It’s Easter 1996, we arrive at the building in good time but we discover that already the main building is packed out. People are sat on little plastic stools outside the front door and standing looking in the windows down the side alley. Eventually someone helps us find a seat in an apartment block next to the church building., Modifications have been made to allow for the regular overflows. All is ordered, structured, dare I say it, “quiet” but there is a tangible sense of the Holy Spirit’s presence.
People have been becoming Christians and will continue to in large numbers for years to come. They are hungry for God’s Word and eager to pray. They will find all kinds of opportunities to. They will even attend English classes led by a close to retirement English couple to get to study God’s Word and hear the Gospel. The situation I’m describing is in Shenzhen, one of the large cities in south China.
Why are my memories drawn back to my visits to my parents whilst they were working in China? Well, there has been much debate in recent times about whether or not we are experiencing a quiet revival here in the UK. Now, I wonder how many people involved in the debate have actually been in a situation that has been widely or officially recognised as revival? My own exposure is of course limited but yes I’ve seen something of it.
The latest offering discussing the so called Quiet Revival comes in Evangelicals Now this month from John Edward Furnell. He writes:
“The Quiet Revival is no more; YouGov has retracted its conclusions, and the data has been debunked [see en explainer here]. A full apology was sent to the Bible Society.”
I think it is important to make sure that in our critiques, we seek accuracy. Whist You Gov have apologised for problems with their survey for the Bible Society, I’m not sure that we’ve seen conclusions retracted or even data debunked, what we have seen is recognition that there were faults in methodology and so the data cannot be relied on for the conclusions that the Bible Society were drawing on. The Bible Society and others have continued to insist though that there is evidence of something happening.
Secondly, Furnell writes:
“I have said the same thing at every interview: “Revivals are not quiet.” They are loud and messy as broken people are pulled away from their old, sinful lives and learn how to start again in a new community of grace.”
Now, I’m not sure about whether or not we should be describing what some people are describing as “Revival” In fact, giving how slippery words and definitions can be, my personal implication is to hold fire on using those kinds of labels. However, what we can observe is a few things.
First, yes, whenever and wherever God is at work, we might say that there is mess in the way that John describes. That does not however translate into noise. Yes, there’s the noise of rejoicing in heaven according to Luke 15 but over the years, I’ve learnt that what might bring the noise of rejoicing in heaven might sound very quiet here. The China experience is one example. And yes, there would have been areas where there would have been a lot of noise, the revival would have been far from quiet due to worship styles. However, it was quiet in that for the underground church, much of that had to happen away from the prying eye of state spies. At the same time, there was visible stuff happening in Three Self Churches, just as real and powerful but it looked quiet because this was a culture not always given to showy expressions.
I think it is fair to say as well that when you look back through history that you can see lots of examples of moves of God that you might consider “noisy” and lots that look quiet. Some of us may well question whether some of those noisy, showy events were “moves of God.” I remain unconvinced by much that went under the Toronto Blessing banner and I’m not convinced that there is much to see or hear beyond the external noise of the Bethel movement. Remember that Jonathan Edwards insisted that outward manifestations were neither proof that God was at work nor that he wasn’t.
Closer to home and to present times. My own experience of Gospel ministry has included time with what looked like a little chapel, hidden away down a drive, behind some shops. All may have seemed quiet there. In fact, much was happening, quietly hidden away and it was perhaps for our good that it was. Noise and show might have curtailed those things.
I believe that we will look back on the COVID pandemic as a time when God was working in people’s lives, nurturing their hunger for his word, cultivating their prayer life and making the church visible to many people who hadn’t in the past attended anywhere. That it was all online made it incredibly quiet.
In his article Furnell comments:
“I hoped the Quiet Revival was true, but I had my concerns. The Quiet Revival seemed too convenient for the church. It is the revival that we all wanted. Young, well-behaved professionals, coming in their ones and twos, who can simply fit in “quietly” and put some money in the pot to keep us going. What a dream that would have been.”
Now, there may at times be a desire for that. However, that’s not the kind of thing I’ve been hearing people talk about. Rather, people have been talking about young, working class white men and teens wanting to turn up at church, asking questions, starting to read their Bibles.
And back to our own experience of the past 15-6 years, we’ve seen God at work in the lives of all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds.
Furnell concludes:
“Personally, I want a loud revival that comes at a great cost, with real transformation and millions of lives changed across our nation. Will you join me in praying for a loud revival?”
I wouldn’t seek to presume what cost has come and what transformation is happening in lives. I would encourage us instead to keep praying, give thanks for what God is already doing in many lives and seek him to do more. Whether we call that revival or not and whether it’s noisy or quiet does not matter.
Faithroots 