by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D. written April 11, 2024

The Delay is for a Reason

I was blown away at the Kairos moment I stepped into this weekend in Georgia. I was originally supposed to go to Georgia last year around this time but because my dad passed away the week before this engagement, I had to cancel my trip and send my team instead. As time went on, because I still had my plane ticket to Georgia and didn’t want it to go to waste I suggested we reschedule since the trip was already paid for. This past weekend, April 5-9, 2024, I headed to Georgia. Part of this trip included going to Macon to minister at a ministry called Ahava. I knew I would be there on April 8 which is the eve of the Azusa Street Revival anniversary (April 9, 1906). Then I realized April 8 was the same time as the rare full eclipse. Things were lining up and I was beginning to recognize the divine timing of the Lord over this delay.

Divine Appointments

After God moved significantly and beautifully in Thomasville, Georgia, me and the team headed to Macon to minister at Ahava. The divine connection to this community happened when I was at the Asbury Outpouring in Wilmore, Kentucky in February 2023. I went back to my seat to get a copy of Ignite Azusa to give to a young man named Evan who we were about to pray for in the hallway to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. Another guy who had previously been sitting in my same seat came back looking for his lost wallet at the same time. He recognized me somehow and then when I grabbed the copy of my book Ignite Azusa he realized that’s how he knew me, because he had read that book! Long story short, since I was hosting an online School of Revival session that day on site, I went into that anointed hallway at Hughes Auditorium and had our School of Revival family pray and prophesy over Jacob and his assistant pastor Matt who was also there. They got rocked and it was a special moment.

So, after one year of delay, I finally made it out to Georgia and preached at Ahava the evening Sunday April 7. I shared about how to steward the oil and God broke out in a wild way. People were getting marked, free, and healed in the fire of God’s love. The next day I had prepared to speak on the Azusa Street Revival since it was the eve of the anniversary. When I woke up that morning for my daily devotions, I was shocked.

Kairos Moment

Each year I read the Bible all the way through. I start in Genesis in January and go at my own pace to finish in a year or less. I literally read through chronologically and don’t use any Bible plans. So, Monday April 8, while I am reading through Ezra in the Old Testament, I nearly stopped after chapter 7 but then decided to just read one more chapter. There was nothing highlighted on that page and nothing exceptional in the beginning of chapter 8. If I would have stopped after chapter 7 and not turned the page, I wouldn't have seen what followed until the next day. As I was reading that chapter and turned the page, I was blown away! The new page started with Ezra 8:15 that says:

“Now I gathered them by the river that flows to Ahava, and we camped there 3 days.”

Ezra went on to share how they were taking captives back to rebuild Jerusalem but they needed more Levites to come with them. All of these Levites they gathered to join the journey were designated by name (8:20). Then as I continued reading on, I came to Ezra 8:21 and saw the word Ahava a second time:

“Then I proclaimed a fast there at the river of Ahava that we might humble ourselves before our God, to seek from him the right way for us and out little ones and all our possessions.”

Here is the sense of consecrating themselves, with fasting and prayer to seek God for direction and protection.

            Then I came across a third time Ahava was mentioned in Ezra 8:31-32:

“Then we departed from the river of Ahava on the twelfth day of the first month, to go to Jerusalem. And the hand of our God was upon us, and He delivered us from the hand of the enemy and from the ambush along the road. So we came to Jerusalem…”

 I couldn’t believe it! There is only one chapter in the entire Bible that mentions the word Ahava and it is in Ezra chapter 8 where it is mentioned three times!!

I just happened to read that particular chapter while I was in Georgia ministering at Ahava that day. What are the odds of me reading that precise chapter, unplanned, on the exact day I was going to speak at Ahava about Kairos moments, one year after I was originally supposed to be there?! You can’t make these things up!

Divine timing. Divine alignment. I was stepping into a Kairos moment.

God broke out in a special way that night. Instead of loud manifestations, He actually brought us into a time of intimate beholding His beauty and led us into an extended time of silence where people were laid out in His kabod glory. It was truly divine.

God Knows Us by Name

The Lord knows the Ahava community by name. He also knows our names and has designated us by name to the assignments He has prepared beforehand for us to walk into (Ephesians 2:10). He knows the exact times and seasons for us to be where we are.

The divine intersection at the Asbury Outpouring, my dad’s transition to heaven, the cancelation and rebooking of flights a year later, my rescheduled trip to Georgia were all in God’s perfect timing.

The delay is for a reason. Even if it doesn’t make sense in the moment, God is redirecting us for His greater divine purposes.

I bless you to recognize the divine Kairos moment we are currently in. May you step into the river of His presence, fully yielded to the Holy Spirit, and move where He is moving, led by the underwater currents of His love.

To read more about what a Kairos moment is and to see the full story of my transition with my dad check out my latest book and/or ecourse Sustain the Flame. 

Revival series part 4

 by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D., Revival Historian

Keys for Stewarding Personal Revival, Encounter, Awakening (taken from Jen’s book SustaiN the Flame)

When the fires of revival get ignited, then what? The Moravians knew that it was important to then steward the flames of revival to keep the oil burning and thus they cultivated the new wine skin of 24-7 prayer. Though the wineskins for how to steward the fires of revival may look different, we can learn from the Moravian’s example that unity in prayer is a key for stewarding corporate revival.

And when revival comes to us personally or God meets us in a profound way, it is also important to steward those encounters to keep the oil burning. Cultivating family around the fireplace of revival, stewarding a heart of worship in all circumstances, and praying in tongues regularly are keys that can profoundly shape our spirituality and keep us focused on the face of Jesus. In addition to these, the following are some rhythms and pathways to greater intimacy with Jesus and stewarding the fire that I have found helpful in my life.

1. Stay Full of the Oil of Intimacy

In Matthew 25:1-12, we see the story of the wise and foolish virgins. This parable is symbolic of making sure we steward the oil of intimacy in our lives to keep the fire burning. If we try to rely upon other’s secret place encounters and stewardship of their relationship with Christ, it won’t get us to where we need to go. We must personally make sure to invest time in the secret place with Jesus, getting filled up by Him with the Holy Spirit and fire. There is no shortcut to building intimacy with Jesus, it requires time and an open and vulnerable heart. In John 15:1-8, we see that all fruitfulness flows from intimacy with Christ. We must stay connected to our Source. Read Walking on Water: Experiencing a Life of Miracles, Courageous Faith, and Union with God to go deeper in this area.

2. Consume the Word of God

We must be a people who know the truth deeply, especially in the midst of the increasing delusions, lies, and deceptions of the enemy. People who work at banks know when there is a counterfeit bill because they handle so much real money. When we are saturated in the truth, we will know when something is off. The shaking in our world will only increase. We must stand strong on the Word of God which is a solid rock. We must read it, eat it, breathe it, meditate on it, memorize it, and make declarations with it. Audio versions of the Bible are also a good way to get the Word hidden in our hearts.

3. Steward Encounters and God’s voice

We must learn to discern and steward the voice of God through His Word, encounters, as well trusted prophetic voices in speaking into our lives. If God marks you, linger in that space. Don’t shift or transition too quickly out of an encounter with God. Don’t jump right into a conversation with someone or look on social media or get distracted another way. Allow what He has just blessed you with to permeate to the deepest levels. Meditate on what it good and it will have a greater effect on you. Journal what He has shown you. When God speaks to you, obey Him immediately and keep your heart tender toward Him. Steward prophetic words over your life. Make sure to audio record them, and then listen to them, write them out, and pray over them until they become a reality.

4. Fast

Develop a rhythm of weekly or regularly fasting to keep the fire burning. You would be surprised at the radical shift that regular fasting can have in your life. Jesus regularly fasted and we must learn how to walk in His footsteps. Many revivals, encounters, or defining moments in revivalists’ lives were birthed while on a fast. See my book Fasting for Fire: Igniting Fresh Hunger to Feast Upon God for more on this with practical tools to help get you started or a reframing of what it really is to re-ignite you.

5. Learn to Wait on the Holy Spirit

Psalm 46:10 says “Be still, and know that I am God.” How many times do we stop talking, moving, planning, to simply just be with God and sit in His presence?[ii] Too many of us think we have to strive, contend, push to see God move. But what if rather than trying to make things happen on our own, we instead spent time with the Holy Spirit, listened to what is on God’s heart, were fully yielded, and simply responded to where He was leading? What if like Moses, we weren’t going to go anywhere, even into revival or into our destinies, if He didn’t go with us? What if we became a people that was led by fire in the night and cloud in the day? Or a people who wouldn’t move anywhere without His presence (Exodus 33)?

