The List is Growing

“Tell my people I am giving them a gift… the gift of a list.”

This is what the Holy Spirit whispered to my spirit as I wrapped (or attempted to wrap) gifts for my family just before Christmas of 2020. 

“What is this list, Lord?”  He clarified: “It’s the list of places where I am currently moving… and it’s growing!”

God is on the move: not tomorrow, but right now.

I’m tired of spiritual language that always puts revival in a “tomorrow” context.  We’re always waiting for the “big revival” to come.  If we pray, fast, have enough large gatherings, cry out, contend, and engage such spiritual calisthenics, then we are one step closer to the “big one,” the revival with a capital “R.”  Now, I believe everything I listed is good, and such items are spiritually helpful (mostly), but one of the greatest hindrances to experiencing the “big” revival (we all want) is discounting the small ones that are rumbling and thundering before us. 

We become lazy and irresponsible with right now because we are always forecasting revival to the future.  And as a publisher, I can tell you that “future stuff” sells.  Books on predicting and prognosticating generate interest, because everyone is attracted to the intrigue of what’s coming, but do we want to take responsibility for what’s here, right now?

The Bible reminds us to not despise the day of small beginnings (see Zech. 4:10).  Furthermore, we see a wonderful example in the life of Elijah of what it looks like to celebrate something small (the raincloud the size of a man’s hand) before it becomes a major outpouring of natural rain (1 Kings 18:44-46).

It’s time for revival now.  I don’t need a New York Times’ bestselling prognosticator to tell me what “time it is” in the spirit.  God did this quite clearly in Acts 2, as Peter cites Joel’s prophecy on the Day of Pentecost: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.” When are the last days?  Now.  In fact, we’ve been in the season of outpouring for the last two thousand years of church history.  We’re living in the time of rain, so we need to follow the Lord’s instructions and ask for rain in the time of rain (see Zech. 10:1).

My question, once again is what are we doing with the moment we have been given?  Are we crying out for something that we already have?  It’s not a matter of asking for God to send something down, but instead, it’s about His people stewarding Who was given to us on the Day of Pentecost.  This is what moves us closer and closer to the Capital “R” revivals that shift the cultural landscape (as we saw in the days of the First and Second Great Awakenings, Welsh Revival, Azusa Street, and others)

What’s happening—right now.

God is moving across the United States—right now.  In Peoria, Arizona at Fresh Start Church, Pastors Paul and Kim Owens are raising up “doorkeepers of revival,” believers and leaders who, in their territories and churches, sustain Holy Spirit outpouring by simply making God the priority of their ministry.  Their battle cry: “We won’t settle for anything less than Your glory!” Pastor Kim Owens encapsulates it beautifully: “Jesus is coming back for a church in revival!” I love the vigor, the passion and the Pentecostal fire they exhibit that refuses to tolerate dry or dead spiritual atmospheres.  They are five years into this and going strong! 

For three years, the North Georgia Revival, hosted in Dawsonville GA, has seen thousands come and experience the fire of God’s presence in the waters of baptism.  Emphasized are seeking the face of God, repentance, and wholehearted surrender to Jesus.  Resultantly, amazing documented miracles have taken place as people have renewed their commitment to Jesus afresh with baptism as a symbol.  Cancers have been healed, marriages restored, and broken lives made whole in utterly supernatural ways.

In Hamilton, Alabama and Cleveland, TN, The Ramp continues to see countless young people marked by the presence of God (so much so that they abandon sinful practices, lifestyles of perversion, drug addiction, pornography and other such strongholds because of a transformational encounter with the Holy Spirit).  Pioneered and led by the amazing Karen Wheaton, The Ramp has been going for over 20 years and it seems like the move of God’s Spirit is only intensifying in these recent days. 

Over the Summer of 2020, I got to know Jessi and Parker Green, leaders of Saturate OC in Southern California.  A pandemic broke out, ravaging the globe, and the Greens decided to obey the Holy Spirit and host beach meetings (although, they did not know these meetings would evolve into beach gatherings).  Thousands attended, they were written up in The Los Angeles Times and other news outlets, and the Gospel was preached… no, the Gospel was preached and demonstrated.  Usually, the preaching involved someone using a bullhorn declaring the simple Truth of Jesus, the reality of sin, and the need for people to repent, turn, and actually start really living.  The results were Biblical: people were saved, physically healed, filled with the Holy Spirit, delivered from demons and water baptized. 

Finally, I was asked to speak for a Saturday evening “Awakening” gathering at Trinity Church in Cedar Hill, TX.  As soon as I entered the sanctuary, I heard “the sound.”  It’s not good preaching or dynamic music.  You can have Broadway-caliber production value and TedTalk level communicators but not have the sound.  Pastor John Kilpatrick describes revival as having a sound.  While it’s hard to communicate what this sound is, I believe it’s the cry of spiritual hunger—desperation.  It’s a groan from a spiritually discontent people who recognize there is so much more than what they are presently experiencing.  Every service Trinity hosts is saturated in God’s presence, from the Young adult meetings to the weekly prayer meeting to the Saturday night Awakening service.  The secret?  A cultural decision by leadership to make space for the Holy Spirit, no matter what it looks like.

The list is growing.  How do I identify or recognize these revival “hot spots?” Simple. I lean in and listen for the sound.  There is nothing impossible to the spiritually hungry.  But it’s more than songs or messages that talk about how hungry or thirsty we are for God; it’s a spiritually aggressive company of people who press and push in until they see what they’ve read about in Scripture and Church history come to pass before their eyes.