On Father’s Day, 30 years ago, an evangelist name Steve Hill spoke at a church in Pensacola, Florida. What followed was nothing short of ridiculous. There is no one particular person that can nail it down as being responsible. It wasn’t Evangelist Hill. It was Lindal Cooley, the worship leader. It wasn’t the pastor, John Kilpatrick. It was something more. All involved in that revival were catalysts. People whom God used. But there rest (99% of it) was just God. Deep in each of their lives, they wanted more but didn’t understand what that would look like. But there is only One that this move can be attributed to and that is God. He moves sovereignly. He decides when and where. He picks up the pieces and uses them to create revival.
Many called it evil. Many called it the last revival. Many called it just showmanship. But I called it the corner where I turned to meet the God I really didn’t know.
In truth, I never attended a single meeting in person. But I watched many, many services on video. Remember, this was before internet and streaming.
The Brownsville Revival was, like many revivals before it, not brought on by any one individual other than God. But He did use many people. Those I mentioned above as well as others. One being an extraordinary man name Dr. Michael Brown. Whom I often still listen to.
But what was this move of God? What was so amazing about it? Why, after thirty years, does it still resonate with so many people?
I believe this moment was meant to wake those who had slumbered because the excitement of God wasn’t impacting people like it is meant to. That people (myself very much included here) who loved God but found themselves board and ineffective in the world around them. Many of us hanging by a thread in our connection to Him. This moment turned that thread into a thick steel cable that would never truly break. Once you taste it, you can’t live without it. Yes, like millions of others, my life was changed and my relationship with God also changed. I felt Him, I heard Him, and I saw Him moving in people. Not just in those videos, but in the hearts of my friends and brothers and sisters. People ran to it or away from it.
Yes, thousands and thousands were saved. Yes, a new love for musical worship became powerful and unmatched. Yes, words were spoken that opened humanity to a deeper realization of how much God wanted to speak to us and walk among us.
I listened to a radio program that bad mouthed it. From a Christian organization. They warned people away from it. This organization was birthed from a revival of their own. Then I heard someone say no one is more critical of a new movement that the ones who were deeply involved in the last one. Yep, so true.
I read today that one of those who were a part of Brownsville spoke critically of the worship in churches today. The funny thing is they were not entirely wrong. But it would be a great place and time to be silent in this moment. Or would it? I don’t know.
But I do know the impact that I experienced and long to see again. This time I would endeavor to be present.
In the time since (1995-2000), we have seen many moves of God. The hardest part is not to open up to such a move, the hardest part is for it to remain in place.
One of the hallmarks that Bethel Church in Redding, Ca. has tried to stay in is a sustained revival. What’s funny is that I think they have, but so many people see it so often and forget this. I mean, it’s so ongoing that it just looks like a healthy church, not revival. But it is.
Do we need revival? Or as some call it, renewal?
The answer is a resounding YES! Not so we see a new understanding of worship or teaching. Not for the prophetic or the apostolic atmosphere. And not just so we fulfill all righteousness and walk in the fullness of Christ. It is for all these things, but so much more.
We can easily find ourselves limiting who we are in Jesus by seeing things like a revival and convincing ourselves that whatever we get there is what will make us who we are in Christ. But if we do, then revival becomes the ends to the means and it is an idol.
We cannot worship worship or teaching. But if we are not careful, we will. Placing the way to Christ above Christ.
Revival is meant to bring our attention back to the Center, back to God. And live that way? Yes, by all means. Rejoice in it? Of course. But what I got from the Brownsville Revival was not the impact of the great people of God and amazing, original music. I got more of God. But my increase didn’t stop then.
That was the scent of a steak cooking. The joy of the steak isn’t meant to stop there. We don’t seek revival for the sake of revival. When I go to church and get blessed and overwhelmed by the presence of God, I can’t stop and live there. The Word is Living and Breathing in me and I must take it and run with it.
I don’t know if I am making sense or not.
I hope you are getting something from this. I celebrate this magnificent revival because of God’s presence in a place that really altered the face of the Church. Maybe, the world. I know it changed the way I think about God when He descended on me through the work done in that place!
I know it changed hundreds of thousands of others, too. Maybe millions when you consider the lives changed because of those changed by this revival. And the millions still being changed.
Thank You, Lord, for revival. The ones of the past and the ones that are just starting!