 6. Embrace Rhythms of Run, Rest, Release

It is important to discern what season you are in so you can steward it well in preparation for the upcoming season. Many times in life, there are seasons where you run hard, rest, then release or birth new things. This is cyclical in nature. During times of revival, things accelerate, people are running fast, it’s time to push. But it is also important to embrace the Sabbath. Recognize what season you are in and adjust to make sure you get what is needed in that time. The sabbath is not only Biblical, it is also a key for unlocking greater creativity in our lives. Embracing the sabbath, having fun, eat healthy, exercising regularly, and stewarding our bodies which are temple of the Holy Ghost are essential to run hard and finishing well. We don’t want to be a people who burn and then burn out. We need the sustaining burn.

7. Surround yourself with other Burning Ones

A single flame alone might burn for a little while, but for that flame to increase and not die out, it is important to unite with other flames. The more flames come together, the greater the fire and likelihood that your flame will not whither. I’ve seen too many people be a part of a great culture, environment, or ministry school for a season, get radically impacted, and then back to their homelands without being intentional to find and run with other sold-out burning ones. Soon, their fire wanes or even worse, they go back to a lifestyle they had before God encountered them powerfully. We must find other passionate Jesus lovers wherever God places us. The great thing now is that even if you can’t find any in your hometown, you can run with other burning ones in online communities for support to keep the fire burning. Ask God to surround you with spiritual mothers and fathers, kindred-spirited burning friends, and others you can encourage.

 8. Steward the Power of the Testimony

Another way to build up your faith and keep the fire burning is to recount and thank God for the testimonies of His faithfulness in your life and how He’s come through in the past. Whether it is by framing a picture on a wall that reminds you of a breakthrough or of His radical provision, writing down testimonies on a 3x5 card to go over to encourage yourself in, or some other creative way, do it! Steward these stones of remembrances (Joshua 4). By stewarding testimonies of God’s faithfulness in the Bible, in revival history, in the lives of others, and in your own personal history with God, you are prophesying into future breakthroughs and radical acts of faith.

9. Learn how to Deal with Disappointment

One of the greatest things that I’ve noticed takes Christians out or sidelines them is when they fail to deal with disappointment well. Some might suffer loss, have something happen to them they don’t understand, step out in faith for something that doesn’t happen. Rather than learn from it and trust God will turn it around for their good, many get discouraged, disillusioned, build up distrust against God, or condemn themselves as failures. If we really believe all the promises found in Romans 8 and have a healthy perspective on God the Father, we won’t turn to bitterness or embrace disappointment. Instead, we will deepen our connection with the Father and learn to trust Him even more. Memorize and believe Romans 8 and you will not be shaken.

10. Choose Unity and Love

This is both important on a personal and corporate level. Strive to be at peace with all people and take the road of humility again and again (Romans 12:18, Philippians 2). Trust God to vindicate you where you’ve been wronged. And just as Christ forgave you, so you must also do.

11. Don’t be Afraid to Shine

And finally, don’t be afraid to shine (Isaiah 60). God has appointed some to be leaders in our generation. Not everyone has been given the same amount of influence, favor, resources, anointing for leadership upon your life. Be the gift God has called you to be, however that might look. Not everyone was called to lead the Israelites out of Egypt, but Moses was. Then it was Joshua who God appointed to lead them even further into their promised land. Humbly do the assignments God has entrusted to you without making excuses, making yourself look smaller, or sabotaging the call of God on your life (Ephesians 2:10). Give all the glory to God but when the invitation is there, step in while clinging to Him.

REFLECTION QUESTIONS

Hopefully some of the rhythms I have learned in my own life for stewarding the fire will encourage you. There are many more ways to steward the fire that may be unique for you.

• Which of these keys are you already doing well in?

• Which of these keys are highlighted for you to develop further?

• What other keys have you noticed that can help you steward the fire in your heart that may be unique for you in this season?

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These tips were taken from Jen’s book Sustain the Flame.

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D. Revival Historian

Below are some highlights from our School of Revival intensive at the YWAM Colorado Springs’ base January 30- February 2, 2023 with my team that almost got us kicked out the first night because they got drunk in the Holy Spirit and some of the students thought they were really drunk! Because the nature of the YWAM class we were teaching and students heading to closed nations, we were not able to post any pics from the teaching times or of the students but we did capture an anointed recording of our final session and the best teaching I never did.

After a week of sharing about the Power of the Testimony, the Moravians, Welsh Revival, Azusa Street Revival, and Fasting to increase hunger for God and more, we finished the final day with Creative Expressions as our second to last session. This is one of our favorite activations where the students take what they learned all week and create something to share with the class.

One person baked fresh bread that morning to bring in for us to do communion, another student sang a poem she wrote which released the presence of God in such a palpable way. Other students shared vulnerably, and it was astounding to see what they came up with in such a short time. One student received a prophetic revelation from God during one of our sessions that she turned into a song and played the Ukulele for the first time with dancers and a backup guitarist. It was a special second to last session.

Following this was to be one final session called “Living a Life of Fire.” However, when Elijah Andrews did the final creative expression in the prayer room on the same piano Keith Green once played on, the Holy Spirit started to move in a special way. When he sang, “I won’t leave til you set me on fire,” we were all on the floor. God was in our midst. 

I ended up remaining in that space as he continued to lead us in worship and decided to scrap my final teaching session on "Living a Life of Fire" because we were actually doing it. This must be one of the best sessions I never did teach!

I know of no other way to end a School of Revival intensive then sharing vulnerably with each other through creative expressions and then worshiping Him relentlessly and spontaneously because He is worthy. 

We all ended the week on our faces worshiping Jesus with no other agenda than to minister to Him. 

The date this happened was February 2, 2023, less than one week before the Asbury Revival broke out. Something is definitely stirring for the lingerers.

Don’t rush out from a place of God’s presence, especially when He draws close. That time with Him in that space is worth it, I promise you. 

Here is a taste of Elijah’s creative expression released that day (and used with his permission) that led us into a worship encounter. Hopefully you can experience a little of what we felt in the room that day. 

I pray as you soak and worship alongside of us, that God sets your heart on fire for Him again today in a special way.

Revival Series Part 2

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D., Revival Historian 

Now that we have explored semantics and some development around the term revival and exploring its meaning, let’s go even deeper to the impact it should have on one’s life and what comes afterwards.

In the natural, if someone is sleeping, barely alive, or has suddenly died, they need to be awakened or revived. Many times, someone will use smelling salts (ammonia inhalants) to awaken a person who has passed out or become unconscious. They put this aroma under the person’s nose to breathe it in. Suddenly, when this happens, the person is revived from their previous unconscious state. Once this person has become revived from their formal sleeping state, they do not need to remain in a state of trying to be revived because they have already come back to life. There is no more need for them to inhale the smelling salts. This person must now begin to live more empowered since their awakening.

This can be a metaphor for revival. Some people have become spiritually unconscious or fallen asleep and they need to be re-awakened. Others have become dead inside and need to be resurrected back to life. Once they have been awakened and brought back to life though, now it’s time to move from the resurrected state to the empowered state of living, being transformed, and stepping into their destiny.

Revival is only just the beginning. Once a person is awakened, then it’s time to fully live.

In Hosea 6:2, it says, “After two days He will revive us; On the third day He will raise us up, That we may live in His sight.” Here we see that revival is not meant to be a continual state as much as what needs to happen whenever our spirits begin to wither away or die on the inside. Once people are revived, they then need to live the abundant life Jesus died for them to have (John 10:10). Transformation, reformation, revolution, and destiny must follow. Once revived, we must learn to live as burning ones on fire for Jesus constantly remaining full of the oil of His presence.

Jesus is Revival

All that said, at the heart of revival is Jesus. Jesus is the truest revival we will ever know. Beyond living for revival, we live for the Reviver. When we become awakened spiritually, we fall more in love with Jesus. When we fall more in love with Jesus, transformation takes place within our hearts, and we impact those around us. Revival is truly just more of Jesus.

We are born to live revived lives in the Spirit of God. We are made to be burning ones who don’t burn out. We are born to live loudly for our King of kings and display His glory through our lives. As we become awakened to King Jesus, our destinies begin to unfold in a greater measure. We step out in faith, hand in hand with our best friend Jesus, and can bring hope to a world that desperately needs it. From a place of intimate union with God, as we yield to and follow the Holy Spirit’s leading, we become agents of revival wherever we go. The burning flame inside spreads and ignites others whose flame has dwindled.

The Reviver by Rolland Baker

Rolland Baker, co-founder with Heidi Baker of Iris Global is a missionary in Mozambique, has experienced revival firsthand. His insights in the epilogue of his book, Keeping the Fire, are worth noting.

