The Gospel: Foundation for Revival

This is the first in a series of articles on the Gospel: Foundation for Revival.  This series will run alongside two additional series: Prayer, Fanning Sparks into Flame and Humility: the Fuel that Maintains Revival. If we truly believe that revival is coming to the North West, then we must invest in laying foundations for the spiritual building that will be erected by God's Spirit.  The foundation that is laid determines the measure of the building that will be erected.  Jesus said that if a building is erected bypassing the important act of  foundation laying. then the it will be at the mercy of the floods and storms that sooner or later will arise.

In these articles we will look at the Scriptural teachings on laying foundations, and we invite comments and contributions which we will include as far as we can. There are many people in the region who have experienced a breakthrough of the Spirit of God into their churches at some time in the past, and have been involved in the process that triggered that breakthrough.  It would be good to hear from you so that your valuable contributions to this subject could be included in what is made available to the church in this region. We will seek to apply these teachings to our preparations for revival, and we hope that whether explicitly or secretly they will influence the preparation of our hearts and our churches for a mighty move of God's Spirit.

The Gospel

The Gospel is in three parts, related to the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  We have just had a mission in Morecambe and there are a few persons who have prayed the sinner's prayer for salvation.  Firstly, we need to understand what happens in meetings such as those - this is very important.  When we have a mission we bring evangelists in to preach to the lost.  But a genuine evangelistic ministry is primarily a ministry to the body of Christ, training the body and imparting something that makes the body more evangelistic than it was before.  Believers are inspired, by the demonstrated effectiveness of the evangelist in sharing the Gospel, to go and do likewise.  The harvest of souls that comes from a mission happens when the body responds to the evangelistic impartation and continues it's evangelistic exercises long after the evangelists have left.  This is where the real harvest is.  Testimonies of healing are fresh in the mind of believers and unbelievers alike, inspiring testimonies of changed lives (often that of the evangelist himself, or maybe some member of the community that's been radically impacted) are still ringing in the ears, and as a result the Gospel is believable to those that hear it. 
As autumn approaches, we need to quickly seize the moment and arrange evangelistic/follow-up meetings on the back of the mission meetings at the end of August.
Please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it if you would like help in arranging an evangelistic event in your community. We need to be reaping the harvest  NOW. 

There is a second reason why we need to keep on doing small evangelistic events at this time. It's because the Gospel is foundational to a new life in Christ. Usually a convert has been impacted by the death of Christ, and needs to be confirmed in his or her belief  in Christ as their Saviour (more on that later).  Other aspects of the Gospel may still need to be grasped (depending on the ministry of the evangelist) and this would usually be communicated (again) in the 'follow-up meetings'.  Even when all three aspects of the Gospel have been clearly communicated and received as revelation, this is only the first step in building a foundation that will support the building of the Christ life in the individual, and will corporately support a revival culture in the church.
More in the next article on the Gospel: Foundation for Revival.  Email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with comments and contributions