A few years back I was driving around Westervelt, Illinois (population 131) looking for the church where I was saved in a revival meeting, when I was ten years old.  My grandfather had been the pastor of that church, but both he and that congregation are now deceased. As I drove around the town, I think I spotted the parsonage where he and Grandma lived.  But there were two red brick church buildings in the town, both in disrepair and looking abandoned. I couldn’t tell which was the one where I answered the altar call.

That revival back in 1964, that continues to have such a powerful effect on my own life, apparently could not save that church, nor the struggling town of Westervelt. 

My brother called me the other day and asked if I had heard of the Asbury Revival going on down in Wilmore, Kentucky.  He wanted to know what I thought of it. This past week, the subject of revivals came up again with the release of the movie Jesus Revolution, based on a true story of the revivals taking place among hippies in the late 60s and early 70s.  I have both lived and studied revivals, seeing the positive and not-so-positive about them. I've preached at revivals.  

God has varied ways of infusing faith into human lives.  For a number of Christians, the process has included conversion and revival. It’s not the only way God works, but it is the way God has worked with me.  

Conversion (I’m using the term as defined by evangelical Christians) is an episode, usually of brief duration, in which your life is turned around, partly by forces repelling you, partly by forces attracting you, and partly by your own decision. You are aware of God’s presence, your own sin, and your desire for a better life.  An unexpected catalyst brings you to a “Y” in the road and you take a risk, making a decision that changes your whole future.  

We can experience multiple spiritual conversions throughout our lives, ranging from major U-turns to small, mid-course corrections. A slight, barely noticed adjustment can occasionally result in radical transformation down the road.  But for purposes of understanding revival, I’m referring here to conversion as a life-change that is deeply felt, intense, intruding, occurring in a short time. It is so dramatic that the individual can forever recall the day, the people, and the place.  It is the moment that the old self dies and a new self is born.  

God doesn’t take this approach with everyone. It’s not a rule or a necessity to be in God’s grace and favor.  But many of us have experienced it. Sometimes a new birth appears so quietly and invisibly that only God sees the miracle. 

Of course, some of those conversions are an illusion.  The changes are either fleeting or insubstantial.  Sometimes the “new self” that appears in a conversion moment will disappear as fast as the morning dew.  

But often a conversion is genuine, meaningful, life-altering.  Our new self sees our relationship with God and our place in the world as never before.  Conversion doesn’t make us perfect.  But it can bend the arc of our lives so that we continually grow in God’s goodness.  Conversion solidifies our loyalty to a faith community or tradition, sometimes different from our previous church or religion.  

Some conversions are superficial.  A person might convert to please a spouse, to get closer to a romantic person-of-interest, to satisfy peer pressure, to avoid political persecution, to make business and social connections, to fit into a social scene, or to cynically obtain a get-out-of-hell free card.  We’re not addressing those kinds of conversion here, but rather the deep-felt, sincere spiritual turnarounds that people often make.

Conversion then, as we are using the term, is an experience in which a person undergoes a conscious change of thinking and behavior.  They want to please God and gain rewards that come from that new relationship, in both this world and the next.  While individual decisions are part of conversion, the urging and call of God’s spirit is considered to be the primary agent in the transformation.

While conversion is an individual phenomenon, revival is communal.  A revival happens when multiple people are swept up in religious events-- and the result is multiple conversions.   In practical terms, a revival involves mass gatherings, spontaneity, preaching, prayer, music, and testimonials.  Revivals are intense incubators for conversion. They may attract spectators, who often get swept up in the spirit.  Personal decisions get made in revivals, decisions that lead a new life and sometimes include unusual emotional and physical responses in participants.  People find themselves internalizing the power they feel surging through a revival.  

Conversions and revivals occurred all through the Old and New Testaments.  The disciples, men and women, were changed persons after encountering Jesus. It felt like a mass movement at the time. Paul underwent a dramatic reversal due to his conversion on the road to Damascus. Esther, queen of Persia, became a different person when confronted with the genocide of her people.  And Moses underwent a dramatic conversion when he was 80.  

Revivals occur in both testaments.  In the days of King Josiah, the struggling nation hears of an ancient document recovered during a renovation of the temple.  As the document is read, they realize the error of their ways, weep, repent, and commit themselves to new lives.  Ezekiel 37, picturing a valley of dry bones, goes on to envision a great revival of life and strength among the people.  John the Baptist gets a revival going out at the Jordan River. The Day of Pentecost was a revival, stirring up crowds of people with new power and purpose. And in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he addresses the revival going on in that place, giving guidance to the enthusiasm and energy bubbling up.  

The whole purpose of a revival is to precipitate conversion, changing lives so that more and more of us begin to act and think like Jesus, full of grace, hospitality, and love. We connect with God and find new love for one another.

Revivals have been a significant part of U.S. history.  The tens of thousands of revivals in our nation’s history have been divided into four waves by historians, known as the four Great Awakenings.  

The First Great Awakening began in the 1730s and included the scholar Jonathan Edwards, the celebrity preacher George Whitfield, and the breakout of Methodist lay preachers and small groups.  Churches of every type were caught up in the energy of the First Awakening, inspiring pastors and transforming laity.  It caused individuals, congregations, and denominations to change direction.  Religion became a matter of the heart, not just an intellectual pass-time.    People met in living rooms and parlors and held conversations about matters of faith and the Bible, deep into the night.  They developed a conviction about sin and a hunger for salvation, morality, the Bible, prayer, and sharing their faith.  Jonathan Edwards wrote descriptive accounts of those revivals taking place.  His books were read all over Europe and America.  