“I return at the end to where I began: with the Person of Jesus

Iris is not about us. It is about Jesus.

Revival is not about manifestations or miracles; it is about the Reviver, Jesus our Savior.

We have only one destination, one home, one reality, one resting place, one source, one

motivation, one reward, one possession, one point of contact with God, one source of real

satisfaction – and that is Jesus…

Everything we value has been found in Jesus. The key to our core values is therefore

falling in love with Him. 

Love is a gift of relationship, not just self-sacrifice. The secret place is not necessarily found in a prayer closet or a posture of soaking, or in battling for a just cause, or in a massive prayer and fasting effort. Even the most amazing miracles can leave us lonely and without relationship. We can run out of motivation advancing the noblest ideals and working at all levels to transform society. We can minister until we have no more strength, and still go home and lie in bed without the relationship for which our hearts are made.

Everything is okay with relationship. It is all that Jesus cares about, all that motivates Him. He could do many more amazing miracles to dazzle the world with His powers, but He is interested only in relationship. The entire creation, all the grandeur of the physical world, and all His works are designed to serve one thing: relationship. Revival has no content without it. Renewal and manifestations are pointless apart from it. Miracles only find their meaning it. Joy is shallow and groundless unless rooted in it. Without relationship we are the living dead…

Revival is all about Jesus.[i]

Revival Without God: A Warning

Revival can easily become an idol in our lives and take the place of Jesus. It can possess us and become an obsession. Not that there is anything wrong with desiring revival, but anything that comes before our passionate pursuit of Jesus becomes idolatry. We must always seek Jesus first, yield to the Holy Spirit, and pursue the God of revival. Revival never should become an idol in our lives. Our obsession above all else, including revival, must remain loving Jesus wholeheartedly. As we love God with all our minds, hearts, bodies, and spirits, revival is a natural overflow.

We don’t want to end up one day in front of God sharing how we released “revival” in the world but did it apart from personal and intimate relationship with Him. What would be the point of doing signs and wonders without Him and His presence or without love (1 Corinthians 13)? Moses could have easily had revival, stepped into his destiny, and saw his dreams come true. But without God’s presence, he wasn’t going to move (Exodus 33).

Revival without Jesus is not only empty, it is dangerous. Jesus says in Matthew 7:21-23,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

Casting out demons, setting the oppressed free, and performing miracles definitely feels like revival and that the kingdom of God has come in people’s lives. The only problem is that doing any of these works of revival is dangerous when not deeply connected to the Source of revival which is Jesus Himself. It appears from this passage that it is quite possible to do the works of revival without being known by God. This is unsafe ground to walk on. We must do the will of the Father and remain connected in relationship with Jesus as we do these works of revival. In their book about revival, Hansen and Woodbridge say, “You can have signs and wonders, but if you don’t have God, you don’t have revival. God-centered revivals withstand the temptation to treasure the blessings of revival over the one who blesses.”[ii]

More than anything, revival needs to be birthed from a place of a deep burning passion for more of God and from an overflowing relationship with Him. As we stay connected to the Source, His steadily burning and increasing flame within us will ignite and awaken many around us, releasing revival wherever we go. As we knit ourselves to other burning ones and learn how to live in the fire of His presence together, we encounter His love and power in a way that radically impacts our world. Let us be a people who burn for revival fire to be ignited in our own hearts and for that to spread to a lost and dying world.

See part one “What is Revival” in this Revival Series HERE

Join our School of Revival family or take a revival history course in our online School of Revival HERE

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NOTES

[i] Rolland Baker, Keeping the Fire: Sustaining Revival Through Love: The Five Core Values of Iris Global (Kent, United Kingdom: River Publishing & Media Ltd, 2015), 141-143 used with permission in an email dated 12/19/2022 from Tim Pettingale, Director of River Publishing & Media Ltd.

[ii] Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 25.

Revival Series Part 1

 by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D. Revival Historian

*This was written before the 2020 lockdown and recent Asbury Revival outbreaks and is now a chapter in my book Sustain the Flame: Secrets to Living Saturated in God’s Presence and Holy Fire.

We hear the word “Revival” thrown around a lot these days, but what really is revival? In part one of these series, we will lay the framework for defining this term before going deeper into the realities that revival is only just the beginning and starting point, not the end all.

Semantics

Looking purely at semantics and the Scriptures to begin with, the term “revive” is used 23 times in the Old Testament in the New King James Version. It comes from the Hebrew word חָיָה châyâh which means “to live, to revive, to keep, leave, or make alive, to give life, quicken, recover, repair, restore to life, save, be whole.”[i] Notice the essence of staying alive once someone has been revived.

The first time the word revive is used in the Bible is in Genesis 45:27 when Jacob, who already grieved the loss of his son Joseph whom he thought was dead, realized that he was alive. It was then that his spirit was revived.[ii] In 1 Kings 17:22, the word goes beyond reviving hope of one’s spirit to mean resurrecting a physical human life. Here we see that Elijah prayed for a dead child who was brought back to life.[iii] Then in 2 Kings 13:21, the word was again used to describe one who was physically dead returning back to life when his body was thrown in Elisha’s grave.[iv]

The word revive is used the most in Psalms at 14 times and especially throughout Psalm 119. The Psalmist cries out for God to revive him according to His Word, His lovingkindness, His justice, and even His judgments. He also asks God to revive him in His way and His righteousness. There is also a turning back to God, deliverance from great troubles, and a hunger to be revived so that God’s people may rejoice in Him once again.[v]

In Isaiah, we discover a God who revives the spirit of the humble and the heart of the contrite ones. In Habakkuk, there is a desire for God to revive and make known His works of old once again.[vi] And don’t forget the revivals that happened under Kings Asa, Hezekiah, and Josiah along with many other personal revivals that took place in people’s lives throughout Scripture.

In the New Testament, in all other translations included, nowhere was there an equivalent of this word used. This could possibly be because the church in the New Testament didn’t need revival because they were already fully alive and living it. Persecution many times proves to help along these lines of staying burning hot in our love for Christ.

Etymology

When we look deeper into the etymology of how this word has developed over the centuries, we see that roots for revive come from the Old French word revivre (10c.) and directly from the Latin word revivere which is translated “to live again.”[vii] By the 1560s, the word revive had the sense of “returning to a flourishing state” or of feelings or activities “beginning to occur again.”[viii] In the 1650s, revival meant the “act of reviving after decline or discontinuance.” At the essence of the word, revival is the call to live again.[ix] What has since died and been forgotten, needs to become awakened once again.  

In the 1660s there was a unique take on this term as it was used for “the bringing back to the stage of a play which has not been presented for a considerable time.”[x] Might it be time for an encore in the platform of Christianity to welcome the Holy Spirit back to take center stage once again? In the early 1700s, it is believed that New England Puritan pastor Cotton Mather was one of the firsts to connect this term to religion. In one of his writings in 1702, he connected the term revival with religious awakening in the community.[xi] By 1818, the term revival was used to describe “enthusiastic religious meetings (often by Methodists) meant to inspire revival.” A few years before this in 1812, the term Revivalist was being used as “one who promotes or leads a religious revival.”[xii]

Exploring Paradigms for Religious Revival

Moving beyond semantics now into the study of revival history, there are various perspectives on religious revivals by both practioners and revival historians. For some, revival only happens within the church, and for others, it’s when the world is awakened to Christ as well. Some see revival as something that we should be living in every second of the day while others see it as episodic moves of God.[xiii] Some see it coming as a result of prayer while others see it only as a sovereign act of God. While there could be a whole separate book on this subject alone, I present a small snapshot of a few of the varying perspectives below.[xiv]

Charles G. Finney (1792-1875), known as the father of modern revivalism, believed that we very much play a role in awakening the church and bringing sinners to repentance as led by God. He saw a need for revival to happen periodically to wake up the church because it so regularly became stagnant. He saw revival as “nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.”[xv] He compared revival to a crop of wheat and emphasized that God uses means to cultivate both. Finney believed that if the fire was kept burning in the church, there would have been no need for revival, but unfortunately, he saw that was rarely the case.[xvi] About revival, he wrote:

I AM TO SHOW WHAT A REVIVAL IS. It is the renewal of the first love of Christians, resulting in the awakening and conversion of sinners to God. In the popular sense, a revival of religion in a community is the arousing, quickening, and reclaiming of the more or less backslidden church and the more or less general awakening of all classes, and insuring attention to the claims of God.

