Revival Meetings
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Revival MeetingsMy church has been in revival this week and coincidentally there’s also a revival meeting in the early chapters of Gracie’s Babies. So, as we met an evangelist and prayed for the Spirit to move, my mind had already been on a “protracted meeting” and I couldn’t help but make a mental comparison.
You may recall in some of the writings by Callie Melton that I shared here last year, she talked about preachers coming into the neighborhood to hold “protracted meetings” – I like that term. I guess that while we schedule special gospel meetings for 3-5 days they opened a revival and kept it open so long as the Spirit was moving. And the Spirit did not disappoint in many of those meetings.
Meeting in brush arbors or hot church houses, the crowd would often be standing room only. Families walked, rode a mule or drove rough wagons sometimes for hours to attend. Even in the 1980’s I remember revival meetings that were standing room only, and we didn’t have air conditioning for those August dates either.
Today we’ll drive to church on smoothly paved roads in temperature controlled cars, sit in cool sanctuaries on padded seats. There will be electric lights so no matter how late the preacher holds you, there’s little chance you’ll be sitting in the dark and a sound system ensures even those in the back of the building clearly hear the sermon. Yet we’ll be lucky to have half the seats filled (okay that statement was void of any faith, wasn’t it?)
In the upcoming book, the Clear Creek Baptist Church hosts a traveling evangelist who preaches for a full week. Gracie, the book’s protagonist, has to miss the first meeting as she attends a sick neighbor. While she’s deeply blessed to be at the bedside there’s a pang of regret at missing the revival service – and all the action her sister comes home to report. Not to fear though, Gracie and her family will make it to every other meeting that week as will young people from all of the surrounding communities. It’s clear that the Bible lessons are only part of what those teens want from the services yet they eagerly participate in that part as well as the fellowship with old and new friends alike.
In fact, the meetings of old truly did revive those attending. I’m not sure what’s changed in our crowds or our hearts since then but I sure wish we could get back to something close to the spirit of those protracted meetings.
