REVIVAL IS COMING, AND THIS TIME IT WILL BE DIFFERENT
I’d like to talk a bit about our upcoming Revival, scheduled for March 15-18. First, let me give you a bit of history. We’ve had revivals just about every year since I have been pastor. For a long time they have fallen under a similar format. We invite different speakers for every service, usually local pastors and ministers that I know and respect. Our music minister will lead the singing and invite special guest singers for most of the services. We will promote special emphases for children, youth, men, and women. The results have been good in a lot of ways. Sermons and singers have been uplifting and challenging, and we have met some wonderful ministers that we would otherwise not get to know. And we have seen a few people saved, which is of course a most important matter. Of practical importance for a small church, we have done it all with just about as little expense as possible. One-time guest speakers who already have paying jobs do not need much remuneration. And our own music director and musicians have continued their roles by guiding in these services. But, at this stage in the life of our church, it is time to do more than play it safe and just have an event. This time we are doing things differently. I believe the change is fairly intense, the opportunity for something good to happen in our church rather exciting. And there are no guarantees. Hopefully, prayerfully, the Spirit of God will empower these meetings and our church will get onboard and this will prove an amazing and even life-changing experience. But there is always the possibility of business as usual with nothing much happening of real significance. I guess ultimately it is up to the church- i.e. you and me.
Our preaching evangelist is Jon Reed. He is a God-called, full-time, proven-to-be effective evangelist. He does exactly what we need, guide churches into the experience of Revival. I encourage you to check him out online at www.focusedevangelism.com. He lives in Bethlehem (Georgia!), has a beautiful family, and is President of Georgia Baptist Evangelists. I have met him and we have talked at length about our church and what we need. He is humble and absolutely serious about being an instrument for God to use to help our church. You might want to listen to some of his sermons, for he is a fine preacher. Interesting to me, Jon has developed a phone app which will help us to pray and invite others to our revival services. He will tell us about it when he comes to preach and teach on Feb. 16. Our music evangelist is Kevin Harry, coming from Douglasville. Kevin serves in full-time music evangelism, sharing with trumpet and song in all kinds of venues and especially churches. He blessed our church in concert a few months ago. I enjoyed his music immensely, but even more was impressed with his testimony. This guy is going to be a beautiful fit for our church. There will be a place for him to share a concert during our revival. He will lead congregational singing and give special music, and no doubt we will hear more about his personal walk of faith. Learn more, and listen to his music at www.kevinharrymusic.com.
We will do some fun things like a parking lot family outreach on Saturday afternoon and a men’s chili cook off on Monday night. But, foremost it’s all about you and I finding spiritual re-energizing. I’m thinking this is shaping up to being the most amazing week ever in the history of Mt. Tabor revivals. Mark your calendar: Sunday, Feb. 16. Evangelist Jon Reed will be here at 9:45 to train us for Revival during the Sunday School hour, and to preach during worship at 11:00.