It presupposes that the church is sunk down in a backslidden state, and a revival consists in the return of a church from her backslidings, and in the conversion of sinners.[xvii]

Martin Lloyd-Jones described revival as “the outpouring of the Spirit over and above his usual, ordinary work; this amazing, unusual, extraordinary thing, which God in his sovereignty and infinite grace has done to the Church from time to time during the long centuries of her history.” [xviii] Christmas Evans (1766-1838), an influential one-eyed Welsh Baptist preacher said that “Revival is God bending down to the dying embers of a fire that is just about to go out, and breathing into it, until it bursts again into flame.” Duncan Campbell of the Hebrides Revival said that “Revival is a community saturated with God.”[xix]

In his study on Pentecostalism in The Everlasting Gospel, William Faulpel sees revival as having a seven-stage process: conception, gestation, labor, birth, growth, reproduction, and maturity.[xx] He compares it to the life cycle paralleling the birth of a new baby. Mark Stibbe from the U.K. defines revival as “a season ordained by God in which the Holy Spirit awakens the Church to evangelise the lost, and the lost to their dire need of Jesus Christ.”[xxi] He distinguishes renewal as confined to the Church while revival as something that reaches beyond the church and into the world.[xxii] He likens renewal to a stream and revival to that same river becoming a “flood that disturbs boulders and overflows banks.”[xxiii]

Like Stibbe, I would also say there are special seasons, windows of opportunity, or kairos moments, where the Spirit is at work to awaken and revive the Church.[xxiv] At the turn of the twentieth century, revivals were springing up all around the world in this sacred and set apart kairos season of time.[xxv] Revival broke out in Wales in 1904-05, in India in 1905, and then in Los Angeles in 1906 at Azusa Street amongst other worldwide moves near the same time. The early twentieth century was pregnant with revival. There was something anointed, set apart, and special about that kairos moment that these saints were able to recognize and tap into. The result was revival that is still impacting us over a hundred years later.

Defining Revival

As we seek to define revival here, I would say that revival is when the fire of first love for Jesus is re-ignited in the hearts of believers. As a result, their lives are transformed, and the kingdom of God is expanded all around them in various ways that impact, shape, and reform culture and society.

Revival is for Christians whose fire has waned. If someone has never encountered God’s love for themselves, they can’t necessarily be re-awakened to it. It is only when the fire of first love has been snuffed out that one needs revival. Once that original flame is re-ignited, the awakened ones naturally influence those around them, and many times others are brought to salvation as a result.

Ultimately, revival is becoming fully alive to Jesus again. And it’s important to understand that revival is not the end goal. It is only just the beginning.

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P.S. Before you completely disagree with me, wait to read Part 2 of this series “Revival is Just the Beginning.” Both of these pieces have been written before the 2020 lockdown and recent Asbury Revival outbreaks and are featured in chapters of my new Sustain the Flame: Secrets to Living Saturated in God’s Presence and Holy Fire. See Sustain the Flame ecourse for a whole teaching on the topic of what revival is and how to steward it.

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NOTES

[i] Strong's H2421 https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h2421/nkjv/wlc/0-1/ “to live, whether literally or figuratively; causatively, to revive:—keep (leave, make) alive, certainly, give (promise) life, (let, suffer to) live, nourish up, preserve (alive), quicken, recover, repair, restore (to life), revive, (God) save (alive, life, lives), surely, be whole.”

[ii] “But when they told him all the words which Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts which Joseph had sent to carry him, the spirit of Jacob their father revived.” –Genesis 45:27 (NKJV)

[iii] “Then the LORD heard the voice of Elijah; and the soul of the child came back to him, and he revived.” –1 Kings 17:22 (NKJV)

[iv] “So it was, as they were burying a man, that suddenly they spied a band of raiders; and they put the man in the tomb of Elisha; and when the man was let down and touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet.” –2 Kings 13:21.

[v] Psalm 71:20 is a call to be delivered from great troubles.Psalm 80:18 is a reviving in order to turn back to God.

Psalm 85:6 says, “Will You not revive us again, That Your people may rejoice in You?” There is purpose to praise in the reviving work. We see in Psalm 119:25,107, 154 that one can be revived according to His word: “Revive me according to Your word (119:25).” Psalm 119:37 we can be revived in His way: “Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things,  And revive me in Your way.” Psalm 119:40 we can be revived in His righteousness: “Behold, I long for Your precepts; Revive me in Your righteousness.” Psalm 119:88 and 159 we can be revived according to His lovingkindness: “Revive me according to Your lovingkindness, So that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth.” In Psalm 119:149, we can be revived according to His justice: “Hear my voice according to Your lovingkindness; O LORD, revive me according to Your justice.” Psalm 119:156 we can be revived according to His judgments. “Great are Your tender mercies, O LORD; Revive me according to Your judgments.” Psalm 138:7 when in trouble we can be revived: “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, You will revive me; You will stretch out Your hand. Against the wrath of my enemies, And Your right hand will save me.” Psalm 143:11 we can be revived for His name’s sake: “Revive me, O LORD, for Your name's sake! For Your righteousness' sake bring my soul out of trouble.”

[vi] Isaiah 57:15 (NKJV) says, “For thus says the High and Lofty One, Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, With him who has a contrite and humble spirit, To revive the spirit of the humble, And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.” And then in Habakkuk 3:2, “O LORD, I have heard Your speech and was afraid; O LORD, revive Your work in the midst of the years! In the midst of the years make it known; In wrath remember mercy.”

[vii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/revival

[viii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/revival

[ix] According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, the word revival can mean: “1: an act or instance of reviving: the state of being revived: such as a: renewed attention to or interest in something b: a new presentation or publication of something old c (1): a period of renewed religious interest (2): an often highly emotional evangelistic meeting or series of meetings 2: restoration of force, validity, or effect (as to a contract).”

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revival Accessed December 11, 2022

[x] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/revival

[xi] Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 31.

[xii] https://www.etymonline.com/word/revival

[xiii] Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, The Churching of America 1776-1990: Winners and Losers in Our Religious Economy (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1992), 92. According to Roger Finke and Rodney Starke, while “all organizations need renewals or revivals of member commitment, it is also true that these must be episodic. People can’t stay excited indefinitely.” Most people don’t have the capacity to remain in a heightened state of being revived.

[xiv] Prayer, surrender, consecration, and repentance many times precede personal and corporate revival. In all my research on revival up to this point (over two decades), I have noticed that hunger was the one constant that drew people to seek more of God in desperation, which resulted in revival. Prayer seems to regularly play a pivotal role in this. It’s not ours to determine how God will move, but it is ours to prepare, position, partner, pray, and invite Him to move in and through us as agents of revival. We must be a people who step out in faith to reach the lost as if their salvation depended upon us. We must be a people who immediately respond to the leading of the Holy Spirit and allow Him to use our lives however He wishes because we are motived by love for Jesus.

[xv] Charles Grandison Finney (1835). Lectures on Revivals of Religion p.14

[xvi] “There is so little principle in the church, so little firmness and stability of purpose, that unless the religious feelings are awakened and kept excited, counter worldly feeling and excitement will prevail, and men will not obey God. They have so little knowledge, and their principles are so weak, that unless they are excited, they will go back from the path of duty, and do nothing to promote the glory of God. The state of the world is still such, and probably will be till the millennium is fully come, that religion must be mainly promoted by means of revivals. How long and how often has the experiment been tried, to bring the church to act steadily for God, without these periodical excitements. Many good men have supposed, and still suppose, that the best way to promote religion, is to go along uniformly, and gather in the ungodly gradually, and without excitement. But however sound such reasoning may appear in the abstract, facts demonstrate its futility. If the church were far enough advanced in knowledge, and had stability of principle enough to keep awake, such a course would do; but the church is so little enlightened, and there are so many counteracting causes, that she will not go steadily to work without a special interest being awakened.

As the millennium advances, it is probable that these periodical excitements will be unknown. Then the church will be enlightened, and the counteracting causes removed, and the entire church will be in a state of habitual and steady obedience to God.”

Charles G. Finney, Lectures of Revivals on Religion (New York, NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1868), 9

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/f/finney/revivals/cache/revivals.pdf

[xvii] Charles G. Finney, Lectures of Revivals on Religion (New York, NY: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1868), 12

https://www.ccel.org/ccel/f/finney/revivals/cache/revivals.pdf

[xviii] Martin Lloyd-Jones, Revival (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 1987), 199 in Collin Hansen and John Woodbridge, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2010), 35.

[xix] Duncan Campbell, The Lewis Awakening, p. 14-15

[xx] William Faupel, The Everlasting Gospel: The Significance of Eschatology in the Development of Pentecostal Thought. Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series, ed. John Christopher Thomas, Rickie D. Moore, and Steven J. Land, vol. 10. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).

