History's Most Spectacular Revivals

[Deadworm]

No videos I have ever posted on any website are nearly as important to me as (1)-(4) posted below. No word in the English language has been more watered down and more treated as a vacuous jargon term than “revival.” Yet the dramatic decline in western Christianity in recent decades leaves “the real thing” as our only hope of widespread renewal. Though in the real thing, the Holy Spirit falls on Christians, what makes real revival unique (as in the Welsh Revival of 1904-1906 and the Hebrides Revival of 1949-1954) is the sudden massive outpouring of the Spirit on many thousands of unchurched people who have no interest in conversion or spiritual renewal! To me, the revivals discussed in the 4 videos are more persuasive evidence of the existence of a personal God than any healing miracles.
In my experience, evangelicals are not interested in watching such videos either because they are not particularly interested in revival or because they don’t believe there are any keys to igniting revival. Their misguided apathy is exposed by the spectacular use God made of seemingly insignificant ordinary Christians to spark the revivals explored in the videos. Few, if any Christians are willing to pay the price that these holy souls paid for revival.

(1) Evan Roberts was a young, emotionally unstable Welsh coal miner with little formal education. In the first video, J. Edwin Orr, an expert on revivals, lectures on how the famous Welsh revival exploded through Roberts’ faithful quest that led to the conversion of 100,000 Welsh people in just 4-5 months!

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...37C5&FORM=VIRE

(2) The 2nd video is a documentary based on Roberts’ diary of his faith journey. It has photos of the churches, of Roberts, and of the young women who were at the revival’s center. The revival often featured unstructured spontaneous services that lasted until hours after midnight. A couple of hymns featured in the revival are sung on the video:

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...A470&FORM=VIRE

(3) The Welsh Revival spread all over the world. Its American manifestation was the “Azusa Street Revival” in which William Seymour, the son of a Black slave, was a central figure. Given the eventual global multiplication of Charismatic/ Pentecostal Christians into hundreds of millions, it can be argued that Seymour is the most spiritually effective African American who ever lived. Here is a documentary on the faith journey that allowed Seymour to give miraculous birth the global Pentecostal movement:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cui9x_aWXuk

(4) The 4th video features Duncan Campbell, the Scottish Presbyterian minister, whom God used in the Hebrides Revival of 1949-1954. The video highlights the catalytic role of the Smith sisters, 2 women in their mid-80s, one of whom was blind and the other crippled! Be patient with Campbell’s preachy tone:

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...4601&FORM=VIRE

 

[dqhall]

I listened to the Hebrides Revival video. It is a powerful witness of what can happen if people will let God direct them. The movement was as great as alcoholics begged for mercy and stopped going to the pub. People were led by God to assemble themselves to listed to the preaching of the word.

 

[NJA]

I'm with an international church that is seeing sustained revival since the late 1950s when we started in Australia and spread to many countries. Over the past 20 years there has been spectacular revival (in terms of numbers and miracles and especially the fact that people remain actively involved in their own communities) in Papua New Guinea.

Blind lady sees

TV report

Also great things happening in Africa and Brazil. In Western countries such as the UK where I am the growth is much slower, but still transformed lives, I've been involved for 30 years. I hope you visit our Californian meeting.

 

[Deadworm]

Evangelicals claim to want revival, but I think they are deluding themselves. These 4 videos on revival have been posted for quite some time now and the silence of viewers is deafening, as I expected it to be. Real revival is emotionally explosive, miraculous, and unpredictable, bringing dramatically intensified conviction of sin to both believers and unbelievers alike. Evangelicals in general are far too rigid to be so dramatically driven from their comfort zone. Try (as I have often tried) to organize an intercessory group to pray for a great revival and you will find that few show up.

Theological understanding is important, but it is ultimately the booby prize because it provides just enough spirituality to inoculate believers against the real thing. What really matters is living, vibrant, intimate relationship with Christ in which believers regularly feast on the Spirit's guiding and nurturing presence. But such an experiential spirituality scares evangelicals because it means loosening the bonds of their rigid belief system and lifestyle. Evangelicals prefer a God who can be tamed to the untamed wildfire of the Holy Spirit in action. Without realizing it, for them Christ is basically an organizing symbol of their belief system and little more.

Therefore, the western church is experiencing full-scale decline, especially among youth who long for something more than pedestrian, dull churchianity. The main reason for this decline is not increasing secularism, increasing belief in evolution, advancing technology, and legalized abortion and gay marriage. Rather, the reason is the growing evangelical apathy towards the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:4)" and towards the whole spectrum of the life-changing experiential dimension of the Christian faith.

 

[dqhall]

Evangelicals claim to want revival, but I think they are deluding themselves. These 4 videos on revival have been posted for quite some time now and the silence of viewers is deafening, as I expected it to be.

This topic is on a back page of a forum frequently under attack from people with all sorts of agenda other than Christianity. Some want to go around preaching the Bible is the truth, but that is not good enough. If they were to preach God is truth and be true themselves, then there might be some progress.

If you would have watched and listened to all four videos, you might be at a point to try to increase your faith. It is not good enough to tell God what you want God to do for you. In any sort of covenant or deal you may need to ask what God needs from you. This is difficult if you do not have the right concept of who God is. These revival meetings included people who had studied scriptures and shared their experiences of obeying God, God working in their lives and seeing miracles.

 

[NJA]

...
Therefore, the western church is experiencing full-scale decline, especially among youth who long for something more than pedestrian, dull churchianity. The main reason for this decline is not increasing secularism, increasing belief in evolution, advancing technology, and legalized abortion and gay marriage. Rather, the reason is the growing evangelical apathy towards the "demonstration of the Spirit and of power (1 Corinthians 2:4)" and towards the whole spectrum of the life-changing experiential dimension of the Christian faith.

So you will be joining us, not staying where you are at?

 

[Deadworm]

George Otis, Jr. is likely the most well-informed expert on modern revivals. His research includes several DVD documentaries of the greatest outpourings of the Holy Spirit today, especially in Third Word countries. Our region has recently hosted 2 highly successful interdenominational 4-day revival workshops sponsored by Otis's "Sentinel Group. I will post a couple of sample documentaries on this thread, but first watch the lecture below that is guaranteed toc ompletely blow your mind!

youtube george otis jr. - Bing video

For an amazing inspirational documentary on the recent Fiji Islands revival, watch this video:

let the sea resound otis youtube - Bing video

 

[dqhall]

George Otis, Jr. is likely the most well-informed expert on modern revivals. His research includes several DVD documentaries of the greatest outpourings of the Holy Spirit today, especially in Third Word countries. Our region has recently hosted 2 highly successful interdenominational 4-day revival workshops sponsored by Otis's "Sentinel Group. I will post a couple of sample documentaries on this thread, but first watch the lecture below that is guaranteed toc ompletely blow your mind!

youtube george otis jr. - Bing video

For an amazing inspirational documentary on the recent Fiji Islands revival, watch this video:

let the sea resound otis youtube - Bing video

Thanks for this resource. I watched the first video. God is not sleeping. God is at work.