The summer of Zap
Every summer, from my mid-teens through my 21st year, I worked as a camp counselor. The second to last summer I worked at that camp—when I was twenty—I was a brand new Christian. I had gotten saved over Christmas break, and I’d been loading up on the Word and was freshly baptized in the Holy Spirit.
I entered my beloved camp that summer as a new creature—both spiritually and in the eyes of my peers. Many young believers before me had worked at the camp, sowing seeds of prayer and witness into the fertile ground of the souls of the kids, teens, and twenties they touched. One dear friend, a singer, had used her guitar and her voice to plow deep furrows for imperishable seed into the soil of hearts for several summers before I was saved. The chorus to her signature song was:
And Jesus said Come to the waters, stand by My side;
I know you are thirsty; you won’t be denied.
I felt every teardrop when in darkness you cried,
And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died.
But those more seasoned Christians were gone for the most part; it was now my turn. God sent two others that summer, a young man who led the dorm Bible study I attended at my college, and a young woman who, like me, had just received Jesus within the past year.
A microburst of revival was about to sweep that little camp.
The three of us quickly found one another and the after-hours prayer meetings commenced. At first it was just us, but one by one, over the summer, other counselors joined in, and we became a pile of prayer, heaped up in the middle of the non-trafficked road near the lake, an every-evening occurrence under the Ozark stars accompanied by the music of crickets, bullfrogs, and whippoorwills.
Things started happening. Little miracles were taking place in hearts all over camp as young people began opening up to the reality of Jesus. Things even got a little crazy. Those who viewed our passion with skepticism began calling us “Zaps” due to the lightning-quick manner in which prayers were getting answered and hearts were being changed. They also dubbed themselves “Pazzes”—the polar-opposite of “Zaps”. In fact, before the end of the summer, our prayer piles were encircled by “Pazzes” standing quietly, hands behind their backs, as they observed us fellowship with the Father.
One late July Sunday morning, in a counselor-led chapel service on the hillside by the lake, one counselor, neither a professed Zap nor a Paz, a scientific-type who was a bit older than most of us and greatly respected by everyone, stood up to share his thoughts. “I’ve watched all of you this summer as lines have been drawn. I’ve seen the changed lives and the stand that so many of you have taken. And I wanted to take this opportunity to tell every one of you—I, too, believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and He is the Lord of my life.” A stunned silence fell upon that hillside, and with that, no one remained in the faith-closet any longer.
Probably the most remarkable incident of the summer, however, happened far away from the view of the prayer pile.
One morning, early in August, two counselors-in-training, boys I had trained in the leadership program, stood up and took the mike after breakfast to deliver the daily “Thought for the Day”. Instead of reading a saying from Kahlil Gibran or a snippet from a Peter, Paul, and Mary song (as was the habit of many “Thought-for-the-Day-ers”), they re-enacted something they had experienced just the night before, after hours. It played out something like this:
Pee Wee: Jack, man, I’m bummed out!
Jack: Why, man?
Pee Wee: I messed up my back in a wrestling match last spring, and I really hurt! Man, I’m so bummed out! I may never get to wrestle again!
Jack: Oh, man, that’s a bummer! I’ve heard, man, that, like, if you pray and ask God, man, like maybe He might heal you.
Pee Wee: Man, do you think He would?
Jack: Well, man, like let’s just ask. Hey, God, Man, like, I’ve heard that You might heal people. Would You, like, heal Pee Wee right now, Man?
Pee Wee (to the campers and counselors present in the dining hall): And then, man, I’m not kidding—a ball of light of flashed down on us! That ball hit me, my pain left, and it’s still gone, man! I’m going to get to wrestle again next year!
Jack: And, like, I’m going to serve God, man! He’s real!
Pee Wee: Me, too, man; Jesus is so real! God bless you, man! Campers, dismissed!
With eyes full of accusation, the Pazzes flashed looks across the dining hall at the various Zaps. The Zaps shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads no at the Pazzes—we had nothing to do with this! Zaps looked in wonder at other Zaps around the room. All over, everyone shook their heads, nope—we had no involvement in this one!
As the summer drew to a close, everyone—both Zap and Paz—knew that they had been in the middle of something they’d never experienced before—a real move of God. The microburst of revival left an indelible mark on the hearts and thinking of every one of us. And now, sprinkled all over America are men and women in their 50’s and 60’s who witnessed what God could do through a little band of praying people. And it is my prayer that every one of them gets to witness it again, and that their hearts and lives will be forever changed through a fresh move of God.
