Will God Send Another Great Awakening?
What the Church needs now is something different, says Greg Gordon. Something that brings the body of Christ back to God in a simple yet effective way.
by Daina Doucet
hat is the greatest need in the Church today?
… how is another conference “different?”
“I think it’s to realize the absolute desperate need for God to bring revival,” says Greg Gordon, founder of SermonIndex.net and the current intern executive director of the Canadian Revival Fellowship. “Also for churches to rely again on prayer,” he adds. “That need is beyond desperate. So few churches dedicate meetings to prayer and intercession these days. Anyone can talk about what’s wrong with the Church, but someone’s got to bring a solution.”
For the past three years, Gordon has been trying to bring a solution. Something “different.” He has organized seven Revival Conferences with an “emphasis on revival without entertainment and commercialism” in the USA, Wales, Ireland, Nepal and now Canada. The first of this year’s Revival Conferences will be in Victoria, British Columbia, at the Victoria First Church of the Nazerene, from Tuesday June 8 to Thursday June 10 with a preceding all-day prayer event on June 7, “especially so ministry leaders and pastors can attend.”
With Christendom inundated with more than 10,000 conferences a year world-wide, how is another conference “different?” There is no cost to attend. No materials will be sold. No big bands. No emphasis on money. “The conference will focus on glorifying God. The speakers will come on their own accord trusting God for provision. The event will be simple, apostolic – yearning for a genuine biblical revival in our day.”
So far Revival Conferences have attracted as many as 1000 pastors and ministry leaders per event, many of whom are personally revived. “Sin is confessed, pride is humbled, hope is renewed, prayer is kindled. But also there is a great expectation of a divine visitation from God and that our prayers will ignite a larger work in Canada so many souls can come into His kingdom.”
Speakers at the Victoria event will be from a broad Evangelical background. Charles Price, the keynote speaker, is a television host, and pastor of Peoples’ Church in Toronto. Other speakers are Clayton Dougan, an evangelist with the Brethren churches, Don Mclure of the Calvary Chapel movement, Richard Sipley a veteran team member with the Canadian Revival Fellowship, Mark Greening who emerged as “fruit” of the 1970 revival in Saskatoon and Andrew Strom, a representative of the prophetic movement from New Zealand.
“We hear much talk of revival and the excitement involved, but people who come to these conferences want to see a biblical, genuine revival come,” says Gordon. “I believe these conferences will cause people to see that we must repent and come back to God. God will meet us and revive us!” It may seem impossible, he says, but he is hopeful. “We serve a God of impossibilities! We can have revival in Canada where millions come to Christ. And we can believe for it.”
The Victoria Revival Conference will be held at 4277 Quadra St, and is open to everyone.
Daina Doucet is a writer and editor based in Hamilton, Ontario. She edits the website, Christianity.ca for The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.
Originally published on SermonIndex.com, April 2010.
from: http://www.christianity.ca/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=7256