[xxi] Mark Stibbe, Revival,The Thinking Clear Series, ed. Clive Calver (London: Monarch Books, 1998), 14, 223.

[xxii] Mark Stibbe, Revival,The Thinking Clear Series, ed. Clive Calver (London: Monarch Books, 1998), 17.

[xxiii] Mark Stibbe, Revival,The Thinking Clear Series, ed. Clive Calver (London: Monarch Books, 1998), 49.

[xxiv] Jennifer A. Miskov, “Coloring Outside the Lines: Pentecostal Parallels with Expressionism. The Work of the Spirit in Place, Time, and Secular Society?”, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 19 (2010), 94-117.

[xxv] Additionally, I introduce “sacred time” into this discussion as a “special season when revivals, awakenings, and stirrings of the Holy Spirit are concentrated and occur in higher frequency than in other times… when people all around the world experience heightened manifestations of God’s presence” at the same time. Jennifer A. Miskov, “Coloring Outside the Lines: Pentecostal Parallels with Expressionism. The Work of the Spirit in Place, Time, and Secular Society?”, Journal of Pentecostal Theology 19 (2010), 115.

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D.

One of the best things about teaching a class on the History of Revivals this past semester at Vanguard University is that I got to explore more revivals throughout history than I had previously done. I also got to do it together with fresh minds who were eager and hungry to learn and process together. The following is one thing I learned during this journey of exploring the History of Revivals with my students at Vanguard.

What I learned by teaching History of Revivals class

1. God can move freely outside of and even within, tight structures

In the diametrically opposite structures of these revivals, the one constant was that space was created for the spontaneous moving of the Holy Spirit.

Case Study: Revival of 1857-59

Before I taught History of Revivals class at Vanguard University, I believed that there was one constant in revivals that was important to keep in mind when positioning for and stewarding revival in our day. Because I have spent so much of my time and heart focusing on two of my favorite revivals, The Welsh Revival and the Azusa Street Revival, I previously made the assumption that one mark of revival is that

“Time is irrelevant when God shows up.”

The meetings in the Welsh Revival had no start or stop time. At Azusa Street, there were continuous meetings around the clock. God moved in a significant way in both of these movements and in a similar way in many other revivals. Eye witness of the Azusa Street Revival Frank Bartleman, described the meetings like this:

The services ran almost continuously. Seeking souls could be found under the power almost any hour, night and day. The place was never closed nor empty. The people came to meet God. He was always there. Hence a continuous meeting. The meeting did not depend on the human leader. God’s presence became more and more wonderful. In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors, God took strong men and women to pieces, and put them together again, for His glory. It was a tremendous overhauling process. Pride and self-assertion, self-importance and self-esteem, could not survive there. The religious ego preached its own funeral sermon quickly.[1]

The Lord wrought very deeply. Several were under the power all night on one occasion. There was no closing at 9 o’clock sharp, as the preachers must do today in order to keep the people. We wanted God in those days. We did not have a thousand other things we wanted before Him.[2]

When it was time to teach on the Business Prayer Meeting Revival of 1857-59 that happened in New York, it messed up my theory based off of the Welsh and Azusa Street revivals. I thought God really liked to move in revival when there were no constraints placed upon time. As we studied this revival, we noticed that there was strictly one hour set apart for businessmen to gather together during their lunch break to pray. There was a clear start and stop. And the crazy thing was that even in this tight structure, God moved and spread revival throughout the land all in the model of a one hour lunch break prayer meeting model. As we continued to dive deep into studying revivals and looking at each uniquely while seeing the broader scope as well, I struggled with this one hour reality.

I had spent so much of my own efforts trying to break this box. When I stewarded our meetings at Destiny House every Friday, I made it a core value to not have a set stop or end time but just finish whenever the Holy Spirit was done. That was the one day a week where I didn’t want to put a time constraint on God or box Him in in anyway. I modeled our meetings after the similar core values found within the Welsh Revival.

The Revival of 1857-59 didn’t fit nicely into any of my previous paradigms. But then in the midst of teaching this class and processing with the students, I realized that there was a similar pattern between this revival and the Welsh and Azusa Street revivals.

Even though their structures looked very different, the constant theme in each of these and others was that in however long or short the time was, they all made space for the Holy Spirit to move freely and spontaneously through whomever He chose. While the Businessmen’s Prayer Revival had a time limit of one hour, within that time, there was a priority to make space for the Holy Spirit to move through whomever felt a burden from the Lord. There was protected space and invitation for each person to bring something to the table and have a voice. Each was encouraged and invited to pray however they felt led by the Spirit. There was no platform. It was an even stage where each member of the Body of Christ could “play.”

While there are many patterns and insights we can learn from revival history, we can’t necessarily imitate previous revivals to get the same results. We can learn from history in how to better steward revival but the only way to get there ourselves is by walking in communion with Jesus and yielding to the leading of the Holy Spirit by saying Yes to whatever that looks like.

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[1] Frank Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles, 58-59. “…We had no ‘respect of persons.’ The rich and educated were the same as the poor and ignorant, and found a much harder death to die. We only recognized God. All were equal. No flesh might glory in His presence. He could not use the self-opinionated. Those were Holy Ghost meetings, led of the Lord. It had to start in poor surroundings, to keep out the selfish, human element. All came down in humility together, at His feet. They all looked alike, and had all things in common in that sense at least. The rafters were low, the tall must come down. By the time they got to ‘Azusa’ they were humbled, ready for the blessing. The fodder was thus placed for the lambs, not for giraffes. All could reach It.”

[2] Frank Bartleman, How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles, 102. “…And He did not disappoint us. One sister sang and spoke in ‘tongues’ for five full hours. Souls were saved. The saints were wonderfully built up and strengthened by the presence of the Lord. A number received the ‘baptism,’ and the mission became full fledged for ‘Pentecost.’ One Sunday night the hall was packed out, to the middle of the street. I went to the hall one morning to look up the folks, who had not come home. Several had stayed all night. I found them lost to all but God. They could not get away. A very shekinah glory filled the place. It was awesome, but glorious.”

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D.

This is the story of the Prayer Revival of 1857-58, also known as Businessman’s Revival, and how one man’s yes to partner with what God was doing in his generation led to a powerful revival where it was estimated that within a year, over 1 million people got saved.

On March 6, 1857, the Supreme court decided in the Dred Scott case that African Americans and their descendants could not be U.S. Citizens. This was big blow to our nation living up to its Biblical roots and foundations. This decision divided churches and eventually a Civil War came to the surface. But in this impending time before that took place, there was a stirring for revival in the land. Something was about to break open that no one could have imagined. In the wake of Charles Finney’s revivalism, a business man named Jeremiah Lanphier got converted at Finney’s Broadway Tabernacle in Manhattan, New York in 1842. After working in business for over twenty years, at age 49, Jeremiah got hired as a local missionary by the North Dutch Church on Fulton Street. He traded his big salary for one that was less than $1,000 a year.

God began to break Jeremiah’s heart for the lost while he evangelized. He saw that there was a great need for God in those days. Then one day, God gave him an inspired idea in how to reach the people. He decided to host a Wednesday prayer meeting for businessmen from 12:00-1:00pm. He passed out flyers and began to spread the word. He encouraged people to come for no matter how long they were able to pull away. Whether it was 5 minutes, 10, minutes, or more, he welcomed them all to come and engage in prayer with him.

The date was set for his first businessmen’s prayer meeting to be at noon on September 23, 1857. When the day came, he was ready to welcome the other businessmen for a time of prayer. At noon, no one showed up. Then 12:10, still no one. At 12:25pm, still no one. Nearly half way through his first prayer meeting, he may have felt like a failure, or maybe that he hadn’t heard God correctly. Who knows what may have been going through his mind after being vulnerable to follow what he felt was the leading of the Lord only to see that absolutely no one responded. He didn’t throw in the towel or give up quite yet though. He stood his ground and remained.

North Dutch Church Consistory Building

The six who joined him that first day

Then all of a sudden at 12:30pm, the first business man joined him for prayer, then another, and another until he had a total of six people join him the first day. That was enough for him to see there was a need for prayer and that God was on it. He didn’t despise the day of small beginnings but leaned into what God was doing. They planned another prayer meeting for the following Wednesday. This time twenty men came, then the following week forty. He had to move to a bigger room. Then on October 10, 1857 the stock market crashed. People lost everything in a matter of moments. Desperation for God increased. Soon these prayer meetings were not just weekly but daily. In a short time, there were crowds of up to 3,000 people joining the Fulton Street Prayer meeting. People from all different kinds if classes joined in.