May God move again upon this generation—everyone now living—from the youngest to the oldest, from the most tender to the most calloused—and everyone in between, in Jesus’ name!
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Isaiah 62:6-7
Jesus, have Your way in this hour!
Dorothy
Read MoreThe Apologetic Altar Call
Easter is drawing near. Every year on that morning, millions attend churches throughout the country. For many, this is a biannual event—a Christmas and Easter pilgrimage, of sorts—to the place of worship of the most religious member of the family. Some go kicking and screaming; some go with extra hairspray, an overly expensive new outfit, and pinching shoes that may never be worn again; others go relieved to still have some sort of connection with the Man Upstairs; and still many others go merely out of habit.
However, strip away the chocolate bunnies and the colorfully wrapped eggs (Hey! Here’s my basket—just dump them in there), and take a closer look at the Man who died on the cross and three days later rose from the grave, and you’ve got Easter—or more correctly, the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
My pastor prays extensively the month before Easter for souls to flood into the church—and from there into the kingdom of Heaven as they grasp who Jesus really is and receive Him as their Lord.
This year he has been praying not only for those who will attend our church—not even just for the ones who will attend other life-giving churches, as he calls them—but also for those who will attend churches that have strayed from the central truth of the recognition of sin and the need for a life-changing, saving relationship with Jesus. He has been praying for God to touch all of those churches and to supernaturally open the door for invitations and altar calls to be given—and for droves of souls to respond and be saved.
You may scratch your head and think, Pipe dream. Ain’t gonna happen. Well, sit right back and read the tale of the Apologetic Altar Call.
In the early ‘80s, I was working in a rural elementary school just outside of the metropolitan area where I live. I taught with a godly woman named Arlene, who was one of my early mentors. She and I would eat lunch together every day and pray for the students and other staff members.
Connie was the music teacher. She was Bohemian in lifestyle—she embraced a New Age philosophy and was married to a Muslim from Afghanistan. The Methodist church in the town needed an organist, so they asked Connie if she would be available.
Connie loved music; she loved to sing and play the piano, so she accepted the position and became a fixture every Sunday morning at the Methodist church near the school. Her New Age leanings didn’t bother anyone at the church; and their doctrine didn’t challenge her worldview, so they all made music together every Sunday morning in a tolerance-soaked, symbiotic relationship.
One Sunday morning as Connie sat behind the organ, the minister of that little Methodist church got up sheepishly behind the pulpit, cleared his throat, and apologized to the congregation for what he was about to do.
He said, “I am so sorry—I feel very uncomfortable right now—but I can’t shake this feeling that’s gripping me. I know we don’t do this here—I don’t like to make folks uncomfortable—but I’ve got to ask something very unusual for this church.”
Connie had stopped playing the organ, and you could have heard a pin drop.
He continued, “Well, here goes. If anyone wants to come to the front to get a closer relationship with Jesus—please step out and come forward.”
Crickets.
And then, after a long, horribly awkward, tension-wrapped silence, Connie, gripped with conviction of her need for Christ, got up from behind the organ and came to the front and knelt. She was the only one that morning who heeded the call, but as she bowed before the altar, the apologetic Methodist minister prayed for her, and she was gloriously saved.
And who do you think she told? You’ve got that right—Arlene and me, who had been praying for her all along!
So is my pastor dreaming when he prays for churches that don’t even preach the saving gospel to offer invitations to receive Jesus Christ in their services?
Just ask Connie.
May the kingdom of Heaven swell to overflowing this season with new souls—from every corner and walk of life!
Dorothy
Read MoreThe Summer of Zap
Every summer, from my mid-teens until I was 21, I worked as a camp counselor. The second to last summer I worked at that camp, I was a brand new Christian. I had gotten saved over Christmas break, and I’d been loading up on the Word and was freshly baptized in the Holy Spirit.
I entered my beloved camp that summer as a new creature—both spiritually and in the eyes of my peers. Many young believers before me had worked at the camp, sowing seeds of prayer and witness into the fertile ground of the souls of the kids, teens, and twenties they touched. One dear friend, a singer, had used her guitar and her voice to plow deep furrows for imperishable seed into the soil of hearts for several summers before I was saved. The chorus to her signature song was:
And Jesus said Come to the waters, stand by My side;
I know you are thirsty; you won’t be denied.
I felt every teardrop when in darkness you cried,
And I strove to remind you that for those tears I died.
