In 1994, John Wimber gave an interview to the British magazine Worship Together. Here is an excerpt that really spoke to me:

Over the last six months I’ve spent time re-reading some of the evangelical classics, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life by Hannah Whitall Smith. I was given a copy the third week after I became a Christian, and it gave me a context for spirituality, and a foundation for trust in and obedience to God. Books like that have taught me that seeking God for experiences and gifts is superficial: we are simply called to seek God! I’ve preached many times that we are called to a reverential serving of God with our whole heart and being, stressing that if anything except God is your portion in life, I can’t guarantee it; I can’t guarantee that your children will be happy, or that your spouse will love you forever… but I can guarantee that if your desire is Jesus, you’ll get Jesus, and you can walk with Him all the days of your life.

When I went through this cancer a year or so ago, I was astounded when people from my own church asked me, “Weren’t you afraid you were going to die?” After about the fiftieth person, I realized that I hadn’t really taught my congregation the truth of the word. I had to get before them and say, “In June 1963 this man died. And everything from that time to this has been Jesus.” I’m not trying to hold on to my life; I gave my life up.

When I became a Christian, I was a musician with two albums I had produced in the U.S. Top Ten; it was the establishment of my career after  thirteen years of hard work. But God spoke to me in the two-line parable of the pearl of great price: “I want it. Give it to me.” He didn’t say, “give it to me and then I will give you a career as a pastor, or a music ministry that will go to many nations of the world.” He said, “give everything. Liquidate all your assets, and I’ll give you the pearl.”

Now the pearl isn’t a new career, or the opportunity to make a name for yourself as a worship writer or leader. It isn’t even the ability to sustain yourself in that profession. If your readers’ motivation in being involved in their local church worship is to make a full-time career of it, they’ll probably be disappointed.

The pearl is Jesus. And if He is their focus, they’ll go right through this revival unscathed. Oh, they’ll have to face things, but they will come through in godly fashion, and they will stand unashamed before the Lord, having been used to refresh a nation – and through that nation, probably a whole continent.

Pelagianism is theological shorthand for any mode of thinking and acting that depends on us making something happen. The classic argument between Augustine and Pelagius was whether salvation was a free gift of God’s grace or something we could earn by our own efforts. That same up-by-the-bootstraps mentality finds its way into other aspects of our lives of faith, perhaps nowhere more consistently and problem-causing than when it comes to revival. We can make a lot of noise, drum up a lot of emotion, and create what looks a lot like revival. But when we do that, we actually do the opposite. All our efforts at sparking revival only serve to distract from what the Holy Spirit is doing. All our clamor drowns out the still small voice of God’s breath.

Someone told me the other day that we are supposed to be “catalysts for revival in our communities.” I don’t agree. We are not the catalysts. The Holy Spirit is the catalyst. Always. We can’t grow churches or bring about revival. Only the Holy Spirit can do this. To the extent that we think we can manufacture revival or capture the hearts of people via cultural relevance is just to the extent that we have lost our understanding of what it means for the church to be the church. Revival comes as all other aspects of this life of faith, as a free gift of God given to us as we go about the daily work of obedience and faithfulness.

If we really want revival, we should stop trying to make it happen. Instead, we should sit together in silence and pray for the Spirit to give us again the gift of Divine Presence. No bootstraps required.