ON REVIVAL
Did you know that the Monarch butterfly of North America is known to migrate annually up to 3000 miles? That’s a long distance for a little fella like that. I mean, as someone who lives in Rochester, New York, I get the draw of wintering in beautiful Mexico. The middle of winter makes me dream of a southern migration myself. But these die-hard little creatures make the journey on frail wings, over tall mountains, through high altitudes, wild storms, and hostile environments. So how does such a small, frail-looking creature make an annual 3000-mile journey without dying? Short answer? They don’t.
In fact, it will take the Monarch butterfly up to four or five generations to make one single migration. The butterfly that starts the journey is the great-great-grandparent of the one that finally arrives. Known as multigenerational migration, that’s a lot of hutzpah for our little butterfly friend.
There’s something we can learn from this, and it’s not just the fact that something so small and simpleminded knows that it’s better to spend the winter in the sun. It’s that sometimes great things happen beyond our own lifetime.
As I’m writing this I’m sitting in a coffee shop downtown Rochester, New York. It wasn’t just a random seat I chose to sit in, either. This is the same seat I sat in eight years ago, trying to write a book that didn’t want to be written. There was another book that was preparing to be birthed in my heart. I sat there frustrated and lost. I sat there praying. The more I think about it, I think I must have sounded a lot like Job. And a lot like Job, God answered me with a little, “Son, it’s time to shut up and listen.”
I sit here in Rochester, New York, the home of the second Great Awakening. About a 10-minute walk from here is the location where Charles Finney started to hear from God about something big that was coming. Now, it didn’t start with Finney, but it sure saw its outpouring through him. And it indeed started something big that not only overwhelmed the Rochester area, but spread across the country and the whole world as well.. To this day, the entire Western New York area is called the “Burnt Over District” because of how hot and long and in-depth the fire of revival in this area was. It was like there was nobody who wasn’t deeply impacted. It went on to make ripples across the entire world.
However, as noted in the very title, this wasn’t the first time America was impacted by a Great Awakening. Back in the mid-1700s, leaders from England such as George Whitfield had to come to America to bring over what they were experiencing as a move of God in their homeland. They were passionate ambassadors of the Kingdom of God and it caught like kindling until it spread over the whole North American settlement. But even in those situations, it didn’t begin with Whitfield or his contemporaries. They had the joy of being used by God at the right time and the right place. However it was the end of a long season of preparation. It was the fruit of a tree that had been growing for many seasons. It was the conclusion of a multi-generational migration.
In fact, it will take the Monarch butterfly up to four or five generations to make one single migration. The butterfly that starts the journey is the great-great-grandparent of the one that finally arrives. Known as multigenerational migration, that’s a lot of hutzpah for our little butterfly friend.
There’s something we can learn from this, and it’s not just the fact that something so small and simpleminded knows that it’s better to spend the winter in the sun. It’s that sometimes great things happen beyond our own lifetime.
As I’m writing this I’m sitting in a coffee shop downtown Rochester, New York. It wasn’t just a random seat I chose to sit in, either. This is the same seat I sat in eight years ago, trying to write a book that didn’t want to be written. There was another book that was preparing to be birthed in my heart. I sat there frustrated and lost. I sat there praying. The more I think about it, I think I must have sounded a lot like Job. And a lot like Job, God answered me with a little, “Son, it’s time to shut up and listen.”
I sit here in Rochester, New York, the home of the second Great Awakening. About a 10-minute walk from here is the location where Charles Finney started to hear from God about something big that was coming. Now, it didn’t start with Finney, but it sure saw its outpouring through him. And it indeed started something big that not only overwhelmed the Rochester area, but spread across the country and the whole world as well.. To this day, the entire Western New York area is called the “Burnt Over District” because of how hot and long and in-depth the fire of revival in this area was. It was like there was nobody who wasn’t deeply impacted. It went on to make ripples across the entire world.
However, as noted in the very title, this wasn’t the first time America was impacted by a Great Awakening. Back in the mid-1700s, leaders from England such as George Whitfield had to come to America to bring over what they were experiencing as a move of God in their homeland. They were passionate ambassadors of the Kingdom of God and it caught like kindling until it spread over the whole North American settlement. But even in those situations, it didn’t begin with Whitfield or his contemporaries. They had the joy of being used by God at the right time and the right place. However it was the end of a long season of preparation. It was the fruit of a tree that had been growing for many seasons. It was the conclusion of a multi-generational migration.
