'Wave After Wave of People, Broken Before the Lord': TN Pastor Tells of Revival Sweeping His City

Revival is taking place in Tennessee after churches from various denominations partnered together in prayer and fasting, igniting a move of God's Spirit that has transformed lives across the region.

CBN News has learned more about the revival that's underway in Tennessee involving 1,000 churches across the Volunteer State.  It's a part of "Awaken Tennessee", a 30-day prayer and fasting initiative that launched on Jan. 26 and will run through Feb. 23.

As CBN News reported on Monday, churches across Tennessee are fasting and praying for unity, according to Sheldon Livesay, East Tennessee coordinator for Awaken Tennessee.

The event is not about any one church or denomination. It's been described by Pastor John Butler of the East Rogersville Baptist Church in Rogersville as a concentrated prayer effort across the state for true revival in our churches that triggers an awakening in local communities, the state, and the nation.

The initiative started last year when Pastor Dave Clayton of Nashville's Ethos Church was successful in getting 400 churches to come together to pray for every single resident of the city.  Awaken Nashville was a huge success, so this year Clayton and other organizers decided to invite churches in the entire state to participate. 

According to Livesay, Dove Award-winning singer/songwriters Terry and Barbi Franklin took the idea through their prayer network and also contacted churches across the state to take part in the initiative. 

Pastors are reporting their services are exploding with revival services as a result of the Holy Spirit showing up and taking over.

Butler told CBN News in an email that his church decided to join the Awaken Tennessee event and was preparing to host a revival conference with guest revivalist John Avant, president of Life Action Ministries. The Franklins would serve as worship leaders. 

The East Rogersville Church launched Awaken TN with multiple churches gathering for a night of praise, prayer, and worship on Sunday, Jan. 26 and then the revival conference was to start the next Sunday morning Feb. 2.

"The week between these two Sundays was filled with prayer in our church. Each weeknight people gathered in homes to pray. It was an intense week of prayer for many of our people. God had been quietly working in many lives, but we had no idea of what He was about to do," Butler wrote. 

'Wave After Wave...'

Then Sunday morning came and what happened next astounded everyone, including the pastor. 

As the Franklins led the song "10,000 Reasons," "One man sitting on the back row made his way to the altar and began to weep and pray. A host of other men gathered around him and prayed. Before the end of the song, the altar was filled with people. Slowly the altar began to empty, then it would fill again. Wave after wave of people broken before the Lord. Jesus had walked into our midst that morning and set up His throne and He has been here ever since," Butler told CBN News. 

The pastor said it was almost an hour before Avant made it to the pulpit.  

"The first words from his mouth were that he felt the need to be very careful about what was said at this moment because this was a special moment. John was the pastor of Coggin Avenue Baptist Church in Brownwood, TX in 1995 when revival broke out in that church and several other churches in the city simultaneously as well as on the campus of Howard Payne University. John stated that he had never witnessed this type of movement within a church since those days. We had coordinated our revival conference to coincide with the 50 year anniversary of the Asbury Revival of 1970 and the 25th anniversary of the Brownwood revival of 1995 and now revival had come to East Rogersville Baptist Church that Sunday morning February 2, 2020 in Rogersville, TN," he says.

Butler reports that every meeting at the conference was touched by a move of God.

"Every service for the planned conference was filled with God's presence. People were getting serious about dealing with personal sin and people were coming to Christ for salvation. Thirty-year feuds were made right, relationships have been restored, and many masks had been removed. People made public confessions of sin, bitterness, and laziness about their involvement in God's kingdom activity," the pastor said. 

A Move of the Spirit in Multiple Churches

Butler also said the revival didn't just happen in his church.  

"As many as six other churches has been faithful in participating in these services. There are Baptists, Methodists, non-denominational churches as well as Pentecostal and Charismatic churches involved. Several pastors have been faithfully supporting these services and we are seeing God begin to move in those churches as well," he noted. 

"To date, we have seen around 20 people saved and many of them baptized in one of our services. God is doing a special work among the students of our community," he continued. 

Then people told Butler they wanted the meetings to continue, and so they did.

"The conference was supposed to be over Wednesday, February 5, however, the people on that night said 'we need to keep meeting'. So we have kept meeting. We have now entered into our third week of services and based upon last night we are expecting to run at the very least through the end of this week," the pastor said. 