But those more seasoned Christians were gone for the most part; it was now my turn. God sent two others that summer, a young man who led the dorm Bible study I attended at my college, and a young woman who, like me, had just received Jesus within the past year.
A microburst of revival was about to sweep that little camp.
The three of us quickly found one another and the after-hours prayer meetings commenced. At first it was just us, but one by one, over the summer, other counselors joined in, and we became a pile of prayer, heaped up in the middle of the non-trafficked road near the lake, an every-evening occurrence under the Ozark stars accompanied by the music of crickets, bullfrogs, and whippoorwills.
Things started happening. Little miracles were taking place in hearts all over camp as young people began opening up to the reality of Jesus. Things even got a little crazy. Those who viewed our passion with skepticism began calling us “Zaps” due to the lightning-quick manner in which prayers were getting answered and hearts were being changed. They also dubbed themselves “Pazzes”—the polar-opposite of “Zaps”. In fact, before the end of the summer, our prayer piles were encircled by “Pazzes” standing quietly, hands behind their backs, as they observed us fellowship with the Father.
One late July Sunday morning, in a counselor-led chapel on the hillside by the lake, one counselor, neither a professed Zap nor a Paz, a scientific-type who was a bit older than most of us and greatly respected by everyone, stood up to share his thoughts. “I’ve watched all of you this summer as lines have been drawn. I’ve seen the changed lives and the stand that so many of you have taken. And I wanted to take this opportunity to let every one of you know—I, too, believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and He is the Lord of my life.” A stunned silence fell upon that hillside, and with that, no one remained in the faith closet any longer.
Probably the most remarkable incident of the summer, however, happened far away from the view of the prayer pile.
One morning, early in August, two counselors-in-training, boys I had trained in the leadership program, stood up and took the mike after breakfast to deliver the daily “Thought for the Day”. Instead of reading a saying from Kahlil Gibran or a snippet from a Peter, Paul, and Mary song, they re-enacted something they experienced the night before, after hours. It played out something like this:
Pee Wee: Jack, man, I’m bummed out!
Jack: Why, man?
Pee Wee: I messed up my back in a wrestling match last spring, and I really hurt! Man, I’m so bummed out! I may never get to wrestle again!
Jack: Oh, man, that’s a bummer! I’ve heard, man, that, like, if you pray and ask God, man, like maybe He might heal you.
Pee Wee: Man, do you think He would?
Jack: Well, man, like let’s just ask. Hey, God, Man, like, I’ve heard that You might heal people. Would You, like, heal Pee Wee right now, Man?
Pee Wee (to the campers and counselors present in the dining hall): And then, man, I’m not kidding—a ball of light of flashed down on us! That ball hit me, my pain left, and it’s still gone, man! I’m going to get to wrestle again next year!
Jack: And, like, I’m going to serve God, man! He’s real!
Pee Wee: Me, too, man; Jesus is so real! God bless you, man! Campers, dismissed!
With eyes full of accusation, Pazzes flashed looks across the dining hall at the various Zaps. The Zaps shrugged their shoulders and shook their heads no at the Pazzes—we had nothing to do with this! Zaps looked in wonder at other Zaps around the room. All over, everyone shook their heads, nope—we had no involvement in this one!
As the summer drew to a close, everyone—both Zap and Paz—knew that they had been in the middle of something they’d never experienced before—a real move of God. The microburst of revival left an indelible mark on the hearts and thinking of every one of us. And now, sprinkled all over America are men and women in their 50’s and 60’s who witnessed what God could do through a little band of praying people. And it is my prayer that every one of them gets to witness it again, and that their hearts and lives will be forever changed through a fresh move of God.
May God move again upon this generation—everyone now living—from the youngest to the oldest, from the most tender to the most calloused—and everyone in between, in Jesus’ name!
On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent. You who remind the Lord, take no rest for yourselves; and give Him no rest until He establishes and makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Isaiah 62:6-7
Let’s contend for it!
Dorothy
Read More
Deep calls to deep
“In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.” Genesis 7:11
“He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, ‘From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.‘” John 7: 38
“Deep calleth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts…” Psalm 42:7a KJV
The other night God visited a prayer meeting I attended. Waves of worship in languages given by the Spirit of God filled the atmosphere, spilling out in joy, peace, and great awe. To me it felt as if I had entered a river, toes first, splashing and washing away the tiredness of my flesh. I saw swirling eddies and light dancing upon the water with my mind’s eye, and realized that, try as we might, no human could really control a living river.
