Friday 13th July 2007 What is revival?

Revival = God's finger pointing at me.
As I type this Michele is in her bed talking to herself. She is supposed to be sleeping. She will. Cathy is asleep in her pram. It is the only time the pram gets used. Don't know why we have one. If we take it up town it gets used as a shopping trolley. Mind you it makes a better shopping trolley than those feral things that pass as shopping trolleys these days. About the only thing they do is give you pulled muscles.
Back to DD number 1. She is talking to herself about William. Who is William? William is one of the boys at her preschool. He is a good little boy and for some reason Michele has taken a shine to him. They are opposites. He is very quiet and reserved where as Michele is noisy and outgoing. She use to like Ruby. But not any more. Ruby is like Michele, a bit bossy when she puts her mind to it.
It's been fun and games in our house this last week. Cathy discovered early in the week that she could roll from her back to her tummy. She no sooner found out how to do it then promptly forgot. So now the frustration blues have set in again. Hopefully over the weekend she will discover it all over again. Her training is coming along fine. Mind you I did learn all about preconceived ideas and the absolute necessity of telling Mrs Proverbs 31 exactly what I was on about. Oh, yes, Stephanie will be henceforth in this blog be known as Mrs Proverbs 31. Why? Go read Proverbs 31 and you will see why.
Now what has all that got to do with Revival? Glad you asked. Nothing. Not a thing. More on revival later. Maybe.
Did I share about our nightly family prayer life before? I can't remember. Well here it is. We have prayed with Michele for ages as she goes to bed. Either myself or Mrs Proverbs 31 would pray whilst Michele and Cathy sat on our laps. Well about 2 weeks ago decided to up the standard a bit. We would all pray corporately. We divide the nightly prayer up into sections. Pigeon holes if you like. We then take it in turns in each section. Usually myself or Mrs Proverb 31 will open then each of us brings a praise point. Something we each want to thank Christ for. It doesn't have to be anything mind blowing or of earth shattering importance. Next comes confession and repentance. We put these 2 together. You can't have one without the other. Well, you can but it will be in vain. Next comes petition. Then either Mrs Proverbs 31 or myself will close.
Back to revival. Now revival presupposes there is life or at the very least once was. Revival is to revive. Revive is made up of two words. Re, in other words to do again, and Viv which means life. So, that which was alive is now dead and needs to be bought back to life. Now I am going to put a question to you that was put to me just this week. Who needs revival? Well that's easy, or is it. Now name someone who needs reviving. Look at your fingers. See a couple of things were made really clear to me this week. We really do need to get our terms and definitions clear.
Revival is for the church. It is not for Mr Joe Blog on the street. He doesn't need reviving, he is dead. No life then you can't revive it can you?
What he needs is an awakening. He needs to see his need of Christ in the first place. What that happens that is an awakening.
Evangelism is for Mr and Mrs J Blog in the street. What is evangelism? It is when a bunch of saved folks gets together with Mr and Mrs J Blog and tells them about Christ, they in turn get an awakening and are spiritually born, then when they gets spiritually dead they are revived.
See I was like a lot of folks I get my terms and definitions mixed up. What I needed to do was to get my terms and definitions unmixed up. How is that? Clear as mud? Good. Now you know as much as I do.
Just one more little thingy before IO get off here. It was suggested to me this last week that the great Welsh Revival was in fact an awakening, not a revival. Unsaved folks is awakened. Saved folks is revived. In the Welsh Revival unsaved and un-churched people began for no explainable reason see their need of Christ and came together en mass and did so. The established church apparently came in later. Hows that for a bit of trivia. Now if you want to know more then go here: http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=519 And listen to the down loads.
What other pearls of wisdom have I got? None. I really have enjoyed what Christ has been showing me this last week and look forward to more of the same next week.