Thirty Minutes, Thirty Days

The past week I have been hungering for spiritual revival more than usual.  The situation in our church and the situation in my own life have made me seen that we actually need it and need it badly. 

I don't have to wonder what a revived church looks like. I am seeing it in several churches my wife and I have visited lately. For example in a Presbyterian church we visited,  the pastor is filled with energy as he preaches the Word.  They have gone to two services, and are pulling out extra chairs. There is power in the pulpit and joy in the pew. In a Lutheran church we visit,  people are weeping  in a midweek service.  In an ARP church we visited,  people are sitting still for forty-five minute sermons and coming back for more. An EPC church nearby is outgrowing their facilities and seeking to relocate where they can have more room to reach out to the poor.   God is not asleep, and neither are all His people. 

These churches are all very different in style and even in theology. But the one thing that they all have in common is that the people and the pastors are passionate about what they are going. 

It's not people that we need. It's passion.

A few days ago, I blogged about the Asbury revival, how a group of students and faculty made a covenant to spend thirty minutes each day for thirty days seeking God and practicing the Spiritual disciplines.  Once a day, they covenanted to share God's grace with at least one other person.  Then they came together weekly to pray and discuss what they were learning.  As a result, God came among them.

All this isn't new.  The modeled it after what the Wesleys started at Oxford.  Back then, the results shook England and the world.  What could it do today?

Are there people who would like to join such a thirty day prayer experiment today?

Suppose a group of people, even people who were widely separated in distance, were to make  similar covenant to give God thirty minutes for thirty days, together with a few other stipulations.

• To pray for personal renewal of ourselves, not to focus on the shortcomings ofothers
• To share a common Bible reading for each of those thirty days,  to focus our prayers and purpose together.
• To come together with at least two other people to discuss what we have read, for at least thirty minutes once a week.  Coming together in person would be best, but in the days of electronic communication there are many other possibilities.

• To daily tell someone what God is doing in our lives

• To daily call someone we know and pray for them. 

That's it.  That's all.  The purpose would be self renewal and self-revival. But when God lights a fire, it spreads. 

 The secret of revival, at least it seems to me is not to pray for it, but to pray for ourselves. We pray that God will revive us. Then He will use us to revive others.  We are the key to unleashing God's grace, by releasing the Spirit to do His work within us.  

This is just a proposition.  I do not know the next step. Maybe some of you do.  For now, though, please pray with me, that God will give us guidance.