Revival and Renewal Yesterday and Today
Written by Nathan Finn, Posted in Conferences, History, Ministry, Theology
I’m delighted to be speaking this coming Saturday night at an event called Awaken 2012. The meeting, which is modeled after David Platt’s Secret Church events, is being hosted by the College and Singles Ministry at Bell Shoals Baptist Church in Brandon, Florida. The church’s college minister, Daniel Butson, is a former student of mine at Southeastern. The church’s senior pastor, Stephen Rummage, is a former SEBTS faculty member and was my preaching professor.
George Whitefield (1714-1770)
The theme for the event is Revival and Renewal Yesterday and Today, which is a topic close to my heart. I teach on revival every semester in Church History II. I’ve also had the chance to teach a Ph.D. seminar on the History and Theology of Spiritual Awakenings as well as co-teach a M.Div. version of the class with my colleague Alvin Reid. At Awaken 2012, I’ll be giving three biographical messages on Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, and George Whitefield. In those messages, I hope to apply insights from the lives of these three men to contemporary evangelicals. It’s my hope that learning about revivals from days gone by might cause us to yearn for revival in the days to come.
While I rarely do this on my blog, I want to ask readers to pray that the Lord would bless Awaken 2012. Pray that the Lord would give me wisdom as I finish up the messages in the next couple of days and unction as I speak to the several hundred (mostly) young adults attending the event. Pray for Daniel and his team as they finalize preparations for the event. Pray for the worship band, Bellarive, who will be leading us in musical worship that evening. Finally, pray that the Lord would stir the hearts of all those who are at Awaken 2012, bringing personal renewal that might blossom into revivals in our local churches and spiritual awakenings in our communities.
Revival and Renewal Yesterday and Today http://t.co/oMrQ5WBd
New post at Christian Thought & Tradition, “Revival and Renewal Yesterday and Today” – http://t.co/xS4IB4du
I will pray for you. I love studying about the awakenings as I have studied Theodore Frelinghuysen’s role in the FGA.
I hope you’ll share your notes.
I have been praying for a Third Great Awakening for 39 years. I first addressed the Pastors’ Prayer Meeting of the Sandy Creek Baptist Assn. on the subject, A Great Awakening in the Fall of 1973. Then, I preached the 5th and the 10th Anniversary messages of that Prayer meeting on the subject, A Third Great Awakening. Interestingly enough, while pastoring in the Sandy Creek Assn. and while pursuing my Doctor of Ministry I had the privilege of preaching in a Chapel Service of SEBTS on January 29, 1975. Later I would find out that it was the 177 anniversary of the birth of the minister who suggested the founding of Southern Seminary and who led in the effort to found it, Rev. Basil Manly, Sr.