What does revival look like? And how does the church seek it? I grew up in Pentecostalism, which is typically associated with what I like to call “heavy metal revivalism,” where the move of God is necessarily big, loud, intense, and characterized by emotional outburst. As an ordained Assemblies of God minister, I still believe that happens. But my book, Resurrecting Worship: A Pentecostal Liturgy for Slow Burn Revival, takes a different approach. It’s in the title: I believe God’s reviving work can and will happen with intentional, faithful, long-haul worship. And I believe it because I’ve seen it happen with my own eyes.
Resurrecting Worship puts flesh and bones on the question of revival by telling the story of an almost-dead congregation that I was appointed to pastor in 2016. The church had been without a pastor for over a year, and there was only a handful of the faithful left. The building was in desperate need of renovation. And it was situated deep in the liberal University of Iowa neighborhood with whom the church had a history of antagonism.
I was convinced that marketing campaigns or managerial innovation weren’t going to rebuild the church, let alone force a move of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we needed theological and pastoral answers that were at once faithful to the Scriptures and grounded in the practices of the church that have sustained it through every wind and wave of history.
As I put it in the book, the struggling church in America doesn’t need the fire of dried brush that ignites today and is gone tomorrow. We need the slow-burning coals that can survive under the ashes, ready to be fanned into flame when God sees fit.
“Pentecostal” and “liturgy” are not words that are normally associated with each other. But everyone has a liturgy. Some just call it an “order of service.” Resurrecting Worship is an apology for how Pentecostalism can connect with and use the traditions of the historic church while not falling prey to the stale introversion many historic churches have unfortunately been guilty of. I suggest that the Nicene Creed, the Lord’s Supper, baptism, and—above all else—apostolic preaching are the coals that the Spirit will fan into the flame of revival.
The title, Resurrecting Worship, has a triple meaning. It at once claims that the church needs the kind of worship that is characteristic of those who will one day be resurrected, and that worship itself needs to be resurrected in churches that have lost the plot. But most importantly, it’s all anchored in the worship of the Resurrected One, Jesus Christ.
My book is not a how-to for revitalizing near-dead congregations, however worthy of a goal that might be. Rather, it’s an invitation to confess that we worship the crucified Lord who was resurrected after he died. Which means that even if a church (or churches) die, we must believe that’s never the end of the story. God can raise up even long-dead churches, fanning into flame the life of the Spirit that never disappeared and never will. A congregation’s task, then, is not to avoid death, but to resurrect worship, and worship like resurrection is coming. Because it is. Whether we live or die now, we will live on the Last Day.
“Revival” is a word that comes with a lot of baggage. On the one hand, it recalls the two Great Awakenings, the effects of which the American public is still trying to reckon with. On the other, it brings to mind the excesses of free church movements like the “Toronto Blessing” the Brownsville Revival of the mid 90s.
What’s often left unsaid is that “revival” is what unites American Evangelicalism. Reformed and Wesleyan traditions alike appeal to the necessity of God’s work to renew the life of the church, individual faith, and society. Since the Azusa Street Revival in 1906, Pentecostalism has been the visible means through which God has brought revival to his church globally. My book is, in the end, a small offering to continue that grace-filled legacy.
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Joseph Lear is Pastor of Theology and Preaching at Resurrection Assembly of God in Iowa City, IA and Theologian in Residence at Geneva Christian Study Center at the University of Iowa. He holds PhD in New Testament and Early Christianity from the University of Aberdeen, an MAR in Christian Ethics from Yale Divinity School, and a BA Biblical Languages from Evangel University. He has 15 years of pastoral experience in leading churches, and in kids, youth, and young adult ministry.