As I worshipped God, I reflected upon rivers I had known, from fishing expeditions with my dad, float trips, rope swings over deeply-rooted banks, and the torrents of flood waters that often crash through the mighty rivers of my region. Rivers—life-giving, playful, refreshing, cleansing, powerful, dangerous, destructive—rivers.
I sang quietly to myself, “Oh, oh, the River of God! Wash it away, wash it away, wash it away in the River of God!” The river of God was washing me, and I allowed it to carry me into the deeper flows of the peace of God.
Then I caught a glimpse of how an outpouring of God might begin upon a people or a land. God said to Jeremiah, “…call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you…” (see Jeremiah 29:12-14).
When the heart cries of God’s people are toward Him, seeking Him with their whole beings for mercy, salvation, and restoration to be poured out upon both them and their land, He listens and responds. During times of chaos, distress, crisis, and upheaval in the past, men and women have cried out to God earnestly, beseeching Him for deliverance from their backslidings and sin, crying out for relief from the fruit of wickedness in the land. And as a result, revivals have nearly always erupted in those darker times.
By Noah’s time, although the earth was still young, wickedness had grown out of control and evil permeated the thoughts and intentions of the human race. The world was corrupted by sin; violence ruled the day, and God had seen enough.
He directed Noah to build an ark for the preservation of the race and every animal species on the earth. According to 2 Peter 2:5, it is likely that Noah preached righteousness to anyone who happened by throughout the entire ark-construction project. The door to the ark was left open until the last minute; had anyone taken Noah’s message to heart, my guess is that they would have been welcomed aboard.
Genesis 7:11 gives the report of the fateful day when the flood began. “All the fountains of the great deep burst open,” declares the Word, “and the floodgates of the sky were opened.”
In our day, as wickedness grows out of control once again, and as evil thoughts seem to saturate the very atmosphere with perversion, violence, and greed, God is once again leaving the door of the ark open for a while longer.
And He is now stirring the depths of the hearts of His people—deep is calling unto deep—and He is pressing by His Spirit upon all of us—anyone who will—to “burst open” and allow the release of living waters from their innermost being.
And as we cry out to Him and seek Him with all of our hearts, He will be found of us. The great depths within us, placed within our hearts from the beginning, will be met by the opened floodgates of Heaven, and another great flood of outpouring will occur.
In this flood, souls will be saved, not lost; and as we cry out to Him, perhaps one last time this planet will be filled with the glory of the Lord.
It is our time; may each one of us yield to the Holy One pressing upon our hearts in this hour and cry out to Heaven, “Send the outpouring of your Spirit! We must have revival!”
Dorothy
Read MoreContention vs. revival
Yesterday I introduced you to Winkie Pratney’s book, Revival. Something I read in it years ago stuck with me and changed the entire way I looked at differences between believers. I would like to share it with you.
George Whitefield, one of the revivalists Pratney wrote about, was used mightily of God during a key outpouring in American history. He preached his first sermon when he was 21 and continued without faltering throughout the British Isles and the American colonies until his death in 1770 at the age of 56. His style was described as the “preaching that startled the nation” (page 90). He spoke with authority, and said of himself, “I have not come in my own name. No! I have come in the Name of the Lord of hosts and I must be heard!” (page 92.) And heard he was. He typically preached twelve messages per week, and often spoke up to forty to sixty hours each week. The joy in which he walked was evident to all; one colonial woman said of his influence upon her, “Mr. Whitefield was so cheerful it tempted me to become a Christian” (page 96).
This man, who was used so powerfully by God to blast the message of the gospel to his generation, dealt with some of the same catty, factious, divisive forces that persist within Christianity in our time. Although he was a friend and contemporary of John Wesley, they did not see eye to eye on points of doctrine. Whitefield held to Calvinism; Wesley viewed the Armenian belief system as correct. In fact, at that time, many in the Church were sharply divided between these two branches of thought, and along with the division came bitter contention, criticisms, and smug judgments. Pratney wrote, “[Whitefield] had a deep humility, and broad charity toward others, loving all others who loved Jesus in sincerity. If other Christians misrepresented him, he forgave them; if they refused to work with him, he still loved them” (page 96).
One believer, more interested in controversy than in the furtherance of the gospel, asked Whitefield if he “thought he would see John Wesley in heaven.”
Whitefield replied, “I fear not. He will be so near the throne and we at such a distance that we shall hardly get a sight of him” (page 96). Something beyond anointed preaching and tireless endurance burned within Whitefield’s breast. The love of Christ that shunned partisan sniping permeated his life and ministry as well.