The Second Great Awakening (1800-1850) was more organized, pre-planned, and managed.  Charles Finny read the books Jonathan Edwards had written and turned those descriptions into prescriptions.  His goal was to maximize the number of converts. Revivals sprang up all over, from Yale University to the roughhewn camps meetings of Kentucky.  The Second Great Awakening included folk music, contempt for educated pastors, freedom for women to pray in public, occasional extreme emotionalism, spell-binding preaching, a mourner’s bench for those needing to be converted, and a running count of how many were saved. For the first time, the personality of the preacher became front and center in revivals, the featured attraction. Finny also popularized the “altar call,” the moment after a sermon when people were invited to leave their pews, come forward to the altar rail, kneel, and give their lives over to Christ in prayer. The ritual was counted as a "conversion."

The Third Great Awakening began in the late 1800s and went through the 1930s.  Its leaders included Billy Sunday and Dwight Moody. This awakening continued to disparage educated preachers in favor of more emotional and populist speakers.  It also reacted against the loss of rural life as people moved to cities.  It reacted with hostile alarm to the teachings of modern science and the emergence of psychological theory. It sympathized with those suffering from the inhumane effects of industrialization.  It was targeted at the cities and aimed to convert people to Protestantism.  It also aimed to stir up settled churches where people were judged to be Christian in name only.  

The Fourth Great Awakening began post-WWII and incorporated new forms of technology: microphones, TV, radio, and mass printing.  Billy Graham was at the center of this movement, holding mass rallies, conducting revivals on TV and radio, and urging people to make a personal commitment to Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior.  Others who were a part of this Fourth Awakening included the Campus Crusade for Christ, the Jesus Movement, and a proliferation of regular TV ministries (Oral Roberts, Robert Schuller, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Bakker…).   The Jesus Movement, in the late 60s and early 70s, was targeted at converting hippies.  It taught a literal interpretation of the Bible and emphasized abstinence from drugs and promiscuity.   The Jesus Movement also embraced long hair, modern music, and informality. It’s influence soon spread to established churches and young people in them. The result was often tension with what was the “old guard” in those congregations. 

In the United Methodist Church, lay witness missions, Walk to Emmaus, and Marriage Encounter were part of the Fourth Great Awakening.

By the 1970s, however, the Fourth Great Awakening nationwide was accumulating so much scandal and political baggage that it no longer was a viable force in American life.  As it collapsed, many good parts of it lost steam as well. Some of the celebrity leaders of the Fourth Great Awakening were exposed for sexual and financial crimes and abuse.  The political right wing had become so integrated with many revivalist and religious leaders that that the public began to see evangelicalism as a front for the most conservative wing of the Republican party. The emphasis was no longer on conversion of individuals but on defeating political enemies.  Donald Trump, not exactly a poster-child for conversion, became the new hero of the religious right.  

Revivalism without conversion leaves us with the same troubles the Apostle Paul encountered in Corinth.  The people there became quite stirred by the Holy Spirit.  Marvelous things were taking place:  people newly gifted with powers of healing, preaching, teaching, mission, evangelism, speaking in tongues, and interpreting those who spoke in tongues.  The Corinthian revival had everything!  Except sufficient love.  People became proud, condescending, holier than thou, cliquish, and divided.  A large section of I Corinthians is devoted to Paul’s teachings regarding the dos and don’ts of revivals.  

Most revivals begin when a society is at a low point, when people are polarized, afraid, and angry.  Institutions get sclerotic.  Churches become fretful and boring.  Clergy keep missing the point.  Enemies seem ready to take over the culture.  The past is slipping away.  Grief becomes grievance.  Spirits are low.  People are starved for hope, signs of change, a chance to be part of the change themselves, tired of helplessness and yearning for power from above.  

A revival is a movement of the Holy Spirit to lift us when we are brought low.  But revival is a socio-psychological phenomenon, as well as a spiritual one.  Revivals are subject to manipulation and abuse.  Like in Corinth, revival can lead to self-righteousness, judgment of people whose hearts we cannot see, a culture war instead of a spiritual one, an opportunity to attack political opportunists, a holy war against some wing of the church we don’t like.

Will there be a Fifth Great Awakening in the United States?  The environment is ripe.  People’s trust of clergy and churches is at an all-time low.  There is a collective vertigo at all society's changes.  There is a shallowness in much of our religion.  Radical Christianity is virtually absent in our churches.  The Bible is taken literally but seldom seriously.  Prayer is often self-centered.  There is a need for healing, renewal of our ethical principles, and deeper understanding of the Bible.  We need the Holy Spirit to bring us together and heal our divisions.  It’s time for a revival.

But the devil attacks all things good.  We will know the devil is messing with us if revival becomes a disguise for political manipulation, if leaders get so caught up in ego trips that they betray the people, if church factions use revival to justify their disunity, if we want God to use the revival to “handle” our cultural enemies, if we let our emotionalism excuse our lack of kindness and grace, if we look down on those who haven’t had the same experience…

But we don’t forego necessities just because they are fraught with danger.  With prayer, humble Bible reading, and an eye on Jesus, I say we welcome a Fifth Great Awakening—one that will give people the same type of life-giving conversion that has blessed so many of us, for so many decades and centuries.  We will know the value of a revival by its fruits:  lives converted into the likeness of Christ, with new capacities for grace and new powers to do good.