Revival Leadership: Vol 1

The church needs a deep spiritual awakening. The question is whether or not the church today has the kind of spiritual leadership available to usher the people of God into a Christ-centered renewal. Revival Leadership addresses this question at a very critical juncture for the 21^st century church and society as a whole. Even the quality of nurturing required to raise leaders to play the all-important role to bring about moral and spiritual renewal, sanity, and healing to the nations appears to be extremely lacking. The church, which is to provide spiritual leadership to steer our morally and spiritually depraved society into an awakening, is itself rapidly declining in its desire and hunger for the things of God.

The church, in fact, appears to be in a state of oblivion. Consequently, the church is being driven deeper and deeper into worldliness. For example, it is becoming more and more satisfied with its financial and numerical build-up at the expense of spiritual renewal. In addition, the church has become self-centered with a false sense of self-sufficiency. This has oftentimes led to the church losing its evangelistic focus and becoming distant to the spiritual and moral needs of the communities it serves. The dividing line between the pews and the streets of most towns and cities has never been wider. In our homes and schools, parents and educators do their best to provide moral leadership to raise the next generation to fulfil their roles in society. Unfortunately, society, in most cases, has lost hope in the church as moral leaders and as agents of healing and restoration. It seems Christ is verbally proclaimed with little corresponding actions or deeds. Seeing this in his day, Mahatma Gandhi, a Hindu, once said this about the church: “I love your Christ, but I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” What an indictment!

The answer to this pew-street divide can only be found in true spiritual leadership that will position the church for a mighty move of God that impacts the church and transforms society at large. The Wesley revivals, for example, not only awakened the lukewarm church, but also brought about social and political awakening to England. It is recorded that even workers who had stolen from their factory employers were touched so deeply that they returned what they had stolen to their employers. This was a catalyst to the Abolitionist movement against the slave trade.

In the absence of true revival and moral leadership from the church, people will witness the astronomical growth of crime, governmental corruption, and all forms of social ills. It is, therefore, an urgent obligation of the church to move forward in faith and boldness to change the world through the demonstration of the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ, a demonstration that would transcend race, color, creed, and national boundaries. Revival leadership helps reintroduce moral and spiritual sanity. Recognizing this leads people to cry out for renewal and revival leadership. The cries have never been louder at any time in the history of the church than they are today. The Lord is ready to unleash an outpouring of His spirit on the church if the church is ready and opened to His spirit.

Revival Leadership affords the church and societal leaders an extraordinary opportunity to examine scriptural principles that could bring about genuine healing and restoration of spiritual and social order. Zerubbabel led a discouraged people from their hopelessness and desolation into vibrancy, unity of purpose, social justice, and true worship that binds brokenness and restores the outcasts of society into the fold. Zerubbabel’s leadership principles undergird this book’s organization and are greatly needed today.

The following leadership principles are covered in this volume:

· prayer as leadership priority

· putting faith into action

· the waiting period in revival times

· readiness for battle in the midst of revival

· the anointing oil

· steps to receiving a fresh anointing and renewal

These principles, as they are addressed in this volume, should enable the reader to identify and apply them in their personal lives, family lives, and their ministries to effect spiritual, social, and emotional healing in their homes, churches, businesses, and communities.