One of the many ways in which "church" has morphed is the absence of summer revivals. In my childhood, I remember sometimes revivals were held more than once a year AND I seem to recall going to an actual tent revival once. Tent revivals give new meaning to a hot time!
I remember revivals continuing until my adult years. By this time, they were always held indoors (we were all used to air conditioning) and had been shortened to a few days. with deep reflection over the past, I see how we have slowly progressed into these super busy lives we now have. People were too busy and the attendance at revivals dwindled from its peak days. You understand the trend when you look at how church services have changed to once a week. A few denominations hang on to the tradition of twice on Sunday and a mid week service, but I would dare say the majority of churches have only one service on Sunday morning (large churches have the same service multiple times on Sunday morning).
I will leave each of you to your own opinion on this dwindling of church attendance. Once again the pandemic did us no favor by introducing virtual services. Many prefer to attend church with their couch as their pew after two years of precautions.
The purpose of the revival was to push the restart button and ignite the engines for Jesus. It was a short concentrated time of reminder of our God from Whom all blessings flow. We were evangelized and inspired to do better. It was a kick in the rear end to kick start our quest for God.
Today we are called upon to seek a personal relationship with God and not rely upon the church to always motivate us. I spend a great deal of time seeking God on a one on one basis. BUT, were these revivals really so wrong? It is the same as anything ---if we are performing from rote and not thinking about it--on automatic pilot, I doubt the affect is genuine. BUT many a time I have been to a women's conference (perhaps today's revival) and come away energized and motivated. Whatever your opinion, surely we can all agree,
LORD, REVIVE US AGAIN!
"Will you not revive us again,
that your people may rejoice in You?"
Psalm 85:6
I remember attending Christian conferences with my parents in the 1950s, but never a tent revival. We DO need to hit the reset button on our faith-commitment now and then! Busy-ness has done us no favors.
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