Growing up, I did not truly understand what revival was. Like most Baptist kids, I thought revivals were a week-long series of meetings where, if you were lucky, a few folks got saved, and the people who had been giving the pastor (my dad) such a hard time repented. Honestly, that’s what I thought.

I started preaching at 14 years old. I preached more youth revivals than I can remember. The novelty of a teenage preacher got me lots of invitations. The measure of a successful youth revival was only slightly different. We were still hoping for a couple kids to get saved, but we were focused on a different kind of troublemaker. We wanted the guy who dealt drugs at school or had gotten a couple of girls pregnant out of wedlock.

It sounds a little crass and hard-hearted, but that’s how we approached things in my little country church. In our defense, we didn’t know any better and thought we were doing God’s work in scaring the resident sinners and backslidden Christians into running to the altar to confess their sins.

It wasn’t until years later, when, as a pastor, I started researching historical revivals and awakenings, that I learned how off-target I was. Genuine revivals were much more than protracted meetings. For the most part, they weren’t the result of human planning and marketing. They were sovereign moves of God, which accomplished His purpose. They were radical, earth-shaking experiences that left in their wake whole cities full of transformed people. They would never be the same again.

Even though humans can not produce revival by adhering to a formula, it is also true that common characteristics are present in most cases. For example, they seem to be a spiritual response to great crises, tragedies, or catastrophes. They also appear to be God’s answer to His people, sometimes as few as two or three, who persistently, agonizingly, and sacrificially cry out for God’s presence. It may also be noteworthy that God generally does not use celebrities to usher in a genuine revival. Some examples might be Jonathan Edwards, Francis Asbury, James McGready, Barton Stone, Jeremiah Lanphier, and William Seymour. 

So, are we going to see a revival? Well, we’ve met the first criteria, haven’t we? We are in crisis. We are experiencing moral decay in ways that haven’t been seen since the Roman Empire. We also have plenty of ordinary people, not particularly special in any way. God uses “plain people.” What we are lacking is people who pay the price of prayer. Missionaries like David Brainard, who, at 98 pounds, knelt in the snow and prayed for his Native American “congregation” for twelve hours, from sun-up until sundown. Preachers like John Wesley rose every morning at 4 a.m. to keep his appointment with God. Men like Praying Payson prayed so long and with such intensity that when they prepared his body for burial, he was found to have pads on his knees like a camel, callouses from kneeling on the hard floor beside his bed. 

This is what we’re missing. Not people who pray to fulfill a time requirement. Not people who pray because they feel obligated to do so. No, these were Christians who were so hungry for a move of God, so heartbroken of the spiritual condition of their nations, and so burdened for the souls of lost men and women, boys and girls, that they could do nothing else but pray.

I have prayed all my life for revival, but not with the fervor it deserves. I have hoped for it but have not cried for it as often as I should have. There are no callouses on my knees from praying, no grooves worn on the bedroom floor, and no tear stains on my pillow. I repent. I confess. I must change. That’s where revival begins.