Thoughts on Revival

 What does revival look like? Here are some interesting thoughts on the beginnings in Prescott.

First, when the Mitchel's arrived in Prescott they did not arrive with a plan for world evangelism. Pastor had served as pastor in several churches up to that time. He had had some success. He had honed his skills as a pastor and teacher and preacher. Prescott was in need and they asked him to go and with nothing better to do he took his family to a small town with a damaged church.

Pastor has told us that his first service in Prescott on a Sunday morning was 27 people. Unknown to him or anyone in Prescott was the revival that was breaking out in southern California among young people and hippies. That wave eventually made it's way to Prescott and suddenly young people were coming to church and getting saved. To pastor's credit and to the honor of those early church members they accepted these unkempt young vagabonds and welcomed them into the church.

The little building on Lincoln street was soon bulging at the seams with scores of young new converts. A few important things took place but let it be enough to say that that church of 30 people in 1970 had become a thriving church of 300 people in 1973 when I was saved there on Ruth street. In the next 20-25 years the church grew to 600 and it has been powering on for many years at around 650 people.

There are churches that do a good job of ministering to the needs of the people and they are a blessing. And there are churches who exploded from nothing to hundreds in a short time. They have to minister to the people God brings in just like any good church would.

The other thing to point out is that in our Fellowship no church has had explosive growth for decades. They had an initial big bang of revival that in time settled into the ebb and flow of ministry. Men sent out still need to learn how to minister to real people. Even the book of Acts has an initial 3 or 4 year growth spurt and then it settled into caring for the new converts who would go on to become older disciples.