There were specific guidelines in place for this prayer meeting that worked well during that time. They started promptly at 12:00pm and finished right at 1:00pm. They allowed people to come and go as they please so that it possible for everyone to join on their lunch break if possible. There was a sign posted that said, “Prayers and Exhortation not to exceed 5 minutes, in order to give all an opportunity. Not more than 2 consecutive prayers or exhortations. No controverted points discussed.” When I read that it made me dream of what a prayer meeting today could look like in the absence of agendas and politics.

Each meeting started with singing a hymn, then the leader read a Scripture, said a prayer and opened up the floor for prayer requests. Five minutes before 1:00pm, they sang another hymn and then the leader closed with a prayer of blessing over the people. The news of this prayer meeting spread, especially through the Newspapers at that time. One of the six to attend the first meeting was a 21 year old who had a passion to take the same fire for prayer to him hometown in Philadelphia. His first meeting had forty, then sixty, then 300, then 2,500. Then he had to get a tent to accommodate the incoming crowds. In just four months, over 150,000 had prayed in that tent.

This revival was made up of people from all different denominations. It was a lay person’s revival. This was a prayer meeting for souls, and within a year it is estimated that over 1 million people got saved.

What might happen again today when a few people set aside a little time each day, or even just an hour a week to pray together for the lost, for a fresh outpouring of the Spirit in our day?

Do not despise the day of small beginnings (Zechariah 4:10). Most revivals and powerful moves of God that sweep the nation start in a small meeting with just a few. See the story of the Azusa Street Revival for another example of how God loves it when the few gather to pray and seek for more of the Holy Spirit together.

See also references:

A God'-sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

Revival Born in a Prayer Meeting

or to explore The Azusa Street Revival

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D.

I don’t know about you, but at the start of the year I remember hearing so many significant prophetic words for what God wants to do in 2020. I even prophesied that 2020 would be a year of Unprecedented Outpouring of the Holy Spirit. However, as we have stepped into the first few months of this new decade, instead of the fulfillment of those words we have been faced with another unprecedented move, an invisible enemy that’s sought to kill, steal, destroy, and isolate this generation.

I have a confession to make. Even in the midst of this world crisis we find ourselves in that feels completely opposite of the prophetic words released, I still believe God’s heart for 2020 remains the same. I believe that what was prophesied over 2020 will still come to pass. His words and purposes over this year remain the same, even in the midst of this horrific resistance we are facing today.

Our now feels like an arrow being pulled back in the opposite direction of where it’s destined to fly. Or like the tide that’s being pulled back before a huge tsunami wave of revival is about to be poured out. Everything is being stripped away. I believe that the tide will turn and that what the enemy meant for evil, God will take to the other extreme and turn it around for our good as we partner in prayer, hope, and faith in action.

In this time of reset and reformation, I believe that something powerful is being shaped within us as we continue to worship Jesus even in the midst of this unprecedented world crisis and economic instability. Our hope is in JESUS. He never changes even when our circumstances do. Our new normal on the other side of this pandemic must not remain the same as it was before. We will be formed into strong men and women of resilience and hope.

I don't want to minimize the extreme cost or devastation that's upon us because I feel that the sickness, death, widespread fear, record breaking unemployment, and isolation breaks the heart of God. However, I believe that on the other side of this storm is a mass harvest of souls and a reformation of the church. I believe there is a restoration of family and a new renaissance of creativity that will be birthed in this time. I believe that leaders will arise from the dust of obscure and despised circumstances to bring solutions, radical love, and profound transformation.

Since the beginning of time, God purposed that we would be alive for such a time as this. As Christians in the midst of this dark season, I believe it's our time to arise and shine (Isaiah 60). He has entrusted us to carry hope to the hopeless, peace to the fear stricken, and healing to the brokenhearted.  

I believe that those prophetic words that were released in the beginning of the year are just as true today as they were before we entered into this season of world shutdown and pandemic. The enemy doesn’t want any of those prophetic words to come to pass because he knows that it’s “Go Time” for the church in a massive way. He knows that shutting down the entire world makes the most sense to try and sideline the great awakening upon us. Attempting to disconnect the Body of Christ and bring a spirit of fear and death over this generation is not going to work. We will arise and go in the opposite spirit. On the other side of this moment in history and attack against our generation is a people of hope arising to see God’s kingdom come. We are being prepared to see the Holy Spirit poured out like never before and are being positioned to steward a billion soul harvest that’s already begun.

I still believe God’s words over 2020 ring true today and that He is positioning us for a massive great awakening. In the midst of this Corona virus and world shut down, I want to remind you of God’s heart over this year and share with you a word I released on January 1, 2020 entitled:

2020 A Year of Alignment, Synergy, and Unprecedented Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

While I saw 2018 as the Year of Family and 2019 as the Year of Focus, I see 2020 as the Year of Alignment, Synergy and Unprecedented Outpouring of the Holy Spirit building upon the previous years’ themes. Last year was a time of uprooting, relocating, and then re-planting. It was a year of God moving people around as if on a chess board getting them into perfect position for His next great move.

2020 is Go Time. It’s the due date. It’s check mate. It’s a time of alignment, synergy and convergence. God has repositioned His people to be in perfect alignment for what He’s about to pour out next, His Spirit in unprecedented measures.

Alignment means “arrangement in a straight line, or in correct or appropriate positions or a position of agreement or alliance.” Synergy means “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” The word Unprecedented means “never done or known before” and Outpouring means “something that streams out rapidly.”

We’ve seen God do so many incredible things throughout history. I believe, pray, and declare that 2020 will be a time of the greatest outpouring we have ever seen at such an unprecedented level that we won’t even be able to compare it to any of the previous revivals. The Momentum of the Ages is upon us. So many have laid down their lives to launch us into a greater spiritual inheritance. It’s our turn and our time to step into the momentum that is now set before us.

I believe God is pouring out His Spirit in such a massive way that everybody who is hungry, no matter where they are, will be able to embrace it. All throughout the earth, revival and a fresh outpouring of the Spirit is in the air. God has positioned His people and is ready to make His next move.

We can position ourselves to ride this next wave of revival, this unprecedented outpouring of the Spirit and billion soul harvest by remaining full of the oil (Matthew 25). And if we have eyes to see, we can recognize that revival is already upon us. We’re not simply waiting for one massive new move of God; we’re already swept up in it. It has already begun. The Momentum from all who have come before is great. God’s Spirit is already being poured out in all the earth in increasing measures. Vision 2020 is also about recognizing what we’ve had in Jesus all along rather than just reaching into the future trying to grasp for something unseen. The more is coming but we also need to remain present in the now of what God is currently doing all around us.

The revival we’ve been praying our whole lives for is already upon us. It began this past year with God consecrating and setting us apart to be burning ones, wholly His. We grew in learning how to walk in unity and love. We chose to throw off everything that hindered to run fully after Jesus with nothing holding us back. He has been waking us up and setting us apart in wholehearted surrender. He has been getting us, the Church, ready. He has been knitting us together with other believers who look and even think differently from us but who exalt the Name of Jesus above all others. He knows that each one is needed to link arms to be the net to capture, carry, and disciple this massive incoming harvest. We are continuing to be awakened to recognize the wave of revival that’s already begun. He is inviting us to dive in even deeper to His heart.

Some practical ways that we can position ourselves to welcome and steward the incoming outpouring of the Spirit in 2020 are (with some added tips I wrote today on March 31, 2020 since the world crisis):

1. Stay full of the oil of the Holy Spirit (Matthew 25). When this tidal wave of His glory is poured out and revival awakens people, it will be easy to get busy doing great things for God. In the hype, favor, opportunities, (and even in the midst of this present world crisis), we must never neglect time ministering and connecting with Jesus in the Secret Place. Prioritize the sabbath rest and spending time with Jesus in the secret place in the midst of great momentum and outpouring, (and in the midst crisis). Everything must flow from Him our Source. We minister from a place of intimacy and rest (John 15).

2. Stay deeply connected and knit together with the Body of Christ (Ephesians 2). The amount of people who will get saved will be so many that we will need to link together with the Body of Christ to be able to disciple and steward the great harvest. Make sure not to neglect family and important relationships in the midst of favor and revival. (Our current crisis provides us with an opportunity to develop these key relationships more intentionally right now).

3. Make space for God in your schedule, in your heart, in your home. Allow God to interrupt your agenda and to rearrange your plans. Make space for God in your quiet times and in your meetings. Whenever we make room for God, He comes. (This has now happened at a global level. Everything is slowed down and there’s more time to seek God if we allow ourselves to).

