THE CORONA REVIVAL???

An interior photograph of the Billy Sunday tabernacle that was built in Lima for his six-week revival in 1911

(Courtesy of Allen County Historical Society)

Last Friday, Morris Chapman died. Many won't recognize the name or remember his era. I learned about Morris in the 90's. It was the peak of the Promise Keeper movement, an organization centered loosely on Seven Promises that men would commit to during the year. The highlight was to attend one of these huge conferences of 40 to 60 thousand guys in a stadium for a weekend. I can only compare it to a football game without a football, with Jesus as the Hero. Hearing that many men sing with gusto was electrifying. 

For roughly six years, Morris was one of the key worship leaders and his vocal combination of soul and substance defined many of the great Promise Keeper moments. (If you want a sense of it, listen to Morris sing his original song, "As for me and my house" at an event in 1996.) Hearing of his passing made me reminisce with a bit of melancholy for those days.

I was impacted by those years. I personally know more than one guy who credits Promise Keepers with saving his marriage and initiating a radical change in his walk with God. 

Promise Keepers is still around, but it's not what it once was. Forgive me. I know some of you guys will object, saying it's pastors like me that let revival die. I've had several guys come around now and then, and say, "When will the men get back to those days?" When I talk about what God is doing now in men, there is often the sigh, the downcast glance, that says, "You just don't get it, Pastor. Revival needs to come back to the Church and you're closing the door on it."

Whether it's PromiseKeepers, the Jesus Movement and the Charismatic Renewal of the early 70's, Brownsville, Toronto Blessing, or Stoneleigh Bible Week of the 90's in the UK, if we were impacted personally by those events, it's normal to reminisce and long for those days to come back. I get it.

I've done a fair amount of reading on the Great Awakenings of the 1730's, 1790's, 1850's, and beyond like the Welsh Revival of 1904-5. Why? Because I want to see that in my day. Scenes like after one of the worst financial panics in history, October 14, 1857, when thousands of men--lawyers, bankers, clerks and merchants started gathering for prayer during the noon hour in New York City. It became known as the "Fulton Street Prayer Meeting." As the markets crashed and people started going hungry, they became desperate. In the following months, news spread about unusual numbers of conversions as in Hamilton (Ontario, CA) where 300-400 were converted to Christianity in a matter of days.

So I get it. I long for some of what I've seen to happen again. But God seems to have His own methods and plans. Whatever He does, it likely won't be the same as it was. Yes, there are signs that are common to every revival or renewal: prayer, repentance, confession, humility, focus on scripture, spontaneous worship, extended singing. (No, that's not an exclusive list and there are often other signs like a renewed focus on spiritual gifts.) 

You bet I'm grateful for Morris Chapman, and for Promise Keepers. I'll treasure those moments for years to come. (And if you're attending one of their events in the future, may God do a new work in your life.) But when renewal happens again, Morris won't be leading worship and it may or may not include men in football stadiums. Will it be in NYC or Wales? Who knows? Maybe someday they will talk about the Corona Revival that began in 2020 in St. Louis.

I'm not an authority on revival history, but doesn't spiritual renewal often come on the heels of crisis? One of my prayers during this pandemic has been, "Lord, don't let me waste this crisis." While I'm longing to get back to "normal life" God may have something greater in mind than my comfort. Is that what God wants for you? Your comfort? While you and I long for the placid, tranquil waters of normal during this Corona storm, God may be asking us to get out of the boat and walk with Him.  (Click to Tweet)

"Move among us again, Lord. But do it however you want to do it. In your kindness, let me be right in the thick of it."

HUMAN VALUE AND SOCIAL DISTANCING

It's a popular phrase right now in this pandemic: How much is a human life worth? Talking heads are telling us to shelter in place because human lives are at risk. There's plenty of shame to go around for those who venture out for non-essential business like getting flowers for Mom or a meeting in your backyard. 

The talking heads are right. In a pandemic, we conduct ourselves differently. We aren't only concerned about our grocery shopping and our lawn. We are aware that our public activities impact others. Unaware, we may carry the virus to the most vulnerable. It's not just your health at risk. It's that senior adult next door, or that 12-year old girl with diabetes who touches the same counter. 

But they are only partly right. There's more to consider than the lifespan of the immune-compromised. We aren't simply to protect those whose physical health is at stake. Our actions in this pandemic also impact the mental health of millions of Americans. 

