Since the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost there have been special seasons of grace when God has worked in dramatic ways. Read this post for general perspective on revival.
“What happens in revivals is not to be seen as something miraculously different from the regular experience of the church. The difference lies in degree, not in kind. In an ‘outpouring of the Spirit’ spiritual influence is more widespread, convictions are deeper, and feelings more intense, but all this is only a heightening of normal Christianity.”
Revival and Revivalism, Iain Murray
Our job is to pray in faith, to worship with all of our hearts, to preach the gospel to everyone we can, to lovingly serve those around us, to train disciples and send missionaries. We cannot manipulate God to contrive a revival. We can only trust in the Lord and His timing, coming together in unity to call on Him for help.
“In the 1720s and ‘30s, pastors began to emphasize that reform was hopeless without revival—and revival depended not on more human effort, but on an outpouring of God the Holy Spirit. God did not need the church to pray in order to send revival, but fervent prayer for God’s rescuing power was often the first sign of revival.”
Justin Taylor, What Revival Really Means
If you trace the very beginning of the revivals that swept Europe in the early 1700s and the U.S. in the mid 1700s, it seems it started with a handful of children meeting after school to pray. A few kids turned into hundreds of kids, then their parents, which led to camp meetings and eventually “revival.” But it started with the desperate heart cries of a handful of chidren.
The most remarkable revival of the 20th century took place in the New Hebrides islands of northern Scotland around 1950. The first spark that ignited this work of God came from elderly sisters committing to pray for two nights each week (and I mean nights – from 9 p.m. until 3 a.m.) and then inviting their pastor and his elder team to do the same.
“When I speak of revival, I am not thinking of high-pressure evangelism. I am not thinking of crusades or of special efforts convened and organized by man. That is not in my mind at all. Revival is something altogether different from evangelism on its highest level. Revival is a moving of God in the community and suddenly the community becomes God conscious before a word is said by any man representing any special effort.”
Duncan Campbell about the http://www.revival-library.org/index.php/pensketches-menu/historical-revivals/the-hebrides-revivalNew Hebrides revivals