Renewal

It has started. The semi-annual revival services at Mt. Zion Community Church. Twice a year we invite speakers to address our congregation and to challenge us about our walk with God, our outreach to friends and neighbors, and to renew our spirits. Renew, revive, refresh, resuscitate, rejuvenate, rekindle, regenerate, and to put back into order our lives and our reconnection with God.

Our speaker is Dan Brubaker, an evangelist. He and his wife Elizabeth have a quiver full of beautiful children and do much of their ministry at Servant’s Heart Camp in Ramey, Pennsylvania. I’ve written about this Bible ministry camp with its 215 acre wooded appeal and a huge multi acre lake. I’ve spoken about this camp before in glowing terms. The cabins rival the KOA campgrounds, the food is plenteous, tasty, and prepared by great cooks, and the ability to relax, refresh, renew, and reset is only part of the camp’s appeal.

Evangelist Dan laid out exactly what revival means in our lives. It isn’t the number of souls saved or even the impact on the community around us, it has to do with each individual and his or her relationship with God, a reconnection to the power source in our lives, a renewal of that intimacy and closeness to the Creator. He shared the need for that closeness in our daily walk. He challenged us to seek God and to reaffirm our need to be in a close relationship with the LORD. We become weary and weak without daily prayer, without reading God’s word, and without seeking God’s will. He reiterated that God is always nigh, always close, always wanting a closer relationship. All we have to do is to turn to God and ask Him to be closer, to seek what He would have us do, and to fall in step with His precepts.

In all three services, morning sermon, Sunday school teaching, and evening service, Evangelist Dan presented what it means to be revived. Revival isn’t just a twice a year week of meetings, but it is a personal renewal and reattachment to God the Father.