I am aware of the fact that the word "revival" has taken on a variety of meanings in our days. So it is about time to try and come up with a definition of the word as I understand it. I would like to start by stating what I don't mean by it:
* I don't mean a series of meetings that are aiming at renewing the church. Sometimes the word is used in that sense, as in "our church is having a revival from the 1st to the 10th of January". Revival as I understand it cannot be organized by us. It is something that only God can do. It may or may not start with or include organized meetings, but they are not an essential part of what revival is.
* Revival is also often associated with emotional piety and public hysteria, which is not what I mean when I speak of revival.
The best theological definition or description of revival that I could find was written by James Packer in his book "Keep in Step with the Spirit". Here it is in it's original wording:
"Scripture points to a recurring process whereby, following upon coldness, carelessness, and unfaithfulness among God's people, God himself acts in sovereignty to restore what was ready to perish by means of the following set of events:
God Comes Down. (See Isaiah 64,1) He makes known his inescapable presence as the Holy One, mighty and majestic, confronting his own people both to humble and to exalt, and reaching out into the wider world in mercy and judgement. Other biblical words of saying this are that God "awakes", "arises", "visits", and "draws near" (See Psalm 44:23-26; 69:18; 80:14 KJV). God's coming forces folk to realize, like Isaiah in the temple, the intimacy of the supernatural and the closeness, majesty, and knowingness (that is, the heart-searching omniscience) of the living Lord (see Isaiah 6:1-8; Revelation 1:9-18).
God's Word Comes Home. The Bible, its message, and its Christ reestablish the formative and corrective control over faith and life that are theirs by right. The divine authority and power of the Bible are felt afresh, and believers find that this collection of Hebrew and Christian literary remains becomes once more the means whereby God speaks to them, clears and changes their minds, and searches and feeds their souls.
God's Purity Comes Through. As God uses his Word to quicken consciences, the perverseness, ugliness, uncleanness, and guilt of sin are seen and felt with new clarity, and the depth of each person's own sinfulness is realized as never before. Believers are deeply humbled; unbelievers are made to feel that living as they do with sin and without God is intolerable, and the forgiveness of sins becomes the most precious truth in the creed.
God's People Come Alive. Repentance and restitution, faith, hope and love, joy and peace, praise and prayer, conscious communion with Christ, confident certainty of salvation, uninhibited boldness of testimony, readiness to share, and a spontaneous reaching out to all in need become their characteristic marks. There is a new forthrightness of utterance, expressing a new clarity of vision with respect to good and evil; and a new energy for reformation - personal, ecclesiastical, and social - goes along with it.
While all this is happening, outsiders come in, drawn by the moral and spiritual magnetism of what goes on in the church.
(J. I. Packer: "Keep in Step with the Spirit - finding fullness in our walk with God. New extended edition" IVP. Nottingham, 2009, Page 194-195)
This description by Packer summarizes the essentials of what happens in times of revival. Often revivals are accompanied by extraordinary miracles, signs and wonders like in biblical times. But these are not the essence and centre of revival. They are given to show that God is indeed present with his people and to confirm the preaching of the Gospel. Also some hysterical or emotionally extreme reactions among people may occur in revivals as well, but they also are not what it is all about. Revival is the mighty presence of the Holy God among his people. This is what I long for in my life and in the life of the church.
