Just What is "Revival?"

As most of you know, Boonville Wesleyan Church will be conducting Revival Services this week. Please be in prayer that we have good attendance and that people are encouraged, motivated, and/or won to Christ...

A.W. Tozer well stated, "To be effective the preacher's message must be alive; it must alarm, arouse, challenge; it must be God's present voice to a particular people."

Wikepedia gives a good definition of a Revival service:

A revival meeting (or "gospel crusade") is a series of Christian religious services held in order to inspire active members of a church body and to gain new converts. These meetings are often conducted by members of American Protestant churches and those educated or influenced by them; missionary works of such churches often conduct revivals in Africa and India.

Generally speaking, a revival meeting consists of several consecutive nights of services conducted at the same time and location each night, most often the building belonging to the sponsoring congregation but sometimes a rented secular assembly hall, for more adequate space, to provide a setting that is more comfortable for non-Christians, or to reach an community where there are no churches. Tents were very frequently employed in this effort in the recent past, and occasionally still are, but less so due to the difficulties in heating and cooling them and otherwise making them comfortable, an increasing consideration with modern audiences.

The length of such meetings varies. Until the last quarter-century they were frequently a week or more in duration, especially in the Southern United States. Currently three or four days is more typical, although occasionally some are still held, especially in Pentecostal groups, "according to Holy Spirit time", that is until the visible results seem to slow or stop and attendance dwindles.

Most groups holding revival meetings tend to be of a conservative or fundamentalist nature, although the phenomenon is far from unheard of in other Mainline groups, which used to conduct them with a far greater frequency and fervor in some instances than is now fashionable. Similar events may be referred to as "crusades", especially when a particularly noted speaker like Billy Graham or Oral Roberts is involved.

In the Churches of Christ such events are almost invariably referred to as gospel meetings rather than revival meetings. This group is one of the most likely to conduct such events in the 21st century. For the most part, aside from the large, spectacular "crusades", most American Protestant groups other than Baptists and Pentecostals have become less active in holding revival meetings in recent years, but some of the vacuum has been filled by similar activities hosted by nondenominational community churches, most of which are conservative in theology. Many revivals are attempts to catch much of the flavor and fervor of the camp meeting without exposing their participants to the physical rigors of such an experience.