Revival meeting

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Revival meeting in India Revival crusade in Andhra Pradesh, India, Johannes Maas, American evangelist, speaking.jpg
Revival meeting in India

A revival meeting is a series of Christian religious services held to inspire active members of a church body to gain new converts and to call sinners to repent. Nineteenth-century Baptist preacher Charles Spurgeon said, "Many blessings may come to the unconverted in consequence of a revival among Christians, but the revival itself has to do only with those who already possess spiritual life." [1] These meetings are usually conducted by churches or missionary organizations throughout the world. Notable historic revival meetings were conducted in the United States by evangelist Billy Sunday [2] and in Wales by evangelist Evan Roberts. [3] Revival services occur in local churches, brush arbor revivals, tent revivals, and camp meetings. [4]

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Meetings

Mennonite conference in 1947 Indiana-Michigan Conference In Fairview MI 1947 (5808666974).jpg
Mennonite conference in 1947

A revival meeting usually consists of several consecutive nights of services conducted at the same time and location, most often the building belonging to the sponsoring congregation but sometimes a rented assembly hall, for more adequate space, to provide a setting that is more comfortable for non-Christians, or to reach a community where there are no churches. Tents were very frequently employed in this effort in the recent past, and occasionally still are, but less so due to the difficulties in heating and cooling them and otherwise making them comfortable, an increasing consideration with modern audiences.[ citation needed ]

Ben M. Bogard, from 1909 to 1914, conducted revivals full-time in seven southern states. In 1924, he founded the American Baptist Association, the Missionary Baptist denomination, still based in Texarkana, Texas. ABA churches have traditionally held revivals usually once or twice a year. [5]

The length of such meetings varies. Until the last quarter-century they were frequently a week or more in duration, especially in the Southern United States. [6] Currently they may be held for three or four days. Evangelist Billy Graham planned a week-long crusade in New York City, which ultimately extended from May 15 to September 1, 1957. More than two million people went to New York's Madison Square Garden to hear him preach. [7]

Most groups holding revival meetings tend to be of a conservative or fundamentalist nature, although some are still held by Mainline groups, which formerly conducted them with a far greater frequency. Similar events may be referred to as "crusades", most especially those formerly held by Billy Graham and Oral Roberts.

Along with camp meetings, the holding of revival services is an integral part of the Methodist tradition, in which they serve to offer individuals the New Birth (first work of grace) and entire sanctification (second work of grace). [8]

Conservative Mennonites continue to hold and promote protracted revival meetings of usually seven or eight days duration at least once per year in a given congregation. The visiting evangelist is chosen from among their own or related congregations.

Many revivals are conducted by nondenominational community churches, most of which are conservative in theology.

This movement has been portrayed by director Richard Brooks in his 1960 film Elmer Gantry with Burt Lancaster (who received the Academy Award for this film) and Jean Simmons, adapted from Sinclair Lewis' eponymous novel.

The Stephen King novel, Revival, features a major character who is a revival meeting faith healer.

There is a revival scene in the 1997 film The Apostle , starring Robert Duvall. Duvall's portrayal of an evangelical minister earned him an Academy Award for Best Actor nomination.

Cormac McCarthy's novel Blood Meridian begins with a scene set at a revival meeting.

The Academy Award-winning documentary Marjoe reviews the career of child-evangelist Marjoe Gortner, giving a behind-the-scenes look at revivals he promoted as an adult.

Neil Diamond's Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show depicts a revival meeting.

The music video for OneRepublic's Counting Stars depicts a Christian revival meeting.

Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie depicts a week of revival meetings at the Congregational church in De Smet, South Dakota.

Remembrances of revival-meetings attended as a youth were the inspiration for the second movement of Charles Ives' Orchestral Set No. 2, The Rockstrewn Hills Join in the People's Outdoor Meeting. [9]

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

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The American Baptist Association (ABA) is an Independent Baptist Christian denomination in the United States. The headquarters is in Texarkana, Texas. The principal founder was Ben M. Bogard, a pastor of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. ABA headquarters, including its bookstore and publishing house, Bogard Press, is based in Texarkana, Texas.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Camp meeting</span> Christian gathering which originated in 19th-century America

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tent revival</span> Gatherings of Christian worshipers for rallies

Tent revivals, also known as tent meetings, are a gathering of Christian worshipers in a tent erected specifically for revival meetings, evangelism, and healing crusades. Tent revivals have had both local and national ministries.