4. Expect the unexpected. Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. Be open to God moving in new ways through those least expected. Don’t criticize what you don’t understand or what’s uncomfortable. Be open to search it out and also receive the more of what God is pouring out even if it’s coming from someone unqualified or in a way you’ve never experienced Him before. (Perhaps revival will flow on the other side of this pandemic in unprecedented measures. Now is our time to get ready.)

5. Discernment (Hebrews 12:1-2). Don’t say yes to every opportunity or open door. Good is many times the enemy of the best. Only take on what God is asking you to take on now. Don’t bring into this new season what you were called to carry in the last one. Don’t be afraid of offending or disappointing others to remain obedient to Christ. Don’t settle for silver when you’re meant for gold. Throw yourself into what you’d be willing to die for. (Now is also a time to redefine our values and refine what will become our new normal on the other side of this).

May all of your fruitfulness flow from a place of intimacy with Jesus and connection with family. Blessing you as you cling tight to Jesus and stay knit together with the tribe of riders He’s connected you with in 2020. I believe we’re in for the ride of our lives and that it’s already begun. Surfs up.

Today, I still believe every word of this declaration over 2020 released above is true regardless of our surrounding circumstances. I declare the blood of Jesus to cover and protect you and for the resurrection power that raised Christ from the dead to permeate every single cell in your body with His healing power. May He guard your heart and mind from all fear and anxiety, and I pray that more than anything, you would experience the nearness of Jesus during this time like never before and that His peace that passes understanding would guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. May you arise and step into the assignment God has placed on your life for such a time as this. May you seek His face even more relentlessly in this season.

Jesus is Lord over every sickness and disease. God is with us in our time of need to bring a mighty deliverance. And when that deliverance comes in its fullest measure, be prepared, for one of the greatest moves of the Spirit will shortly follow. Now is our time to get ready. We were born for such a time as this. Each one of us plays a crucial role in this world revival. Blessing you during this unprecedented time and thank you for joining me on this journey.

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D.

When we create space for God to move, He always does. It’s wonderful. People get touched, healed, and marked by His love. And then there’s those times when we get caught up into a momentum that is so much bigger than anyone could imagine. That’s when we see a move of God take place where all we want to do is stay out of the way so we don’t hinder what God is doing. Well, this weekend in Fredericksburg, Virginia we experienced all of these scenarios. God moved in a special way when we created space for Him to move and we also experienced a tangible move of God. I give a brief overview and then highlight the youth meeting in detail below. Enjoy the ride!

Friday Encounter Revival Night

The Friday night Revival meeting was so tender as we cultivated space to simply be in His presence together. Kim Hager was leading worship during the encounter and ministry time as seen in photo above. To access some of her music go HERE.

Writing in the Glory Workshop

On Saturday during the impartation time in the Writing in the Glory workshop, God crashed in and marked people with His power and unlocked their voices. We also had our youngest graduate who was a two month old baby named Revival join us! I am literally carrying Revival in that picture!!!

Focus

In the Sunday morning church service, I shared from my recent transition the need to throw off everything that hinders, even the good things, and run the race with endurance keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus (Hebrews 12:1-2). Here’s a 2 minute clip to encourage you below to step into the gold God has for you in this season.

I Give You My Yes

Then on Sunday night with the youth group, we experienced a unique move of God unfold before our very eyes.

Immediately following the meeting that evening at 11:54 pm on March 31, 2019, I wrote the following account:

I just left the prayer room tonight at 11pm. I went there at 6pm for a youth meeting, my last event after a packed weekend of a revival encounter night, writing in the glory workshop, and preaching at church this morning. To be honest, I was pretty tired and had no idea what I was going to share this evening. I was grateful to get time in God’s presence in worship to hear His agenda for the night. It was during that time that I began to get downloads for the evening.

Then after worship, I did something I’ve never really done before in a meeting. At the very beginning of my talk, I gathered all of the youth up to the front and then invited them to sit down as if we were encircling around a camp fire, except we were going to camp around God’s presence and I was going to tell Holy Ghost stories. I started by sharing about the Welsh Revival and how it was really catalyzed by a teenage girl named Florrie Evans who, in her youth group, boldly declared that she loved Jesus with all her heart. This declaration of love lit a flame which spread to Evan Roberts who eventually stewarded and led the revival that in only 4 months brought in over 100,000 salvations.

Then I shared a little bit about the Azusa Street Revival and what happened when a handful of people gathered together in a home with their only agenda to encounter God. Revival broke out from that little house on Bonnie Brae Street in Los Angeles in 1906 and has impacted us generations later. I shared briefly about Pandita Ramabai in India and the revival that broke out at her orphanage. When the children were praying and going after God one night, what appeared to be fire rested on one of the girls and it looked so real that another girl got a bucket of water and was about to throw it on her until she realized that it was the fire of God. (I found out later that this youth group had experienced something similar on their youth retreat not long before). I next shared my Miracle Flight story and how one yes can lead to another yes and can actually have ripple effects beyond what we could even see.

After encouraging them to all stand and put out their hands to receive, I prayed for a fresh baptism of the Spirit and fire. Then after God was touching them, I felt to create space for the youth to share anything they felt was a corporate word of encouragement for the group. A few shared their hearts and what God had shown them which was so good. Then I felt there was a guy supposed to share, especially since all of those who came up were girls. After a while when no one came up, a girl came up with tears in her eyes to share and encourage people to give God even their weak yes (thank God she didn’t let the barrier of not fitting the description hold her back from releasing what God was burdening on her heart to release). This was the Holy Spirit’s direction for what would take place next.

Then the Spirit led to open up the microphone and an invitation for whoever felt to come up and say their renewed yes to follow Jesus wholeheartedly. This was a prophetic act that I believed would unlock something. Then I stood there amazed as I watched a tangible move of God take place with this youth group.

One by one, they slowly came up and said their yes to follow Jesus with their whole hearts. They did not rush up to the microphone to say yes flippantly, but really considered and counted the cost before stepping out. These were already Christians so it was no altar call for salvation but for wholehearted yieldedness and consecration. It was a laying down of their lives to say yes to whatever God called them to. Many were weeping. Even some who never made it up to say yes were weeping. Whenever one spoke out their yes, it was important to cover them in prayer. As we continued to wait on God, many were kneeling and weeping before the Lord while others were hugging and praying for their friends.

I had never experienced anything like this before in my life in a youth group. Whenever I release the Welsh Revival or the Azusa Revival, something powerful and deep always happens. This time it was both revivals released at the same night with a youth group that was hungry for God and even preparing to send several into Iraq to release worship there. It was one of those moments of stepping into a momentum so great where everyone just gets swept up into God’s divine purposes.

Many of the youth stayed kneeling or positioning themselves to encounter God even as parents showed up. Youth group was supposed to end around 8pm but even until 9pm many of the youth were still encountering God and getting marked by His consecrated fire. Around 9:30 or 10, there was just a handful of youth left along with some parents and youth leaders present. Then one of the beautiful girls who was on the youth team to the Middle East leaving this week, went to the piano and with tears in her eyes played and sang out to Jesus and also flowed in prophetic intercession over the sons and daughters in the Middle East that are so loved by God (her mother told me that this was the first time she had ever stepped out to do something like this). Another girl got up and danced which I found out later she had not done for a year. Then we just sat there and soaked in God’s presence as these beautiful surrendered lovers of Jesus worshiped for another hour. Their moms were getting wrecked in the back watching their daughters flow so freely and yielded to the Holy Spirit. I ended up leaving at 11pm and they were still going. There was so much freedom in the house. The next day I found out that they stayed worshipping there until 1:00 a.m.

While I see God move every time we create space and give Him room to come in our meetings, I don’t always see or experience a tangible move of God as profound as this one. It feels like we stepped into something so much bigger than ourselves. I’m so grateful for the timing and opportunity to witness and be swept up in this move of God here for such a time as this. What a deep well this place is and I’m so excited for the new season God is inviting them into.

Testimonies

Watch the video below at minute 7:00-17:00 to see some of the testimonies from the youth that they released the next evening in the prayer meeting.

I am so thankful for Kim Hager welcoming me to minister in this city and launching the pioneering Walking on Water groups here, David Bradshaw for what he has built and cultivated here, Aaron the youth pastor who has been making room for the Holy Spirit and is hungry to see God move, Havilah for the courage to say yes, Susan for welcoming me in the women’s ministry, Scott Bradshaw for the revival history tour, Bill & Nancy for hosting me, Liz for that epic massage, Emily for those timeless stories, Joan Hutter for introducing me to the inheritance in Virginia and coming out twice to support what God is doing in Fredericksburg, and everyone who was a part of making this such an unforgettable week.  I am excited for what God is doing and continuing to do in greater measures here in Virginia. May all who read this receive a fresh wind of the Spirit and a deeper fire of consecration marking you so you are ready and perfectly positioned to steward the incoming harvest that is already upon us. All for His glory, Holy Spirit come!