So, if I leave this coffee shop, turn right and go up the street four block I would arrive at the Third Presbyterian Church. It is there that Charles Finney saw the Holy Spirit begin to move in revival. But I don’t even have to move to think of another amazing promise of God for revival.
Right across the street, where the TV station now stands, is the location where the Rochester Bible Training School once thrived. One hundred years ago this humble ministry hub burned bright with the Holy Spirit’s anointing. Run by the illustrious Duncan Sisters, this little school would also make a significant impact on the region and the world. It would have its roots in what God has been doing in the revival down on Azusa Street in Los Angeles and would go on to produce leaders that helped form the Assemblies of God and other aspects of the Latter Rain movement. Even my own church, Bethel Christian Fellowship in downtown Rochester, just another five-minute walk from my comfortable coffeeshop seat, began 100 years ago by leaders of the RBTS. At the writing of this we just celebrated our 100th anniversary. I’m honored to be four or five generations down from this multigenerational movement.
But something else happened just a little over 100 years ago, about four or five generations past, in that little downtown Rochester Bible Training School. A young farmer by the name of Ivan Q. Spencer was going to school, seeking God for whatever his Lord would will for his life in the Kingdom of God. It was there, locked away in a little prayer room, perhaps with a window that looked out across the street at a building that one day would house a coffeeshop, that God sent him a message. That message from God was this: “I will take My people, disciple them, and use them. There will be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.” But that wasn’t the end of it. Ivan looked up, and before his eyes was a miraculous vision that makes one think of the writing on the wall of Daniel's era. Before him was written one single word:
REVIVAL
And the word was on fire!
There it stood, written where no visible word should be written, and burning with the same fire that ignited Moses' burning bush. It was insistent and was not to be ignored. It burned with the very fire of the Holy Spirit. Ivan blinked. The word remained. Ivan blinked again. The word still remained.
I don’t know how long the word insisted upon his vision, but even when it faded it remained a shadow imprint physically on his eyes. He claimed to be seeing it every time he blinked for days. It was like it was burnt on his eyelids.
So what is one to do with such burning bush experience? Well, you begin a multi-generational migration.
Ivan worked for the rest of his life to begin to prepare for the coming revival that God had birthed in his heart. As the days of the Rochester Bible Training School waned he began his own school, following the leading of the Holy Spirit. After migrating from location to location, they finally found a home. And nowhere was more fitting than the facility built in Lima, New York. The very same place that was built to house the biblical training of those who had their lives changed by the ministry of Charles Finney and the Second Great Awakening. It seemed like a home built for the work of revival.
This was God’s message to Ivan Q. Spencer as he founded the Elim Bible Institute: “I want you to open a training school for young people for the supernatural ministry for the last hour.” Next year, at the writing of this chapter, Elim will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of its founding. 100 years. About the time it takes for four or five generations to be raised up. Four or five generations that learned, worked towards, longed for, prayed for, and sought God for revival. About the time for a multigenerational migration.
As for revival, we’ve seen it through the generations. The Boomers have experienced what God was doing during the Jesus Revolution. In my own youth and hometown we saw the move of God in the Toronto Blessing. We’ve seen the tremors coming and going as it seems like God is preparing for something big. Perhaps it will be akin to what Jesus said would happen as the age of Jubilee was beginning to come to an end. He said it pretty bluntly:
"And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:14).
So exactly when will this third Great Revival come? Will it be the final one before what happens in Revelation? Will it happen soon? Well, if you’re asking me, then you’re asking the wrong guy. I can only answer like Jesus did when He told the Pharisees that, in the same way they could discern the seasons by looking at the sky, so too, should we be able to look at the events taking place and discern when revival is on its way. My own prayer is, “Lord, let me know the season from your Holy Spirit and teach me to prepare for it.”
***Kevin has served as a pastor in family ministries in various churches in the US and Canada for over 25 years. He is passionate about the Kingdom of God and NextGen ministries. He currently lives with his wife, three children, two dogs, and a bunny in Rochester, New York where he serves as the NextGen Director for Elim Fellowship and Family Ministries Pastor at Bethel Christian Fellowship. When he’s not in one of these places, he can often be found hiking on the Appalachian Trail or in a coffee shop studying and writing about the Kingdom of God.***