Cycles Of Life And Revival

 Our lives follow a broad, general, and predictable cycle. Birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death. In spite of what some say this cycle is inevitable. We have no control over our birth and we have little control over our death. All we can do is grow and mature and decline under our own power. That is what living is all about.

Other things have life cycles also. Products do. Corporations do. Churches do. Nations do. The birth and growth part of the cycle are the exciting part. Everyone wants to be a part of something new and big and growing. Their future stretches out as far as they can see. But as we or they grow, by nature they will mature. No one stays a child forever. Things that support growth are replaced by what is needed to sustain influence and effectiveness. Even the Lord said  that night is coming when no one can work. 

History is the story of what used to happen. It is the story of people or families or churches or movements and how they used to be but probably aren't any more. People here are fascinated by my stories of the early years in Prescott. But those years happened long ago and even the Prescott church is past those early years.

People who study revival think that they know what triggers revival. What they think that they  know is what was happening when revival began at some point in the distant past. What makes our Fellowship what it is are the issues addressed and the rules established and the pattern put in place by those who went before us. People used to think that pastor Mitchell would live forever, or at least until the Rapture. But he didn't. And our current leaders are working to adapt old rules to a new world. Time will tell if they were successful. What got you here might not get you there.

Find an old church with a rich history and you can discover what God used to to. 

I am at a place in life for which there is little guidance in or out of church. No one knows how to decline in the faith and in the Fellowship. Denying or ignoring the course of life does not make you exempt from it. Birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death still apply. Only the pre-tribulation rapture will interrupt this. And that is out of our control.