We could greatly decrease the risk of dying from COVID if we were on complete lockdown. Get our groceries delivered to our homes by people with gloves and masks and never leave our bedroom. After all, isn't "a human life worth that kind of personal sacrifice?" But there is more to consider than living a life free from the danger of Corona. 

I'm not an authority on mental health. I'm just a pastor in a Midwestern city of 3-plus million. But in the last three weeks of this shelter-in-place order, two distant male friends from the St. Louis area have committed suicide. That's certainly not a trend. But it's made me think. 

It's ironic. The price we are paying for physical health through social distancing is putting something else at risk: mental and emotional health. “Social isolation protects us from a contagious, life-threatening virus, but at the same time it puts people at risk for things that are the biggest killers in the United States: suicide, overdose and diseases related to alcohol abuse," says Jeffrey Reynolds, the president of a non-profit social services agency based in Long Island, NY. 

I'm all for doing what we can to protect the physically vulnerable. But let's not forget the emotional well-being of humans. We aren't simply vascular systems and muscled-skeletons. We are souls with emotions. At some point, we need to open our doors and our arms again. To do more than virtual chats in virtual rooms. We need to sit together on sofas and at picnic tables, around bonfires and in kitchens. We need to sing together, squeeze a shoulder and look a recovering addict in the eye. As the wise man Solomon said, "For everything there is a season...there is a time to embrace and there is a time refrain from embracing." (Eccl 3:1,5) 

We are moving swiftly toward a time when we must embrace each other again. After all, how much is a human life worth?

SHIELDED

Living with three brothers and faced with grade school bullies, I learned some coping mechanisms that didn't quite work. But it was all I knew to do. When the word bullets started flying, we learned to shoot the word missiles back. So when somebody said, "You're an ugly freckle-faced punk," (which they did) my retort may have been, "I know you are but what am I?" Or "I'm rubber but you are glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you." 

Childhood can be hard. And as a parent, you want to step in and rescue or bully back. But that only makes things worse in the long run. 

It happens to leaders, too. Someone close to you will misunderstand your actions. Someone will be jealous. Someone will take shots at you on social media. And you can't defend yourself. What can we do? 

King David, the one who killed Goliath, had a beautiful son named Absalom. Beautiful, thick, midnight-colored hair. Probably buff and built like Chris Hemsworth. History records that he got miffed at his Dad and started sitting at the city gates. Greeting people with his winsome personality, "So the King hasn't done much for you. Sorry. Well, if I was King, things would be a lot different. Here's my card if he can't help you." Nursing a grudge against his Dad, Absalom turned to full-blown insurrection. Word bullets. Zingers he knew would eventually get back to the palace. And this was the point: "I'm hurting, so I'm going to hit Dad where it hurts." 

Now David has brought this on himself, partly because of his disobedience and sin with Bathsheba. But it happened before then, too. Through no fault of his own, that we know of, Saul his mentor, would turn on him and be jealous, would chase him, try to kill him. But few parents name their sons Saul. And millions name their son David.

There is no guarantee that because you do the right thing that someone close to you won’t turn on you, and say something hurtful. What to do?

"You were never there for me." Even though you know the hours, the money, the prayers, that were poured out on their behalf. 

"You only use people for your own benefit."

"You've never loved me." 

Sometimes we're guilty. And we need to repent. But sometimes we have to acknowledge that someone is a bully, or a manipulator, or in Absalom's case, an arrogant person who wants their own way enough to abuse you in the process. 

David gives us a prayerful solution for these seasons. He writes a song on this occasion which has a heading:  

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

This is the occasion. And here is his response. 

O Lord, how many are my foes!
    Many are rising against me;
2 many are saying of my soul,
    “There is no salvation for him in God.”
(Psalm 3:1,2)

Yep. Been there. With a grimace toward heaven, a cry from the gut, "Is everyone against me? Do you hear what they're saying, God?" 

Yet David continues, "But You oh Lord are a shield about me, my glory and the lifter of my head." 

So follower of Jesus, you are shielded. Leader, you have a heavenly missile defense system. Not from every unjust word and every untimely attack. But God can keep you from being decimated by the attacks. It may hurt but it doesn't have to take you out. The Lord is your shield.