Are you willing to speak kindly of others despite doctrinal differences? Are you willing to forgo a juicy snide remark concerning a “rival” believer or ministry? Are any of us willing to set aside sectarian prejudices for the sake of keeping our motives pure before God?
These are the questions each of us must ask ourselves before the Lord. I am concerned that our generation will never experience the unlimited outpouring of God if true Christians refuse to lay aside suspicious attitudes and strife one against the other. Can we afford to continue in “me against you” and “us against them” mentalities at the risk of blocking the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon this dark generation? Whitefield didn’t think so.
May God help us all!
Dorothy
[The quotes from Revival are used by permission. Winkie Pratney’s ministry can be accessed at www.winkiepratney.com ]
Read MoreRevival
I read a book years ago with a message that was both ancient yet strikingly current. The book was Revival, by Winkie Pratney, published in 1983. The back cover asked:
- Are you disturbed by the apathy and despondency of people today?
- Do you wonder what the future holds for this immoral world?
It went on to say, “In an age where values are questioned, families are falling apart, and where quality is being replaced by quantity, there is an ever-growing need for a revival of the morals and beliefs of a more stable time.”
I agreed with it then; I agree even more now. These thoughts are more pertinent today than they were in 1983; without God’s intervention, our culture will continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate. Without divine interference, neither the best programs nor projects good men have to offer will be adequate to stave off the eventual collapse of our culture or return us to kinder, gentler days. We must have revival.
Pratney wrote about revivals, reformers, and revivalists spanning history from before the Great Reformation in the 1400’s up to the time of his writing. He wrote that “true revival is marked by powerful and often widespread outpourings of the Spirit.” He also pointed out that in past revivals “many times preaching had to cease because the hearers were prostrate or because the voice of the preacher was drowned by cries for mercy” (page 16).
Quoting In the Day Of Thy Power by Arthur Wallis, Pratney shares concerning revival, “It is God revealing Himself to man in awesome holiness and irresistible power. It is such a manifest working of God that human personalities are overshadowed and human programs abandoned. It is man retiring into the background because God has taken the field” (page 17).
“Revival is periodic; evangelism is continuous,” Pratney quotes from an April 9, 1965 article in Christianity Today. “Revival will always vitalize God’s people…but revival is not always welcome. For many the price is too high. There is no cheap grace in revival. It entails repudiation of self-satisfied complacency. Revival turns careless living into vital concern…exchanges self-indulgence for self-denial. Yet, revival is not a miraculous visitation falling on an unprepared people like a bolt out of the blue. It comes when God’s people earnestly want revival and are willing to pay the price” (page 19).
It is interesting to note that the article in Christianity Today was written two years before a double-barreled blast of God’s intervention hit this nation. Both the Charismatic Renewal, starting among Catholic seekers and spreading into Protestant denominations, and the Jesus Movement, capturing disenchanted and disenfranchised young people for Christ by the tens of thousands or more, are said to have started in 1967, two years after the Christianity Today article was printed. Hunger for more than what they were currently experiencing in their churches and relationships with God was driving believers to seek God’s intervention in the mid 1960’s.
Pratney also warned, “Evil as well as righteousness can have a ‘revival’; there can be an unholy uprising as well as a holy outpouring” (page 21). Proverbs 28:28a declares, “When the wicked rise, men hide themselves” and Proverbs 29:2b says, “when the wicked rule, the people groan.” One strategy of the devil is to use intense widespread ridicule, derision, and scorn of godly values and faith in Christ to discourage believers from confidently persisting in prayer for a sweeping, mighty outpouring of His power and holiness. Satan accomplishes this through stirring wicked men, rulers, and ungodly popular thought to coerce believers to retreat in fear from voicing their convictions or confident profession of faith. Perhaps, they think, if we don’t ruffle any feathers and we just play nice, those who hate our values will simply forget we are here and leave us alone. However, such fear works to the enemy’s advantage; when good men are silent, evil increases and gains leverage. Like it or not, this describes our time.
That is why we need God’s intervention. As a friend of mine used to say, “The devil’s not playing wiffle ball.” We find ourselves facing the big leagues, now, ready or not. But we have a God who is ready to intervene in a big way for the asking. It’s time now to let go of distractions and fear for our own safety and reputations. It’s time seek the Lord on behalf of our nation. It’s time for a move of God.
[The quotes from Revival are used by permission. Winkie Pratney’s ministry can be accessed at www.winkiepratney.com ]
Read More