Most Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible 1995 Ed. (NASB95)

Are you the type of Christian, like me, who longs and prays for “revival”? If you are, then it’s likely that your conception of revival looks very similar to the revivals that broke out during the First and Second Great Awakenings of the mid- 1700s to the mid- 1800s. You probably imagine crowds of people standing in preaching or “worship” services, and bowing down to pray for salvation, with faces glowing with grief and/or joy. But what if that type of revival isn’t what should be expected in our time and circumstances? What if we’re following too closely the methods that the Lord Jesus used during the Awakenings to bring about the revival of His people, and of their unbelieving communities?

The fact is that there were unbiblical practices and structures observed by churches at that time that were used to bring about the conversion of tens and hundreds of thousands of people during the two main revivals, respectively. Yet the Lord blessed them because He condescends to use imperfect instruments like us. At the same time, the focus of revival merely on the conversion of unsaved people is also unbiblical. As I already discussed in a recent lesson, revival almost always starts with the reviving of God’s people to a renewed understanding of the gospel and its implications, so they’re brought to repentance for their besetting sins. Thus, revival isn’t simply the mass addition of people into the number of the faithful, but involves the restoration and reformation of the wandering, complacent, and apathetic people of God.

The main problems with the structure and activities of congregations during the 18th and 19th centuries are often the same problems that are often still present with western Christians today. To be precise, three of the main errors were these:

  1. The focus on the Christian gathering as the center of evangelism in communities.
  2. The reliance on pastors and preachers as the nearly only qualified sharers of the gospel to the unsaved.
  3. The negligence of ordinary Christians to share the gospel with their unbelieving neighbors because of an obsession with bringing them to the public preaching of the gospel.

It should be clear that these errors still abound in roughly the majority of evangelical churches in the West. And as a result, many of us who are eager for revival wrongly assume that the Lord should or must use these conditions to awaken sleeping Christians, and to draw scores of people to salvation. However, we live in a different society, with different cultural practices and interests, and thankfully with different and biblical beliefs about what Christ’s body should look like, be doing, and expect to see result.

In this study, let’s overview the general conditions of Awakening America’s society, churches, and revivals, and then discern how we should differ, and what virtues we should emulate from them in our work toward revival. So first, we’ll picture the main ways in which Christianity was practiced and preached during the Awakenings. Second, we’ll note how our cultural norms differ from theirs, and shouldn’t be expected to experience revival in the same ways. Third, we’ll critique the unbiblical concepts and practices that still prevail in most evangelical churches today. And finally, we’ll highlight the good, biblical structures and habits that were used by the Lord to bring about glorious revivals during the past times.

The Unbiblical and Unfamiliar Conditions of the Awakening Period

Most people understand that early America had a drastically different society from our own western one. However, in understanding how revivals happened during that time, it’s helpful to know just what kind of religious customs and practices the American colonists and citizens had at that time. The first condition to note is that predominantly, although not universally, most people viewed church attendance as normal and honorable for a person to engage in. The Christian churches of the Revolutionary and early national eras of America (1763-1840s) were an engrained feature of American society, going back to the founding of most of the colonies. Contrary to popular belief, most churches in the Revolutionary period had strong political influence, as well as a strong impact on their surrounding communities. Pastors and bishops were often viewed as some of the most respectable and wise leaders of their communities, and many people saw themselves at least Christian by default, because their societies were founded by Christian people.

Hence, although many strains of anti-Christian sentiment and behavior kept people from attending churches, most people saw it as good and honorable to do so. Therefore, attending church services was a common way in which the Lord brought about revivals.

Related to this was the popularity of public speaking. For many people of all social classes, listening to speech-givers, orators, and preachers was either a way to be involved in their local governments, stay informed, or simply be entertained. They weren’t constantly taking in information as we are, and appreciated public addresses designed to incite their emotions, and move them to action. During the First Great Awakening, George Whitefield used this affinity to extravagant oratory to great effect in his sermons. Although many of the colonists were used to dry, cold, and lifeless sermons and recitations, by the end of this awakening and the Revolution, most Americans loved to hear eloquent sermons and speeches. Hence, one of the surest ways to get people to hear the gospel was to promise them an exciting, emotional, and convictional sermon. People rarely minded standing or sitting for long periods to listen to one excellent speech-giver.

