Our church needs a revival

My last few weeks have been filled with a variety of experiences that, combined, have impacted me in ways I didn’t expect: visiting Israel, Jewish Sabbath, looking after my parents, school placement, visiting Birmingham, Scotland & Wales, two Christian leadership conferences, lunch with Robert’s two Muslim friends, giving a sermon, living with three generations from Robert’s family, and many other things in between. It’s difficult to explain everything I’ve gone through but here is a glimpse.

Monday and Tuesday were full intensive days at the HTB Leadership Conference with 5500 other Christian leaders from all kinds of denominations and 89 different countries. So much good advice from all the sessions we went to, but also praying for each other, supporting each other. Our Christian brothers and sisters face so many of the same issues we do – how to bring God into our working life and how to have a meaningful career, how to unite the church, how to be authentic and not be put off by the hypocrisy that we see in our institutions, how to witness with confidence but also genuine care and concern for our brothers and sisters. To stand side by side with them, worshiping God, was a very beautiful and moving experience.

Experiencing Christianity close up was tremendously humbling. Having delved into this community with a desire to observe and learn best practices for our Youth Ministry, I realized how arrogant I have been. Yes, we have True Parents and yes we have the Divine Principle but if we don’t have the passion and fire of the Holy Spirit then what is the point?

I have always wanted to have the heart that True Father had in prison, “Don’t worry about me God, I want to comfort you, not the other way around”. But you know, so many times I’ve not been strong enough to do that – and felt so guilty that I wasn’t strong enough not to complain to God, not to want His parental embrace, that I shut Him out, I often didn’t let Him fill me with His love.

At the conference I was faced with an something that I have struggled with any time I went into a church, the way Christians call on God to come and be with them, to love and guide them: “come Holy Spirit, come. We want more of you Jesus!” Their hands reaching out in prayer. It always seemed so needy.

A few days later at the Youth Worker Summit, we sat and listened to the stories and testimonies of some of the youth workers, people who have dedicated their lives to build God’s Kingdom, many of them serving some of Britain’s most deprived areas. Then afterwards standing and singing alongside them I got a strong feeling of how they desperately need God because they know they can’t do it without His love. It made me realize that I do not yearn for or love True Parents half as much as many Christians love Jesus. But singing those songs and thinking about the suffering True Parents have been through and the suffering that God has been through whilst remaining faithful to humanity despite how weak and unfaithful we have been, I broke down in tears.

I felt our Heavenly Parent and all His love for me, and all of His love for His children. I prayed for the fire of the Holy Spirit to come into our movement, to fill up the spiritual buckets of the members who have run on empty for so long but are still going, and prayed that a revival will come to our movement – an overflowing of the love of God that we would naturally want to share with others.