"Know that God seems to move in waves. This has proven to be ever so helpful as we progress through these days of revival. We have witnessed these waves. All of the services have been Spirit-filled yet some are just overpowering and that is what we are seeing," Butler told CBN News. 

"It's all God! As was stated in the beginning, we are most blessed to be experiencing revival. We pray that revival begins to spread rapidly across our state and nation," he said. 

Livesay noted it seems all East Tennessee is seeing unusual moves of God in their services. 

"There has been a 50-year history of intense prayer across our region and the last two years we've seen God lead cities of churches together to do prayer walks, crusades, and tent revivals," he told CBN News. "Awaken Tennessee seems it has brought that extra Holy Spirit presence through prayer and fasting that we see exploding in church after church."

"PRAYER AWAKENING"

"PRAYER AWAKENING IN SCOTLAND COUNTY, NC"

For the past eight months, pastors from seven Scotland County, NC churches have been meeting every Thursday at 8:30 AM to intercede for our country, our county and for the churches of our region. Additionally, many of these pastors have been gathering for the past 33 weeks for "Prayer on the Square" on Wednesdays at noon at the corner of Church and Main Streets in Laurinburg, NC.

Tired of the high crime rate, the shootings, the gangs, pervasive illegal drug trade and moral decline, members of these churches have joined with their pastors in a concert of prayer to intercede for the county. The prayer gathering began on Monday, December 31 at Northview Harvest Ministries. That week, the intercessors took turns meeting at East Laurinburg Baptist Church, East Laurinburg Pentecostal Holiness Church, Union Grove Baptist Church, Living Waters Church of God and Multitudes Church. This concert of prayer has entered the second week at the same churches. The services are completely directed by the Holy Spirit. People gather to pray as the Holy Spirit leads. Denominational lines and racial barriers have vanished as Christians have come together as the Body of Christ to pray. How wonderful it is to see African American, Caucasian, Native American and Latino Christians joining hands in prayer and fellowship.

A group of Christians in Adams, Tennessee has begun a similar prayer gathering after hearing about what is taking place in Scotland County, NC. A group in the United Kingdom has inquired about the Scotland County united prayer. 

Prayer on the Square continues to grow along with the concert of prayer. For over eight months, faithful Christians have gathered on Wednesdays at noon to intercession. 

Results to prayer have become visible. 30 drug leaders have been arrested and the gaming industry has been shut down in Scotland County!! The pastors and churches are committed to continue to pray until a great awakening sweeps through all and radically changes Scotland County.

HOW WILL REVIVAL COME?

HOW WILL REVIVAL COME?

Revival will not come through promotions.
Revival will not come through hot dog suppers.
Revival will not come through bringing in a special guest
 or a group of evangelists.
Revival will come when God's people
begin to pray, pray, pray and pray.
...........................
Major Al Smith
Salvation Army

Patterns of Spiritual Awakenings (How to Know an Awakening is Near)

Patterns of Spiritual Awakenings

(How to Know an Awakening is Near)

 

"Spiritual awakenings manifest patterns that are similar, often strikingly so. While all of the following elements may be present in each instance, for the most part awakenings progress through a cycle whose phases include these various aspects of God's working."

1. Awakenings are usually preceded by a time of spiritual depression, apathy and gross sin, in which a majority of Christians are hardly different from secular society, and the churches seem to be asleep. The causes of each decline differ widely, but when the prophetic voice and moral leadership of the Church has been stilled for some time, social evils are usually rampant.

2. An individual or small groups of God's people become conscious of their sins and backslidden condition, and vow to forsake all that is displeasing to God. Christians recall past outpourings of God's grace and power, and long to see them again. When histories of awakenings have been written in later years, it has been occasionally discovered that individuals at great distances and completely unknown to each other had, prior to the awakening, been praying simultaneously to the same end!

3. As some Christians begin to yearn for a manifestation of God's power, a leader or leaders arise with prophetic insights into the causes and remedies of the problems, and a new awareness of the holy and pure character of the Lord is present. This standard of holiness exposes the degeneracy of the age and stimulates a striving after holiness by God's people. The leaders find that their eagerness for God's moving is shared by many who have been waiting for God to act, and who will rise to follow.