In part due to this high value placed on public speaking and oratory, the Christian culture of the Awakenings usually thought of professional preachers as those most fit to share the gospel. But there was more to it than this. A misguided and corrupting notion abounded among Christians that the pastor or pastors of churches were specially anointed, separated, and equipped to preach the gospel to the unsaved (“called,” “ordained,” or “gifted”). Unfortunately, this erroneous thinking was strengthened and encouraged by the teaching and preaching of the pastors themselves. The fact is, the most common form of teaching at this time was the public sermon, and most of these sermons scarcely taught church members to interpret and teach the Scriptures themselves. Instead, the main method of explaining and teaching Scripture was the reading of very small passages, such as a verse or two, and then focusing on those words, without making much reference to the surrounding context, or to the book at large. Hence, the main point of sermons often wasn’t to give an understanding of the whole context of individual passages, but to bring to light several truths or principles that the preacher saw stated or implied by them. When the majority of people’s Bible learning consisted of this, and they followed the example of their preachers in reading tiny sections of Scripture, they often had an inadequate idea of how to simply explain the gospel to people who were mostly unfamiliar with the Scriptures. And since most pastors somehow hid their method of reaching their conclusions of meaning to their congregations, they were often thought of as the best people to share the gospel with the unsaved.

As a result of this reliance on preachers for evangelism, and of the exaggerated honor placed on them, it was natural that church services were viewed as the most conducive environments for bringing people to a saving encounter with Jesus. When you read most of the accounts of the Awakening revivals, you’ll find that they describe most people’s conversion experience beginning with listening to a sermon during a church service, or a Christian gathering for preaching. In almost all these cases, the speaker is a formally trained and “ordained” Bible preacher representing a Protestant denomination (one of the main exceptions to this were the traveling Methodist “circuit riders”). A further detail in these accounts is that often the follow-up counsel for those who want to know more about putting faith in Jesus is provided by the pastors or clergymen there, rather than non-ordained believers.

In sum, the society in which Revolution-era and 19th century Americans lived in was dominated by church activity, attendance, and the prominence of pastors. In many cultures of the different states, to be a citizen of that state was almost equated with being a believer in Jesus Christ. And in the case of New Englanders and Virginians who still attended Anglican churches, many church members were simply born into church membership, without having been born again. All these mostly unbiblical characteristics made it natural for evangelism and revival to center around church gatherings and pastors, instead of the everyday, ordinary, lives of average believers. Our present western society has many differences in these respects.

The Anti-Christian and Church-Opposed Landscape of Western Culture

In order to highlight why most revivals in our day simply can’t occur as they did in the Awakenings era, let’s look at the most stark contrasts to their conditions. Number one is that the vast majority of people in the West live without attending church, let alone call themselves Christians. And even if unbelievers live near a well-known Christian church, it’s a tough sell to persuade most people to attend a Bible-teaching church. This is why it’s so noteworthy and intriguing to most believers when they hear of any significant increase in church attendance.

In addition to this avoidance of attending churches, even the traditional form of the evangelical Bible sermon is very unappealing to most people. The attention span and critical thinking capacity of the average westerner is severely limited, and it takes a tremendous amount of effort for most of them to diligently listen to a long, well-ordered, and logical, monologue. This is why many evangelical churches, especially of the seeker-sensitive sort, have resorted to shorter, more conversational, “talks.” Hence, it’s unlikely for most unsaved people to respond with much seriousness and conviction to long, detailed, and eloquent speeches.

Finally, the average evangelical view of pastors and the role of evangelism is mostly changed from those held during the American Awakenings. First, it’s well-accepted that all believers should be able to share the gospel with non-Christians, in addition to preachers and pastors. Secondly, the evaluation of the “occupation” of pastoring is now greatly disinterested, skeptical, and even downright negative. Most western unbelievers view pastors as having little importance and value to society. They aren’t usually respected for their learning, and they’re often distrusted because of the large numbers of pastors with bad testimonies and catastrophic failures. These perceptions of preachers and pastors makes it overwhelmingly difficult to persuade the average westerner to come to a preaching service, and hear the Word of God from “pastor so-and-so,” or “reverend such-and-such”.

Despite these differences in the two states of affairs between then and now, we’ve unfortunately inherited and perpetuated several unbiblical practices and structures that should be removed from our expectations of revival, as well as removed from our Christianity.

Some Unbiblical Concepts and Practices that We’ve Kept from the American Revivals

The repentance of the saints, the awakening and salvation of sinners, and the building up of Christ-worshiping congregations all came out of the American Awakenings. However, many practices and systems were in place then, and introduced throughout, that should have no place in biblical Christianity. And many of these are still taught and used in western Bible-believing fellowships.

I’ll begin with those traditions already noted in this lesson. Too often, the responsibility and need for evangelizing the unsaved is placed on the shoulders of professional pastors and preachers. In most evangelical circles, it’s thought that the best way to introduce people to the gospel is by persuading them to attend a service presided over by a church leader. This is partly a leading feature of the “seeker-sensitive” philosophy for churches, in which the gathering of Christian fellowships mostly exists for the purpose of sharing the gospel with unbelievers.