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Christian revivalism is increased spiritual interest or renewal in the life of a Christian church, congregation or society with a local, national or global effect. This should be distinguished from the use of the term "revival" to refer to an evangelistic meeting or series of meetings. Proponents view revivals as the restoration of the church to a vital and fervent relationship with God after a period of moral decline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Los Angeles Crusade (1949)</span>

The Los Angeles Crusade of 1949 was the first great evangelistic campaign of Billy Graham. It was organized by the Christian group Christ for Greater Los Angeles. The campaign was scheduled for three weeks, but it was extended to eight weeks. During the campaign Graham spoke to 350,000 people, by the end, 3,000 of them decided to convert to Christianity. It was subsequently described as the greatest revival since the time of Billy Sunday. After this crusade Graham became a national figure in the United States.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Evangelical revival in Scotland</span>

The evangelical revival in Scotland was a series of religious movements in Scotland from the eighteenth century, with periodic revivals into the twentieth century. It began in the later 1730s as congregations experienced intense "awakenings" of enthusiasm, renewed commitment and rapid expansion. This was first seen at Easter Ross in the Highlands in 1739 and most famously in the Cambuslang Wark near Glasgow in 1742. Most of the new converts were relatively young and from the lower groups in society. Unlike awakenings elsewhere, the early revival in Scotland did not give rise to a major religious movement, but mainly benefited the secession churches, who had broken away from the Church of Scotland. In the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century the revival entered a second wave, known in the US as the Second Great Awakening. In Scotland this was reflected in events like the Kilsyth Revival in 1839. The early revival mainly spread in the Central Belt, but it became active in the Highlands and Islands, peaking towards the middle of the nineteenth century. Scotland gained many of the organisations associated with the revival in England, including Sunday Schools, mission schools, ragged schools, Bible societies and improvement classes.

Protestant liturgy or Evangelical liturgy is a pattern for worship used by a Protestant congregation or denomination on a regular basis. The term liturgy comes from Greek and means "public work". Liturgy is especially important in the Historical Protestant churches, both mainline and evangelical, while Baptist, Pentecostal, and nondenominational churches tend to be very flexible and in some cases have no liturgy at all. It often but not exclusively occurs on Sunday.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brush arbour revival</span> Type of religious meeting

A brush arbour revival, also known as brush arbour meeting, is a revival service that takes place under an open-sided shelter called an "arbour", which is "constructed of vertical poles driven into the ground with additional long poles laid across the top as support for a roof of brush, cut branches or hay".

References

  1. "What Is a Revival?". Archived from the original on 2002-06-14.
  2. "Billy Sunday Biographies - Christian Biography - Wholesome Words". www.wholesomewords.org.
  3. "Welsh Revival". www.welshrevival.com.
  4. Marberry, Mark (2 May 2019). "Brush arbor revivals are still around". Daily Journal Online.
  5. "Benjamin Marcus Bogard (1868–1951)". encyclopediaofarkansas.net. Retrieved August 2, 2013.
  6. Black, Daryl (2003). "'The Excitement of High and Holy Affections': Baptist Revival and Cultural Creation in the Upper-Piedmont Georgia Cotton Belt, 1800-1828". Georgia Historical Quarterly. 87 (3/4): 329–358. Retrieved 19 February 2018.
  7. "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-11-10. Retrieved 2012-04-26.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. Oconer, Luther Jeremiah (12 October 2017). Spirit-Filled Protestantism: Holiness-Pentecostal Revivals and the Making of Filipino Methodist Identity. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 4. ISBN   9781498203609.
  9. Ives, Charles E. (1973) Memos (ed. Kirkpatrick), Calder & Boyars, p. 92