First Baptist Church of Diana, Texas

Thinking back to the times when God has been most active in the churches He has allowed me to be a part of, brings two great memories to mind. Both were centered around scheduled revival meetings.  Both can be spoken of as something only God can do.  Neither of these great memories came out of the regular program of a church.

The first occurred in my early adulthood in the town of Mobeetie, Texas.  I personally came under great Holy Spirit conviction that I needed to publicly profess the Lord Jesus Christ through baptism.  I had been saved through a personal experience with Christ some years earlier but had never been baptized.  On the second night of a scheduled meeting I obediently followed the leading of the Spirit and testified during the invitation  of the conviction. As the meetings continued throughout  the week, God did an amazing work in bringing teenagers to salvation.  The Lord reminds me, it wasn’t the program, it was the spirit of the Lord.

The second occurred in the year 2001.  I was serving in the 3^rd year of my second pastorate. The community was Diana, Texas, and the church, First Baptist, where I continue to serve. I remember feeling frustrated with the church due to our relaxed attitude toward personal witnessing and reaching our community for Christ. One morning while praying, I sensed the Lord saying that we would baptize over 50 people in our congregation in the next year.  I was astounded.

We had scheduled a series of meetings we were calling a crusade for later in October. On September 11, 2001, our nation experienced terrorism on our own soil, and America was stunned. In the coming days, our churches were fuller than they had ever been at regular services. In October, our meetings with brother Jim Everedge began. In the very first service, over fifteen people were saved. In the coming week over 35 people gave their lives to Christ. In the year that followed, we baptized 73 converts in our congregation alone. Others were baptized in surrounding churches.

These events helped me to believe the accounts of great revivals in history and also left me longing for a powerful move of God.  The Hebridean revival of 1949-1952 is one such revival.  God swept across the Hebrides Islands over the course of 3 years and saved hundreds of thousands of souls. My favorite story about those meetings was the result in the coal mines. It has been stated on numerous occasions that the language of the coal miners changed so much that the mules working the mines would not obey the commands of the miners. Their language was without cursing.  It is also said that you could hear echoes through the mines as the miners sang songs of praise to the Lord.

Let us pray that God will send a revival. Let us pray this is the time, He will raise up a preacher, and this will be the place.