It’s clear that this mentality has been a staple trait of Protestant ministry since before the American Awakenings. It merely took on an even more aggressive form when the Seeker-Sensitive movement was popularized in American churches a few decades ago.

To any diligent student of the New Testament, it should be clear that this emphasis on the church gathered and preached to as the center of evangelism is a reversal of responsibilities. It could be said, as it’s been put by many Christian teachers, that this is the distinction between the “come and see” and “go and tell” views of evangelism. Throughout much of Protestant history, and now today, the central evangelism message for Christians is “come and see” the works and Word of God through the body of Christ gathered. However, the clear teaching of Jesus and apostles is that believers must “go and tell” the gospel to all of creation, rather than waiting for sinners to come to the Assembly of Christ. Instead of being designed for the preaching of the gospel through specially called preachers, the gathering of the saints is purposed to “equip the saints for the work of ministry, to the building up of the body of Christ” (Eph. 4:12). In other words, congregations ought to gather to help each other grow in their knowledge and love, so they can be more able to present and represent the gospel to non-Christians in their everyday lives.

Getting more specific to the corruption of true, spiritual revival, there are several practices that were developed throughout the American Awakenings that are still largely in use today. Because a good half of church assemblies were mostly intended for evangelism, there came into being the custom of always giving a concise gospel presentation at the end of sermons. The preaching of the gospel is obviously one of the best uses of our time and energy, but to mechanically and ritualistically insert a gospel appeal at the end of every service tends to distract from the main purpose of the Christian gathering (the equipping of the saints). This also ends the instructional time by putting the focus on the possibility that there are unsaved people among the saints, when there should ideally be very few. In other words, it goes against the New Testament emphasis of the purpose of the gathered brethren being their encouragement, fellowship, and unity in Christ.

Related to this practice is the concept of the “altar call”. Originally, this type of evangelistic method was mostly something called the “anxious bench,” developed by the grand revival manipulator Charles Finney. The purpose of this bench was to serve as a place for unstable people to be broken down emotionally and intellectually, so they’d be persuaded to profess that they had faith in Jesus. Finney, and others of his school, would endeavor to work people into a state of insecure shame, guilt, and fear about the condemnation of their sins before God while preaching. Then, those who were greatly weighed down with these attitudes and feelings would be called to a bench at a prominent place in the chapel. Such people would then be specifically targeted with appeals to repent, and asked to confess their sins and decide to worship Jesus. In other words, the most anxious people during the evangelistic service would be exposed to public shame and observation, as they were called to give their lives to Jesus.

Largely from this custom, the “altar call” was introduced to serve a similar purpose. Usually, an altar call is made at the end of a gospel presentation, through which people who want to pray for salvation and forgiveness from God are urged to walk to the front of a sanctuary, before an altar. It’s usually thought that publicly praying in this way, right in front of the preacher, will make it easier for people to put their faith in Jesus. However, the teachings and preaching of the New Testament advocate no such thing. Nowhere in Scripture is a physical act of going somewhere to pray made the decisive act of faith. It’s clear in many Scriptures that putting faith in Jesus for salvation is an act of the heart, and requires no formal physical action for the convert. For example, Romans 10:9-10 reads,
“. . . that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation.”

Based on this teaching, it should go without saying that the later adoption of “the sinner’s prayer” as a repetition of prayer words given to you has no benefit in influencing a person to believe. In reality, it presents a greater danger to those invited, as well as to admirers of such tactics.

There are probably at least a couple more unbiblical traditions that most western Christians have in common with those that experienced revival during the Great Awakenings. But I need to highlight one more common feature of those churches that is still usually present with ours today. This is the insistence that, not only should evangelistic preachers be formally educated and/or ordained by denominations, but that pastors and church teachers ought to hold such distinctions. Among most evangelical churches in the West, it’s thought unacceptable and harmful for anyone other than a formally trained “professional” clergyman to teach the assembled saints on Sundays. This is a Protestant tradition that has no basis in Scripture. Clearly, Bible teachers ought to be qualified, but the office of elder or pastor, and the role of public teacher for the fellowship, shouldn’t be off limits to gifted men without a degree, denominational ordination, license, or seminary education. Too many congregations suffer stunted growth, ignorance, confusion, and discouragement, because they believe they’re dependent only on the “ordained” to teach the Bible to them, and to shepherd them. Often, there are at least one or two men in the congregation that have just as much spiritual giftedness to teach and lead, as anyone around who is ordained. Such men should steward their gifts, aspire to exercise them, and be encouraged and invited to teach the brethren. Adopting this biblical perspective might even lead to revival! In a way, this faithful act of taking responsibility for men’s gifts is among the greatest lessons that we should learn from the Awakenings.

