Every weekend, millions of people across the United States pay cover charges to get into clubs.

Some are looking for a good time.

Some are trying to escape the pain in their life.

There is no cover charge to get into church.

Yet, very few churches are full.

Most can’t even fill half their auditorium.

What is the church doing wrong?

I saw this on Anne Jackson’s blog today and love it. I have several gay friends, and have been asked this question.

There is nothing I can improve upon, so instead of copying and pasting the post from Anne, visit her site and read it for yourself.

Why Is Being Gay A Sin?

I grew up in church; a pentecostal church, to be specific.

And I was in a family where, if the church was open, we were there.

Needless to say, I’ve been a part of many revival services. Which got me thinking, why do churches still hold revivals?

Before anyone accuses me of saying anything bad about any evangelists, I am not. While I, at this point in my life, believe that community outreach and improvement is a better form of evangelism, I also believe there are many “professional evangelists” in the world who are doing exactly what God has called them to.

I also understand there are many churches that are spiritually dead and in need of a specialist (i.e. professional evangelist) who doesn’t have to answer to anyone in the church for what he says or does.

Which brings me back to my question: Why do churches have revivals?

Yes, communities need revival.

Cities need revival.

This country needs revival.

But why would a church need revival?

Here is why I ask: in all the revivals I’ve been a part of, the host pastor prefaces them weeks in advance with something along these lines:

“We need to pray for this revival (insert duration) every day.”

“We need to fast (number of meals) every day/week.”

“We need to invite as many people as possible to the revival.”

Has anyone ever considered the idea that, if we invested the same amount of prayer, fasting, invitation and preparation into weekly services as we invest in revival services, maybe churches wouldn’t need revival?

And if churches were consistently on fire and didn’t need revival, maybe a byproduct would be revival in our communities.

Saw this on Barton Damer’s blog. This video is not about the church having an obligation to the arts; it is more about the impact that the arts has on our culture and how the church has not done well with that in the past few decades.

Courtesy of Collide Magazine