming.
<> ‘Revival is all about Jesus, and His Manifest Presence…’ has been my default for a long time, especially after studying historic revivals… ‘in a true revival, we experience His Presence, and He comes and does what He always does… heal, deliver, save, provide, make possible that which was previously impossible… on earth, as it is in Heaven becomes a reality… if it isn’t a reality in Heaven, then it must bend the knee to King Jesus…”
Being in an environment with other Revivalist Revolutionaries, pursuing ‘on earth, as it is in Heaven’… that’s revival culture come alive.
<> Revival is Divine Visitation. The natural Kingdom of God ‘next-step’ progression to Revival and Revival Culture is that God ‘tabernacles’ with us… takes up habitation, dwells with us, continual Presence outside the gatherings 24/7, radical community impact in and around the Ekklesia…
[… that’s whole different Blog in the works…]
<> Man, this is getting wild…
written by crisbaj
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New terms in this work:
The New Jesus Revolution
Revival culture
SHMSWDS… Sozo, Healing Miracles Signs Wonders Deliverance Saved
PPP… Personal Prophetic Prayer
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