8–10 minute read.

If you are new to the Revival Reality Blog, welcome. This is where we look beyond the hype and honestly explore the reality of Christian revival and spiritual awakening throughout history. Together, we’ll uncover the powerful lessons, lasting legacy, and fresh inspiration of past revivals, asking what they teach us about prayer, mission, evangelism, and the sovereign work of God today.

Whether you are seeking an awakening or a revival, do you know if there is a proven method to get you there? This a critical question to answer, because if there is wouldn’t you want to know what it is? For example, has God laid out in scripture for us a clear plan to see awakenings and revivals occur in our local communities?

Where does methodology come from?

Methodology has deep roots in ancient societies, including Greece, India, and Persia. Through the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, this historic wisdom was gradually shaped into structured approaches that became the foundation of modern Western science. By the nineteenth century, Pragmatism had emerged, moving thoughts and beliefs away from abstraction and towards practical solutions for real-world problems.

Revivalist Charles Finney was influenced by the cultural rise of pragmatism, and he practised it. He applied methodology to evangelism and revival, introducing what he called “new measures” to encourage immediate decisions for salvation. Shaped in part by his legal training, he popularised methods such as the “anxious seat” and public alter calls. He also rejected the Calvinist idea that people had to wait passively for God to save them.

Finney’s methods still influence evangelism today, despite research showing that they are highly ineffective. Finney said “A revival is not a miracle, nor dependent on a miracle, in any sense. It is a purely philosophical result of the right use of the constituted means—as much so as any other effect produced by the application of means.” His confidence in method seemed to outweigh belief in God’s work in bringing people to salvation.

Think about how deeply methodology was embedded in Finney’s thinking. Like us, he was a product of his culture. As philosopher Alan Watts said “We seldom realise, for example, that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of the fundamental concepts and language that a culture has handed down to us.”

We are all deeply shaped by the assumptions, beliefs, and behaviours of our culture. That becomes a particular challenge when we read the Bible, which was primarily written by people formed within an ancient Near Eastern world — a world that thought and acted differently from those of us shaped by Western culture. For example, ancient Near Eastern culture would often look first to the divine to understand how things work, rather than to methodology.

That world can teach us something we badly need: the awe of God. Awe is essential when we think about creation, and it is just as important when we think about awakening and revival. Encountering God involves profound respect, wonder, and reverence. It reminds us that we are the created, not the Creator, and that his ways and thoughts are not ours (Isaiah 55:8–9). Awe can free us from the need to explain why everything does — or does not — happen.

Mark Greene, author and Mission Champion at the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity (LICC), writes “There is a danger in trying to systematize anything as mysterious as evangelism, a danger in reducing it to ten principles or seven keys… as if there is a magic formula.”. A similar caution may be needed when we think about awakenings and revivals.

Is there a method we can follow?

As Western Christians, our instinct is often to assume there must be a method for bringing awakening or revival. We expect it, we want it, and we look for it. Yet we rarely pause to ask whether God might be the sole author of such moments. We can also look to people associated with historic moves of God as “experts”, when perhaps they were simply ordinary people caught up in something God was doing.

We can also forget the sobering reality of history. Only four great awakenings occurred in Western society between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries: the 1730s–40s, 1790s–1840s, 1850s–1900s, and 1960s–70s. They have roughly averaged once every hundred years, and it is estimated that only between 10–30% of people alive at the time personally experienced them.

That raises a searching question: if there really were a proven method, wouldn’t awakenings and revivals happen more often? If Scripture contained a ten-point plan for revival, wouldn’t we pursue it with all our hearts, longing to see family, friends, neighbours, and colleagues encounter Jesus?

What are the suggested methods?

So what methods are commonly suggested for revivals and awakenings? One of the most familiar is to quote 2 Chronicles 7:14 “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

Context is key when interpreting the Bible — whether immediate, historical, cultural, or thematic. The context of this promise is the culmination of King Solomon’s dedication of the First Temple in Jerusalem. It is a profound moment after 70 years of building. After Solomon’s prayer “fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.”  (2 Chronicles 7:1-3).

After the sacrifices, the consecration of the temple, and the festival, God appears to Solomon at night and affirms the Old Covenant with him. This includes 2 Chronicles 7:14, which is tied to Israel’s obedience. If they do not obey God, they risk being uprooted from the land, as God had first warned more than four hundred years earlier (Deuteronomy 28:63).

That is the context for this verse: it applies to the Old Covenant and to Israel, where remaining in the land was dependent on covenant obedience. Therefore, applying this verse as a method for awakening or revival among Gentile Christians seems to go beyond its original context. While some may argue that a broader principle can be drawn from the passage and applied today, we are cautious about applying that approach too directly.

A second method is to identify trends in past awakenings and revivals and then turn those trends into a formula. There may be helpful truths to notice, but they are still limited to a human perspective on what God has done in the past. They are unlikely to explain, from God’s perspective, what truly leads to revival.

This approach often highlights spiritual practices that prepare God’s people for revival by building a “highway for God” and clearing spiritual obstacles. These include humility, surrender, repentance, confession, fervent prayer, and spiritual discipline — which are healthy and biblical practices. The issue is that the Bible presents these as part of normal Christian life, not as guaranteed precursors to awakening or revival.

The idea that we can earn or engineer an awakening or revival through our deeds does not ring true biblically. Critics of this method argue that treating revival as a project or strategy that can be scheduled or triggered by human techniques undermines the sovereignty of God.

It is also worth noting that, historically, spiritual awakenings and revivals have been major drivers of missionary expansion. When the church experiences spiritual revival, its members are reawakened to the reality of the gospel — and that renewal naturally overflows into global mission and evangelism.

When the church turns inward and neglects the Great Commission, it loses spiritual vitality and its raison d'être. The result can create a desperate need for a sovereign outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Some argue that God often brings awakenings and revivals to rescue the church from apathy and recalibrate it to its primary mandate.

Maybe true awakenings and revivals are orchestrated by God and often include extraordinary, supernatural outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Maybe revivals and awakenings are God putting his foot on a divine accelerator, increasing the speed at which people are saved and brought into his kingdom? Could it be that all awakenings and revivals are initiated by God?

Questions for reflection:

1. Do you think Christian revival and spiritual awakening are primarily a sovereign work of God, or can they be encouraged through faithful prayer, repentance, and mission?
2. How should we understand 2 Chronicles 7:14 when thinking about biblical revival, church renewal, and the life of the church today?
3. If revival and evangelism are connected, what would renewed spiritual vitality and commitment to the Great Commission look like in your local community?

We’d love to hear what you think. Leave a comment or question, and we’ll get back to you.