Revive the Church Today

The current outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the campus of Asbury University has touched me in a deep place.  It has touched me at the place where the Spirit dwells in me and the place where spiritual memories that kindle the fire of the soul are stored.  While it has not been possible for me to go as have so many others, my spirit has soared with each report read and my hope for a greater renewal than just a single university campus has incresed.   There is such a need for what is happening at Asbury in so many places.  

Our country seems constantly in turmoil and so many churches seem confused about what it means to be an offspring of Jesus and the Day of Pentecost.  I have been convinced for a long time that so many of our political problems and so much of the breakdown in the life of the church are not about left or right issues, but about core spiritual issues.  Particularly does this seem to be the case in the church.  Everything everywhere has become so politcized that we sometimes forget that the church is not a community defined by sociologists, but one which is a spiritual community.    

A spiritual community runs amuck when it strays from core spiritual issues.  The church needs to remember whose it is.  It belong to the Christ.  It must not forget that its source of power is not in councils or committees, but in the hands of the Holy Spirit.  And, finally it is imperative that the church find some way to separate itself from the agenda of the culture so that it can be free to go after the agenda of the Holy Spirit.  One thing is clear.  None of this is going to happen if the church continues to pursue its present course and only a powerful spiritual awakening such as we are seeing at Asbury will have the shaking power required for it to reset its course.