The Winds Of Revival!

Mount Airy Maryland

What a time the Lord gave us in Mt. Airy, MD April 22-29! Starting in January, Pastor Wally Webster led the church in a three month emphasis on personal revival in preparation for the meetings. This included prayer, extensive handouts, preaching, and encouragement. Prior to the meetings, the church had a Men’s Retreat with 150 men in attendance. No golf, no games—only serious preaching and prayer. God broke into the retreat with men being saved and an “intense” prayer meeting. Our family arrived Saturday afternoon and we went right into a church-wide prayer meeting that night. Tears, tenderness, brokenness, expectation, and an unusual fervency characterized this meeting. Here was a “revival-ready” congregation and we hit the ground running! In prayer one night a lady prayed, “Lord this is so exciting it is just like going to the amusement park!”

Sunday morning there were somewhere between 15-20 professions of faith in two services. One lady left the service and commented, “Who needs drugs when you can have salvation!” One young man said his legs started walking forward and he just followed. People were saved before, during, and after the services. Drug addicts, young people, old people, entire families, men, and children were saved. Things were happening so fast it was impossible to keep track of it all. A teenager who had just gotten out of jail drove to the church parking lot one night. He was so ashamed that he just sat in his car weeping and finally drove home. His high school teacher, who invited him to church, called him to ask where he was. The boy told he was too ashamed to enter the church. This public school teacher left the service and led him to Christ! One lady was getting her hair cut and led her hairdresser to the Lord.

God was at work in the Christian school, as well. After the Tuesday chapel, students went to each other and teachers to put wrongs right. The administration gave God freedom to work so classes were postponed as young people called their parents to ask forgiveness. Rarely have I worked with a Christian school leadership so anxious to see God do something in the lives of their students. The chapel message on Thursday was on the subject of honoring parents. The message gave instruction on honoring parents even if they had abused or hurt their children. One girl dealt with forgiveness for her father who was in jail. After chapel, we broke up in groups for Spiritual C.P.R. (Confession, Praise, and Requests). This prayer meeting and chapel time lasted for two hours and forty-five minutes. It should be noted that four weeks prior to this, a 15 year-old boy from the Christian school got the flu and died suddenly from complications. This made them even more sensitive to the Holy Spirit.

The evening services were packed. Two overflow rooms with video feeds were filled with people in addition to a large number in the Kid’s Krusade. Because all the seats were taken, young people started sitting on the floor at the front of the church.

Thursday night we started at seven, and people were still in the auditorium until midnight! After the preaching service, people came forward to testify during the Afterglow meeting. Sins were confessed, burdens were shared, victories were won, and  www.christlifemin.org/feature_articles/ Feature Article April 8, 2009 the sense of God’s Presence was tremendous. When individuals shared burdens, the pastor asked for others to come and pray over them. Twenty to fifty people would be in the front praying over someone while other testimonies were being shared. It was ORGANIZED, SANCTIFIED CHAOS! All this was happening, and yet everything seemed in order. By eleven o’clock that night, there must have been over 200 people spread out all over the building praying over individuals.

The meetings were extended through the weekend with a three hour praise/testimony meeting on Saturday night. People who had been saved willingly told how God’s grace had found them out. Families who had been reconciled gave God the glory. One boy had been involved in an accident, and a friend, who was a passenger, died in the wreck. He and his family worked through that tragedy.

We concluded on Sunday with souls being saved in both of the services. A lady, who got saved the prior Sunday, brought her husband. He sat there fixated on the message. Before I could issue the invitation this man tore down the aisle. Can you imagine people shouting and clapping, during the invitation, as a man responds to receive Christ? After receiving the Lord, he said he felt like there was an electric current between the pulpit and him. I cannot explain the spirit of excitement that filled these meetings!!! These folks were expecting something from God, and they were not disappointed. Like someone said, “It’s good to be in town when God is!”

The days of great spiritual experience are not over. God is no respecter of persons, and He responds to believing prayer, humility, and obedience. Let’s believe God for a mighty outpouring of God’s Spirit!