Why Revival Won’t Save the Canadian Church
(And Why That’s Okay)
Why revival won't save the church? I know, it's a little click-baity.
First of all, does the Canadian church need saving? Yes, unequivocally.
We aren't planting enough churches, while many are closing for good.
We aren't training enough pastors, and the ones we are training are not sufficiently equipped to minister to a culture in crisis.
We aren't winning many souls, and recent polling suggests that many pastors and leaders aren't even sure winning souls should be a priority!
In my opinion, our urgency should be at peak levels. But is revival the answer?
Let us begin by defining revival.
In revival, the Church is refreshed by God's tangible presence, often leading to packed prayer meetings and protracted worship times.
In revival, the Church is rekindled by the power of the Holy Spirit, commonly demonstrated in spiritual manifestations, visible repentance, and restored relationships.
In revival, the Church is replenished by the coming home of prodigals, fresh commitments to discipleship, and a harvest of new souls.
Revival is a move of God on behalf of His Church.
I am a lover of revival, a student of revival, and a beneficiary of revival. I discovered revival when— despite being raised by godly parents, growing up in a vibrant church, graduating from a Christian high school, working at Christian camps, leading Bible studies, etc.— I found myself, at 20 years old, ready to give up on Christianity.
During this season, I devoured the writings and biographies of revivalists such as Smith Wigglesworth, an illiterate British plumber with unparalleled faith to heal the sick, and John G. Lake, an insurance salesman turned evangelist, for whom miracles became an everyday occurrence.
These men and many others (including women such as Mariah Woodworth Etter) provided proof that there was more to Christianity than routine spirituality.
Their courage stirred me up.
Their prayers inspired me.
Their faith ignited mine.
I fed on their testimonies until I received my own personal revival that redefined Christianity for me and altered the course of my life.
Several years later, I was stumbling my way through planting our first church. With no revival in sight, our prospects for survival to say nothing of success, were slight. Our enterprise was underfunded, undermanned, and perpetually at risk of going under altogether. The stories of revival and the examples of revivalists kept me going in those years.
Sister Aimee's simple trust showed me the power of unadulterated faith.
Rees Howells' prayer life proved that the size of my public platform did not determine the extent of my spiritual influence.
Bill Johnson's preaching convinced me that revival was for today.
Reinhard Bonnke's autobiography, Living A Life Of Fire, demonstrated that the power of the Holy Spirit is really all you need— music to the ears of a struggling preacher with not much else to lean on.
My ministry has been shaped by revival, my faith has been nourished by revival, and I count as my spiritual inheritance the legacy of revivalists. I believe we should desire revival, pray for revival, and look for revival.
So it is not thoughtlessly, but deliberately that I have come to the conclusion that for the current state of the Canadian church, revival is not the answer. Why?
Because of what revival does. Revival benefits the church by blessing its existing structures. Revival revives, literally brings back to life, what exists yet lies dormant.
The 19th-century prayer revival revived the existing churches and denominations in the Eastern United States.
The charismatic revival of the 1960s and 1970s revived the centuries-old Catholic and mainline denominations across the West.
But perhaps the most illustrative historical example we have of the effect of revival concerns the Welsh revival of 1904. An undeniable move of God that reverberated far beyond the shores of Wales, it is credited with bringing hundreds of thousands of people to salvation. But though the revival began in and was sustained by minority Christian groups, the greatest beneficiary of that revival were the national churches, such as the Church of England. Why? Because they had the structure to embrace and assimilate the fruit of the revival.
Once again, revival benefits the church by blessing its existing structures. Where there is no structure to bless, revival is not the answer. In fact, like new wine in old wineskins, an outpouring of the power of God upon an unstructured church or an unprepared people is simply a waste.
Based on the above observation, and speaking broadly, the Canadian Church is neither prepared nor structured for a national or even regional revival. Our condition is akin to a vision seen by the prophet Isaiah.
Isaiah 61:4 ESV
They shall build up the ancient ruins; they shall raise up the former devastations; they shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.
Does this prophetic assessment not match the condition of the church in our nation?
When entire denominations are disappearing in our generation, are we not in an age of ruins?
When churches are shutting doors every week, what is it but devastation, at least to those who sacrificed to build them?
When church attendance has dropped from 65% to less than 10% in 50 years, has the devastation not already affected multiple generations?
The Canadian Church needs repairing more than it needs reviving. She isn't crying out for revival, she is calling for restoration. She needs to be reshaped more than she needs to be refreshed. And in response, God is moving! But not in revival; in reformation.
Why does this matter? Because we might be looking for the wrong move of God. While we await revival, we might be missing the reformation.
But more importantly, this matters because expectation impacts identity. If God is moving in reformation, we must identify ourselves as reformers, not revivalists. Isaiah's vision is more than a diagnosis, it is a declaration of the identity of the men and women God is raising up in this hour of reformation.
A proclamation that in response to ruins, God is raising builders of His house.
That in response to devastation, God is ordaining designers of His temple.
That in reply to the destruction in cities, God is empowering repairers of the breach.
That for the devastations of many generations, God is releasing an anointing for restoration.
Revival will not save the Church, change the nation, or fix the culture. But that's okay; revival is not the only way God moves. Take courage Church, the reformation has begun.
Love the part explaining the difference between revival and reformation.
Ministering to a “culture in crisis” is the key. Lost souls need to be ushered into the Church that will allow them to reconceptualize the authority and objectivity of God’s Word.