The Christian Church today has become emotionless. So many denominations have lost the passion, joy, and intense love the early Christians seemed to have had. It was passion that drove the early apostles to take the message of Christ to places they never dreamed of going. St. Paul was on of the most passionate believers who ever lived. His passion led him to suffer, sacrifice, serve, and preach even when it put his own life in danger. And, through it all, he managed to keep a sense of joy.
There are reasons why Christians have become numb. I will give you three reasons I see: 1) Many Christians have been turned off by an over-zealous Christian who came on too strong. 2) It is hard to be a Christian today because of the negativity towards religion and 3) The media has often “bashed” Christians and it often makes the Christian message to weak to give us the strength to live our faith passionately.
The lack of passion often comes out at public worship. People choose not to sing…not to respond…and not to engage in prayer. Sometimes people come in and out of church and not even speak to anyone else. Believe it or not, people sometimes tune out the scriptures and the preacher. Obviously, I am not speaking of everyone…but enough people are disconnected to change the environment of the worship assembly.
We will soon have a school of “revival.” There was a time in my life when I would have tried to change the world and tried to create revival for the whole church. Today, I am more focused. I pray for revival in my heart, and in our church. If revival can spill over the boundaries of praise and worship, that would be great. But if not, I will be pleased if we change.
What will revival look like? Well…three things: 1) We need to stop looking so tired and beat up. 2) We need to engage in a livelier way at workshop and in ministry and 3) we need to allow the joy of Jesus resurrected to infect every aspect of our lives.
Please join me in praying for a revival. Please join us in coming together for the school of “revival”. And please join St. Paul in echoing his words, “to live is Christ, to die is gain.”