Revival Stories
The 1996 Smithton Outpouring (Part 2)
After years of preaching and praying for revival, and after a particularly dark season for the Smithton Community Church and its pastor, this church experienced a powerful jolt of God’s power and presence in an unprecedented fashion on Sunday March 24th, 1996. This outpouring of God’s Spirit surprised everyone and blessed everyone in attendance that night. Who would have ever imagined such a powerful movement of God to touch the tiny town of Smithton, Missouri? That night there was such a tangible encounter with God for each man, woman, and child. The building was filled with tears of conviction, and also praise and dancing. One person said, “It was like wind and fire, a hurricane and an explosion, and life just burst into our church.” When the evening came to a close, Pastor Steve Gray invited folks to come back the next night. And they did, almost every night.
In the following days, members of the congregation found themselves irresistably drawn to pray and worship together at the church. There was such an unbridled joy in being in God’s palpable presence. Within days, others in town and from other churches started paying a visit to see for themselves. As God touched and impacted those in attendance, people found new strength from the Lord and deep transformation of their hearts. After a few weeks, as the word spread, visitors started coming from around the country. More than 250,000 guests would eventually visit this church, from every state in the USA and from over 60 nations. People would see supernatural healings, all kinds of miracles, and folks being set free from demonic oppression. Over the next few years, the Holy Spirit inspired an abundance of new worship songs that overflowed from the vibrant worshiping community, and God led the church to start a training center for ministry and revival in the year 2000.
In addition, the church would send out teams of leaders to share and pray for revival in other places around the globe. God also instructed the church to move in 1999 to Kansas City, Missouri, to expand its reach for God’s Kingdom. They would continue to host the fires of revival in this new location. The focus of this particular revival would not be to emphasize evangelism but instead to call the church worldwide back to a place of purer devotion to God and to a fresh hunger for God.
Once, when asked about revival, Pastor Steve Gray said that the main reason people pray for an outpouring of God in their church and don’t receive it is that they aren’t really as desperate as they think they are. They are not yet willing to make room in their lives for a mighty move of God. When God begins to bring a fresh spiritual awakening, He looks for an initial response from His people. The fires of revival will not come and will not stay if we have anything else better to do. Only when we have emptied our calendars, emptied our lives of lesser distractions, and become an empty vessel can we experience the amazing outpouring of the Spirit as God intended. May the church today be ready and willing for the next great revival!
QUESTIONS TO DISCUSS:
- When have you gone out to see what God was doing outside of your hometown? What attracted you to do so? What kind of reports would entice you to take a journey of at least 100 miles tomorrow in order to see what God was doing?
- Even though there are Christians and churches all throughout earth today, many are not operating at the fullness of what God might want to see happen? What do you think it would look like if a church started in your neighborhood with 100 Christians who operated in complete faith and fully surrendered to the Holy Spirit? What do you think would happen next if God then poured out His Spirit with full-blown revival upon this church on the following week? Would God’s tangible presence, and perhaps angels also, make any difference to those in attendance?
- On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 1 being “almost none” to 10 being “absolutely!”), how would yourate your depth of desperation or utter dependence upon God? How would you rate your home church? Do we feel we have anything on our calendars better to do than Revival? Out of all the possible cities on earth, why would God want to bring revival to your city?