SUNDAY SERVICES:

I am excited to hear stories about the revival at Asbury College in KY.  Our daughter-in-law went to be part of it a few days ago.  In the mid-90s, I traveled to revivals in Brownsville, FL, and another in Toronto.  People, like me I suppose, want to be where God is moving mightily, where lives are being touched, changed, and healed.  Maybe we want to see him up close?  Want to be with God.

The open and the close of our Bibles have us walking with God in the Garden, and in the New Heaven and New Earth - ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” Rev 21.3  For now we exist, for the most part, between those two places.

Revival Up Close

For about 5 years I was a spokesman for the charismatic renewal, which was a season where God would just show up in normal places and do supernatural things, like heal people.  I would be in a different parish just about every weekend, sharing about Jesus and the Holy Spirit and asking God to move among us - hoping God would bless our socks off. 

Time and again, to my amazement and relief, He did, often doing things I had neither seen nor heard of previously.  It was like a mini, though not nearly so intense, revival.  But God would do things, and people’s lives would be radically changed, which is sort of like revival.

Revivalish

Many years ago, when we got a call from one of Barb’s brothers, experiencing DTs in a neighboring state, on my way to meet him, I called Francis MacNutt.  Francis had a brilliant healing and teaching ministry. I wanted Barb’s brother to get zapped, healed on the spot.  I had no doubt God could do it.  I asked Francis if Barb’s brother and I could come for prayer.

He allowed as we could, but said the percentages were much higher for healing through AA, and he knew a really good person for that: Brennan Manning, a Catholic priest.

I called Brennan, introduced myself and the need.  Brennan had been, up until his recent marriage, the second most sought-after speaker in the American Catholic Church.  Now, with cancelations pouring in, he had some time.  A couple of days later he was sitting in our living room, visiting Barb’s brother with us in the local hospital.

Brennan stayed a couple weeks. In addition to talking to Barb’s brother, he spoke everyday at the local mental hospital’s addiction unit, and he would invite the patients to come to church in the evenings.  We would celebrate communion together and often baptize some of folks from the hospital.  

Sort of revivalish, I suppose.  

Our diocesan bishop heard about it and drove the 100 miles from Indianapolis to see what was going on.  

Sort of revivalish too.

Barb’s brother, who was a chess master, and would write the still basic text on Backgammon, did get healed, married, and healthy, doing hundred-mile senior bike rides, but it wasn’t a zap.  It took some “doing” for his “being” to be transformed by God.

The Being and Doing of Lent

While James hammers home that we are to be doers of the word and not hearers only.  Jesus seems pretty clear as well: ”Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!  Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”  Mk 3.34-35

And from Matthew’s gospel, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven." Mtt 7.21 

Lent was initially about fasting, 40 days like Jesus.  It has become a time for us to adopt and practice spiritual disciplines, including fasting, which have to do with providing room for God to transform our being, i.e. for us to become who we are created to be.  By taking on practices and giving up others, they create space in our lives for God to touch and change us.  So it has to do with our “being,” who we are and who we are becoming, and it also has to do with “doing.”

What to Do to Revive

Here are some things you can do to have your own revival, to come close to God, see him move mightily, and be more with God:

• Read A Short History of Lent 

Three really helpful books, available on Kindle, are :

• CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE by Richard Foster - 2 million sold in 25 languages;
• THE MAKING OF AN ORDINARY SAINT - Nathan Foster - a really fun and refreshing book on his experience with his father’s list of disciplines;
• THE SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES HANDBOOK - Adele Calhoun - gobs of spiritual disciplines outlined succinctly.

If you are looking for a way to study the Bible, I'll send you this:

• Do the “Do Be Do Be Do” Bible Study - email me at  carlbuffington@mac.com for a copy.

As Lent begins this Ash Wednesday, what do you plan to do to have your own revival? Or what have you done? Share your ideas in the comments below.

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