Good Growth but where are the conversions?
My own observation over the last few decades in churches I’m connected with, is that we’ve got better at thinking through strategies for growth, and we’ve been able to gather and retain the believers who have come to us. It’s been good. Our concern however, must surely be that we are seeing less baptisms of recent converts. Many of our baptisms are of folk who have joined us from churches that don’t practice believers’ baptism, or from our wonderful young people who have grown up in Christian families and who now want to make their own decision to obey the Lord Jesus.
Likewise, your church may be growing for reasons other than effective evangelism. Over these past decades the church-planting movements have got better at serving believers (which is vital), but have we really improved evangelistically? Of the last ten people baptised in your church, how many were converts from genuinely non-believing backgrounds? Please add a comment if you’re bucking the trend – and tell us how!
Those evangelists, and evangelistic pastors, among us have been exhorting us to evangelism. But the unnerving thing is whether there’s any spiritual shift towards conversions. I’m not sure.
Fantasy or Reality?
At the same time, some leaders feel the call to pray for revival is almost like chasing fantasy rather than facing reality. There was an English sitcom where Wolfie Smith, ‘the self-proclaimed leader of the revolutionary Tooting Popular Front (merely a small bunch of his friends)’ would continually threaten, ‘Come the revolution….'[1] The comedy was, of course, that the suburban revolution would never come, and that Wolfie should have a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, and maybe get a job. Are our prayers for genuine culture-changing revival just as unrealistic? I don’t think so.
Persecutors cry, ‘What must we do to be saved?’
Wales 1859: ‘The additions to the churches in a very short period have been incredibly numerous. Now, at the end of February (1859) we could name more than twenty churches, each of which has received an addition of one hundred members, and several have received more than two hundred each. In many neighbourhoods, very few persons remain who have not made a profession of religion. There are considerable additions to the parish churches, (where the ministers have church meetings or societies,) and to the Independents, Baptists, and Wesleyans. About three thousand have been added to the Calvinistic Methodists alone. The fire is spreading still.'[2]
and…’We see that something awfully strong takes hold of the minds of the people. Some, after they are deeply wounded under the ministry, attempt to go away. We have seen numbers with weeping eyes leaving the house of God, but unable to go further than the door; they feel compelled to return again, and offer themselves as candidates for admission into the Church. In some cases. entire families have done this. You might see, at the close of the public service, twenty or thirty of the worst characters remaining behind, to be spoken to and prayed for. They appear as if they had been shot by the truth. They are as easily managed as lambs. Some who had persecuted the revival have been led to cry, “What must we do to be saved?”‘[3]
Pray, Pray, Pray
The historians of this revival insist it was preceded by prayer: ‘When the stated Sabbath arrived, we were blessed with remarkable earnestness at the throne of grace for the descent of the Holy Spirit to revive the Church and convert the world. Ever since that memorable Sabbath, the prayer meetings presented a new aspect-they gradually increased in warmth and number during the following months. This continued to February [1859] … when it pleased Jehovah to pour down His Spirit from on high, as on the day of Pentecost.'[4]
And…’By the closing months of that year [1858] very many of the Welsh churches had applied themselves to diligent and fervent prayer for revival, so that what has been said of the Ulster Revival of 1859 is also true of the Welsh Revival, it was born in prayer.'[5]
In Luke 18 we read that, ‘Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up.’ Many of our churches are strong but may be on the cusp of decline unless we pray for conversions to take place. For our non-believing neighbours to be born again. We thank God for every addition either from other churches, or other countries where Christianity has produced large numbers of converts. But we need to see our own conversions among those who live in our towns and cities. And prayer for revival, for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit that causes us to be bold and to speak up, and to see the power of God change lives, this is no fantasy. This is what God promised us: ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.’ Acts 1.8
Let’s keep praying.
Note. By revival we mean an outpouring of the Holy Spirit coupled with evangelism that leads to many non-believers being converted and added to the churches. The ‘revival’ in this sense is a revival of the presence of God, and the power of the gospel coming through freshly empowered Christians. The dominant characteristic is the tangible power of the Holy Spirit leading to conviction of sin, and lasting conversions. There is an alternative definition within the USA, which refers to a series of special meetings aimed at reviving existing believers in their faith. This website and this article refers to the first definition, although in every revival believers are definitely ‘revived’ and regular church gatherings are infused with dynamic energy and faith.
©2024 Lex Loizides / Church History Review
Pics: top: Jubilee Community Church, Cape Town, 2024 (city-wide youth meeting). Middle: Actor Robert Lindsay in the BBC role that made him a household name. Pic: independent.co.uk
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Smith
[2]Quoted by Thomas Phillips, The Welsh Revival, p.21 (1989, reprint from 1860, Banner of Truth)
[3] ibid p20
[4]Eifon Evans, Revival Comes to Wales, p.37 (1959, 1967 Evangelical Press of Wales)
[5] ibid p40
Church History Review 