4. The awakening of Christians occurs: many understand and take part in a higher spiritual life. Evangelism of the unsaved may or may not accompany this renewal of Christians. (Salvation of the lost occurs when Christians are restored to image of Christ and holiness. This great transformation in Christians leads to a stirring in the community. God "comes down" into the lives of Christians and then "moves out" into the community.

5. An awakening may be God's means of preparing and strengthening His people for future challenges or trials. Throughout history, renewal has often come before persecutions and severe trials. (The First Great Awakening came prior to the American Revolution. The Third Great Awakening occurred a few years before the Civil War. Azusa Street occurred before a great earthquake in California and before World War I."

Do you see these patterns at work among God's people today? The answer is YES ! The more I see, hear, read and discover from others and from the Lord, I believe we are at the third pattern or stage. The "old wells" of revival are about to be reopened, "fallen mantles" are being picked up and "new fountains" are about to burst forth!

(Excerpts from Christian History magazine}

Revival Has Broken out in Manchester, Kentucky - Incredible!!

Arctic Fire - Revival Fire Falls

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Arctic Fire - Revival Fire Falls

A community in the Arctic Circle was in great trouble.  Illegal drugs, divorce, alcoholism, sexual abuse, violence and murder were ripping a people apart.  The Anglican Church met to pray.  They wept and interceded for God to come and come He did!  This video records the actual awesome events of that never to be forgotten prayer meeting.

Revival In Haiti - A Call To Fasting And Prayer

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 "Revival In Haiti - A Call To Fasting And Prayer"

A nation reals and rocks from a devastating earthquake and tsunami.  The infrastructure is shattered.  People are homeless, hungry, and many have perished.  God's people rally and call the nation to pray.  Over 1 million gathered in the capital for days of national repentance and prayer.

Persistent Prayer

Revivals Come Because of Persistent Prayer
by R. A. Torrey

We find right here why it is that many prayers fail to accomplish that which we seek from God. We pray and pray and pray, and are almost up to the verge of the attainment of that for which we are praying, and right then, when God is just about to answer the prayer, we stop and miss the blessing.
For example, in many churches and communities there are those who are praying for a revival. The revival does not come at once, it does not come for some time, but they keep on praying. They have nearly prayed through. They are right on the verge of attaining what they sought, and if they would pray a little longer, the revival would break upon them. But they get discouraged, throw up their hands and quit. They are just on the border of the blessing, but they do not cross into the Promised Land.
In January 1900 or 1901, the faculty of the Bible Institute of Chicago instituted a late prayer meeting Saturday nights from nine to ten o’clock, to pray for a worldwide revival.
After we had been praying for some time, a thing happened that I knew would happen. People came to me, or to my colleague who was most closely identified with me in the conduct of these meetings, and they would say, "Has the revival come?"
"No, not as far as we can see."
"When is it coming?"
"We don’t know."
"How long are you going to pray?"
"Until it comes."
And come it did—a revival that began there in that prayer meeting room of the Bible Institute in Chicago, then broke out in far-away China, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, India, and swept around the world, with most marvelous manifestations of God’s saving power—not merely through Mr. Charles Alexander and myself, but through a multitude of others in India, Wales and elsewhere. In Wales, for example, under Evan Roberts and others, it resulted in one hundred thousand professed conversions in twelve months.
I believe that God is looking to us today to pray through again.




Saved After Fifteen Years of Daily Prayer I prayed fifteen long years for the conversion of my oldest brother. When he seemed to be getting farther and farther away from any hope of conversion, I prayed on.
My first winter in Chicago, after fifteen years of praying, never missing a single day, one morning God said to me as I knelt, "I have heard your prayer. You need not pray anymore; your brother is going to be converted."
Within two weeks he was in my home, shut in with sickness which made it impossible for him to leave my home for two weeks. Then the day he left he accepted Christ over in the Bible Institute in Mr. Moody’s office, where he and I went to talk and pray together.
I told this incident when holding meetings in a certain city. An elderly woman came at the close of the meeting and said, "I have been praying for the conversion of my brother, who is sixty-three years old, for many years; but a short time ago I gave up and stopped praying." She added, "I am going to begin my prayers again." Within two weeks of that time she came and said, "I have heard from my brother, and he has accepted Christ."
Oh, men and women, pray through; pray through; pray through! Do not just begin to pray and pray a little while and throw up your hands and quit; but pray and pray and pray until God bends the heavens and comes down!