Praying in revival
We are changing the Sunday evening meetings this term! We are just going to have a revival prayer meeting on the third Sunday of the month starting in October. God is awakening his people to pray – Enough now gathers 2500 across Relational Mission.
A prophetic person had a dream about ambulances lined up with intercessors. The paramedic were angels and they were struggling to find a pulse. So the angels began telling stories of revivals and it jolted them back to life. Starting 15th October we will gather together to pray for revival. Here is a story to jolt you…
The Great Awakening—came in 1857 when some men began to pray for revival in a Dutch Reformed Church in New York. Here is an excerpt of that event.
The first meeting was on 23rd Sept 1857 and six turned up half an hour late (nothing changes!) Twenty men came to his second noon-hour meeting. The following Wednesday, forty. The leader Jeremiah Lanphier decided to make the meeting a daily event in a larger room.
Soon, every public building in downtown New York was filled for noon-time prayer meetings –they had to set a rule that you could only pray for 5mins so everyone got a chance to pray!
Within six months 10,000 businessmen (out of a population of 800,000) were gathering daily in New York City for prayer. In January 1858 there were at least twenty other prayer meetings going full tilt in the city. Many of them were sparked by the Young Men’s Christian Association. Other cities had them too.
When the revival was at high tide through the nation, it was judged that 50,000 persons a week were converted. And the number who joined the churches in 1858 amounted to almost 10 percent of the country’s total church membership! If the estimate of one million converts is correct (some say the
number is closer to 300,000), that accounts for one-thirtieth of the total United States population of that time—and almost all in one year! The revival also had repercussions in the awakening which swept the UK too.
One scholar remarks that the move of God’s Spirit across America was so strong that even as ships came near American ports, the people on board felt the convicting power of the Holy Spirit and were saved and filled with joy before they reached the harbour.”