The Biblical Practices the Lord Used in the Awakening Revivals

Since I’ve already pointed out the main problems that existed among American churches during the Awakening period of America, it now remains to note some of the most needed Christian virtues demonstrated then. The first regards the qualifications and identity of those who were most used to deliver the good news of Christ to unbelievers. During the Great Awakenings, the main people who were preaching the gospel were clearly giving the majority of their time to doing this for unbelievers. Although many of these men were officially considered to be “pastors,” many of them, if not the majority, would be better considered as “evangelists”. And this is a role that is greatly neglected in western Christianity today.

According to Ephesians 4:11, the Lord Jesus has specifically provided certain men to fill the role of “evangelists”. The fact that this is a leading and prominent calling within Christ’s body is shown in the fact that this group is listed among “apostles,” “prophets,” and “pastors and teachers” (Eph. 4:11). Hence, an evangelist is no ordinary Christian, but a special calling devoted to the task of “evangelizing,” or announcing the gospel of salvation.

During the Great Awakenings, most believers in America recognized and supported the need for, and importance of, evangelists. In fact, nearly all the pastoral training schools patterned their conception of pastoral ministry after that of the apostles, which was an evangelistic ministry. That’s why one of the common titles for pastors at that time was “minister of the gospel.” The fact is, western Christians seem to be in even greater need of men who give much of their time to preaching the gospel, than they were then. The Lord seems to delight in using regular and devoted heralds of the gospel to bring about revivals. And this includes public gospel preaching, which was the main instrument He used in the Awakenings.

This emphasis on men devoted to preaching the gospel gives us another application of the Awakenings today. As I said, most of the evangelists that traveled about preaching the gospel were officially “pastors,” although some had no single church to oversee. Nevertheless, they were demonstrating a function of pastoral ministry that is very often neglected by western pastors. This is that they “do the work of an evangelist” (2 Tim. 4:5). Although sharing the gospel is a responsibility for all believers, it’s the special responsibility of elders that they lead in evangelism by sharing the gospel themselves. All elders should be regular and diligent witnesses of the gospel to unbelievers, if not official evangelists. It seems to be when the most mature and leading Christians are prioritizing the preaching of the gospel in the world, that the Lord usually brings revival to churches and communities.

A third exemplary practice of the preachers and congregations during the Awakenings was that they went to the dregs and pits of society to preach the gospel. The prominent preachers, such as Whitefield, McGready, McMillan, Nettleton, and others, all went wherever they thought the gospel had never been understood before. Whitefield began his open-air ministry in part by preaching at a coal mine to poor mining families. McGready, a Presbyterian graduate of one of the colleges of the time, went to the wild, vile dwellers of the mountainous Kentucky frontier. These people were the American outcasts, and most of them had no interest in Christianity whatsoever. As the Second Great Awakening spread throughout the states, it not only reached poor, uneducated rural places, but also the destitute, depressed, and depraved slums of the industrializing cities. Throughout the 1800s, many Christian charitable organizations were set up to serve the poor, and bring the gospel to them. Hence, the word of Christ was backed up by the love of Christ.

Although the Lord is no respecter of persons, it’s often among the most hostile, unwanted, unlikeable, and seemingly hopeless people of society that he reaps the most souls for eternal life. We ought to imitate Jesus and the Awakening preachers by going to the poor, crippled, blind, and lame with the gospel of life in Christ (Lk. 14:21).

The final and most important virtue of the Christians affected by the Great Awakenings was their devotion to prayer. In a report of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1803, their leaders wrote,

“. . . the institution of prayer societies, or seasons of special prayer to God, generally preceded the remarkable displays of Divine grace with which our land has been recently favored.”

In a great number of accounts of long-term revivals such as the Great Awakenings, it’s described how leading Christians were praying, not only privately, but in groups, for a strengthened and widespread communication of the gospel, and the mass conversion of the unsaved around them. Of course, usually the main means the Lord uses to save anyone in our circle of influence is our prayers for them. But this is even more true of revivals. If we would like to see our brethren in Christ revived to Spirit-filled, obedient, and zealous living for the Lord, and to see many of our neighbors, coworkers, family members, and unsaved church attenders, saved, then we must pray. It may not look much like the Great Awakenings, but it will have the same basic results.

The Lord has said that the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few – so we must ask Him to send out laborers to reap His harvest (Lk. 10:2). Special revival isn’t specifically promised in Scripture, but it is possible through the Lord’s power, Word, and Spirit. Let us seek great things from God, and expect great things from God – things that will greatly exalt, honor, and magnify our glorious Lord and Savior.