When you hear the word, “revival”, what comes to mind?
When you hear the phrase “tent revival”, does that change your perception?
In my personal life, and in my church, I want revival. I long for more of the Spirit of God, the outpouring of His gifts, tangible presence…I want healing, waves of people giving their lives to Christ, a renewal of hearts and minds in our city - our nation… my church has been praying specifically for this for well over a year.
And yet when a tent revival comes to town, the eyebrows go up, if not the walls around belief in what’s possible. Skepticism slinks around the outskirts of the camp, the probability meter takes a dive, and the spirit of doubt descends like unwanted rain on a day at the beach.
Can beggars be choosers? We implore God for passionate people gathered in great numbers, worshipping, praying fervently over each other, shouting AMEN as a preacher delivers a good word…then it comes, but seemingly not to our taste.
But is it more than just personal preference of worship style that turns us off from tent revivals? The very fact that it takes place in a space reminiscent of a circus certainly doesn’t help. It can come across as a bit of a circus, especially if things get…charismatic. The people these events tend to draw are nearly side-show characters themselves: deformed and crippled
outcasts in need of healing, spun-out seekers, fringe folk who are comfortable with the unexpected, the unusual…people at the end of their rope searching for hope in unexpected places, since the normal church buildings and civil society has been unable - or even unwilling - to look and listen. There’s a safety to and a comfort in a makeshift hobo house of God, where the trappings of churchianity tend not to be present. You could even enter the space barefoot in dirty overalls and no one would think twice - after all, it’s just earth beneath your feet anyway. This soil seems almost more sacred to me than the stained-glass sanctuaries.
What is it then, that makes us so weary? I think it’s because we’ve been trained to see this phenomenon as phony. And rightfully so - how many false teachers and charlatan preachers have claimed the ability to heal? How many Pentecostal posers fall over dramatically slain in the spirit simply for the sensationalism…and then how many are disenchanted and reject the Gospel when the healing doesn’t come, and the speaking in tongues turns out to be gibberish?
When I saw what was happening under this tent, I began to question which came first: true tent revivals that authentically look and feel like this, or the scammy ones? In other words, who is mimicking who? Perhaps my perspective is colored by the fallacy guilt by association, since this revival seems similar to sketchy ones…but how do I know this? From movies? Folktales? I couldn’t actually tell you if I knew where my imagery and expectation came from in the first place.
And sure, the preacher gets a bit dramatic. Yes, emotions are stirred. I have no problem with sermon showmanship if it’s to get the point across as impactfully as possible, assuming that message is the Gospel, and in this case, it was. The message was clearly Christ’s life, death, and resurrection, for our salvation. If that doesn’t stir fervor and emotion, then truly, what can? You don’t need to sensationalize something that is already supernatural. It just IS a wondrous tale to trumpet. Someone has to fan the flame!
I looked around the crowd, and despite a few whoops and “amens” and “hallelujahs” the majority of people, myself included, sat there like sullen statues, or victims of a stun-gun. This is how we’ve been trained to behave in church, and this is what faith looks like when it’s smaller than a mustard seed.
I wonder if the ability for people to be healed at these events is dependant on the amount of belief-based participation in the laying on of hands, in the oil being administered, in the trust that God could indeed have gifted this preacher with healing powers, that just might manifest right here, right now, in this blind lady, in this wheelchair-bound man, in me having lost my sense of smell and taste…are these not the same sort of folk who crowded Jesus himself in the streets - curious, hopeful, desperate…
I wonder, as I wander out under the big top…what makes me more uncomfortable: the theatrics of a tent revival, or my own lack of faith in God’s ability to heal and save, for revival to rev up, in any format?
You are amazing! :)