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*If you want to learn more about the Azusa Street Revival, The Welsh Revival, and Pandita Ramabai’s revival in India, check out Ignite Azusa or join our School of Pioneering Revival

by Jennifer A. Miskov, Ph.D.

Confessions of a Revival Historian

For the last decade, I have heard so many beautiful people talk about how they want a to be a part of a “Nameless Faceless” revival generation. While I love the heart behind this in that everyone gets to do “the stuff” (signs, wonders, and miracles) and that we are all seeking to make the name of Jesus famous, when I read the Bible, I don’t see a nameless faceless revival generation. I read about Moses, Joshua, Caleb, David, Ruth, Naomi, Elijah, Paul, Peter, Mary, and others who have both a name and a face who have answered the call on their lives.

In every move of God I’ve studied from the Reformation to the Great Awakening to the Healing Movement to the Welsh Revival to the Azusa Street Revival, I discover leaders like Martin Luther, John Wesley, Carrie Judd Montgomery, Evan Roberts, William J. Seymour, Aimee Semple McPherson and other heroes of the faith. These are the names of those who were appointed by God to lead their generation into its prophetic destiny. In each revival throughout history I have studied, there are people God raises up and anoints to lead, steward, and inspire a generation to step into their destiny. These leaders have a name and a face.

Each one of these leaders who partnered with seeing revival in their day had to at first say yes to answering His call. Even though they were imperfect, felt unworthy, and many times were afraid to lead, they stepped through their fears to be obedient. Their devotion to God was greater than their fear; they overcame their insecurities to walk in obedience. The fact that we know their stories of both triumphs and failures gives us hope that we too can step into all that God has for us.

In each generation, there are some (though not all) who have a special anointing upon their life for leadership and spiritual mothering and fathering. These are ones that God is entrusting with influencing their generations as they partner with the Holy Spirit to steward the move of God in their day. We need to know these people by name. We need to see their faces and understand their rhythms of life. We need to pray for them. Paul said to imitate him as he imitated Christ. In the same way, we need leaders in our lives that we can learn from (1 Corinthians 11:1; Hebrews 13:7).

One of the reasons I believe the terminology around a Nameless Faceless revival generation can be damaging if not understood in the proper context is because it can hold back born leaders from stepping into the leadership influence they are destined for. This thinking if misunderstood can cripple set apart ones from arising and shining and becoming the people God has intended them to be. If we embrace a nameless and faceless generation terminology without understanding the heart behind it in that everyone gets to do the stuff, it can potentially contribute to absolving the need of leaders to take responsibility. Even though it’s all about Jesus and everyone is carrying the revival together, even in this it’s important for each one to take their place and for some to step into their God ordained leadership influence rather than partner with fear of step on each other’s toes. If there’s hesitation or reluctance of leaders stepping up and being the gift they were born to be we run the risk of losing momentum.

We can’t afford to let fear or false humility hold us back from stepping into what we are born for and our God given assignments. We are called to prepare, position ourselves, partner together, and steward what God pours out in our lives and in our generation for the purpose of making Jesus famous. And some are called by God to lead. Leading is all about laying our lives down in service for the people God has entrusted us to influence. We lead, not to make a name for ourselves, but to partner with Heaven to see God’s kingdom come. I want to see a JESUS REVOLUTION take place in our day where everyone plays their parts all for the glory of King Jesus.

Saying Yes

Personally, I used to struggle to realize that I was a leader because I wanted it to all be about Jesus, not about me. It took years and some friends to speak into my life to help open my eyes to the fact that I was being used by God to help influence many into greater depths of God’s heart.

I didn’t want there to be any attention on myself, only Jesus, so I thought maybe it would be better if I just hid back in some corner and tried to disappear. I worked so hard to be invisible and to not step into the leadership influence entrusted to me. Then I realized that trying to be like Moses by “putting a veil over my face” and hiding the glory upon my life takes a lot of work. Hiding a bright light doesn’t really work and it just gets really awkward to all present. I came to the point in my life where even though I felt insecure, not worthy, and for sure did not feel like the most anointed one to lead, I realized that God had entrusted me with something special that He was appointing me to steward. I realized that whether I felt adequate or not, I needed to trust and obey God more, even if that meant stepping out to lead what I felt so unworthy of.

Sometimes I think that in extreme self-sacrifice where we surrender everything for the sake of trying not to make a name for ourselves, we can sometimes sabotage the influence God’s called us to steward for the sake of His glory. Or at least that’s a struggle I’ve had to face time and time again.

A few years ago, I remember the time I was with a friend in Texas doing a pre-meeting for a small stadium event. During this meeting, several pastors from the region were on the stage preaching their hearts out, very loudly and with great charisma. I was in the back of the room, bombarded with so many lies of the enemy and insecurities. I was questioning what I was doing there and was feeling so small and insignificant. One of the pastors was speaking about how we need to “kill the goliaths” in front of us. I was ready to respond to the call because I felt the “giants” were taking me down and I needed victory. When I went up toward the front for that altar call, the pastor saw that I was there and directed me to pray for those who had come up. Then something immediately shifted. I was awakened to remember who I was and why I was there in the first place. I started praying for people and was reminded that I was a leader who God had entrusted to come on this ministry trip to support what He was doing there. 

Then after several of the leaders had spoken, some even marching around the church waving a flag and “stomping out the devil,” I remember thinking, I really don’t want to speak, I have nothing to say, I am nothing like these crazy Texans (but oh how I love them!). Then one of the leaders invited me to the stage to share. I knew at that moment that I had a decision to make. Would I believe the lies of insignificance or would I say yes to the invitation to speak? I realized in that moment that regardless of how inadequate I felt, it was God who was making space for me and giving me the microphone. So I said yes.  

Then I had another decision to make. Would I try to be like all of the other vibrant preachers who stepped on the stage full of excitement with great charisma, or would I just be the unique gift that I am which I know would look different. I chose in that moment to trust that if they had invited me to the stage, I would just be me. So I took the microphone and walked to the middle of the platform. I got down on my knees and in a gentle way welcomed the Holy Spirit to come. I waited on the Lord and asked for a fresh baptism of the Father’s love to descend upon the people. Then the whole atmosphere shifted. It became silent in the room and people began to weep. There was a beautiful outpouring of God’s deep healing and purifying fire released in the room. God moved in a special and unique way. Even though all of our styles of ministry were so different, because we were unified as the body of Christ, everything flowed and fit together so beautifully.

SHINE
So to my friends and pioneers alike who feel insecure, unworthy, unseen, inadequate, ill-equipped, and afraid to stand out from the crowd to lead, I have a word of encouragement for you. It’s not about you or whether you are good enough or not. It’s about simple obedience to answer the call of God and to trust Him to be your Protector.  

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16 (NIV) 

“Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, ‘children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.’ Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life.” Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV)

You are born to shine. And some of you are born to shine by a being a leader.

God is commissioning some of you reading this right now to be generals and spiritual mothers and fathers in this new wave of revival, not for your own glory but for the glory of King Jesus. If you feel you have an anointing upon your life to lead, don’t be afraid to arise and shine. This generation needs you to be fully consecrated and set apart for every assignment God has commissioned you to step into (Ephesians 2:10). By leading your generation into more of God’s presence and power, many will be inspired to fall more in love with Jesus. By fully being the leader you are destined to be, God gets greater glory.

As you step through fear and focus on His face, I pray you come to realize that you too have a face and a name which are both so significant to God (Exodus 33:7, 1 Samuel 3, Isaiah 43:1, 49:1; John 10:3). The incoming harvest is great and each person needs to take their rightful place to steward what’s coming and already upon us. Life is too short and the price Jesus paid is too costly to not become all that He has created you to be today. You are a unique gift to this world. It’s time to come out of hiding. Now is your time. Shine on!

“Rise up and shine, for your light has come. The shining-greatness of the Lord has risen upon you. For see, darkness will cover the earth. Much darkness will cover the people. But the Lord will rise upon you, and His shining-greatness will be seen upon you.” Isaiah 60:1-2 (NLV) 

Hello, my name is Jen.

I have a face and I am born for revival.

It’s nice to meet you.

What’s your name? and what are you born for?  

*To get equipped, receive impartation, be released into even more of your calling, and partner with stewarding the incoming harvest, check out our School of Pioneering Revival.