It’s time for unity and extraordinary prayer

“Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy.” – Habakkuk 3:2

To the Church in New England,

Grace and peace be with you.

As Isaac redug the same wells where his father Abraham found water (Genesis 26), the time has come to recover an old idea that has been time-tested and proven. This idea was prophesied by Zechariah in the 5th Century BC.

“Thus says the LORD of hosts: There will yet come peoples and inhabitants of many cities; and the inhabitants of one city will approach those of another, and say, “Come! Let us go to implore the favor of the LORD and to seek the LORD of hosts. I too am going.” – Zechariah 8:20-21

Zechariah describes a proposal for an explicit agreement between large groups of people to seek the Lord. The proposal is hortatory: “Let us go do this thing…you and me together…I’m going too.” Such an agreement is owned by all…and also by no one person or group in particular.

276 years ago, a New England pastor proposed essentially the same thing. Based on the verses above, the Rev. Jonathan Edwards wrote a treatise entitled: An humble attempt to promote explicit agreement and visible union of God’s people in extraordinary prayer for the revival of religion and the advancement of Christ’s Kingdom on earth, pursuant to Scripture-promises and prophecies concerning the last time.

After fifty years of spiritual decline, just before the turn of the 19th Century, leaders of the church in New England and the Northeast, made desperate by the rise of Deism and the decline of the Church in America, dusted off Edwards’ proposal and decided to do it, initiating a strategic rhythm of united prayer for revival. This “concert of prayer” lasted from the late 1790s until the Civil War. Over top this steady drum beat of prayer, the Second Great Awakening, the greatest to have graced our nation, came in wave upon wave through New England and America, leaving behind a lasting legacy of world missions, literacy, higher education, and the abolitionist movement, among many other
societal benefits.

The proposal you are about to read is the same as that of Edwards and Zechariah, updated for our time. It is a humble proposal for a covenant among New England churches to join in a strategic rhythm of united, extraordinary prayer
for revival.

The reason for proposing covenantal agreement in prayer is the same reason Jonathan Edwards proposed it in 1748. The power is in our agreement. Many churches and pastors already feel the stirring, the call to wake up, to trim our wicks, to pray and seek the Lord to renew his fame and deeds in our time (Habakkuk 3:2). But we have yet to agree to do this together. Yet it is our agreement in prayer that will transform the trickles and streams of individual prayer into a mighty river of intercession that has the power to flood a region with the power, presence, and Kingdom of God. Our agreement in prayer is far more than the sum of its parts.

What would happen to a region if the whole church in that region united and humbled itself before God in the Spirit of King Jehosephat. “Lord, we don’t know what to do but our eyes are on you.” (2 Chronicles 20:2) What if the Church built and rebuilt the altars of prayer and worship? What if, one by one, the fires of extraordinary, united prayer for revival spread across our region like runway lights – signalling our readiness for a visitation from on high? What if we became, as it says in Psalm 24, a “generation who seeks Him?” As is promised in the Prophet Jeremiah, “You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13)

Indeed, until the regional church unites in agreement in prayer, it is hard to see how we can expect our region to be graced with revival. If Jesus says of the demon possessing a boy: “this kind only comes out by prayer,” (Mark 9:29) how much more is this true with a region that has succumbed over generations to a succession of spirits of the age. This is why Jonathan Edwards wrote:

“When God has something very great to accomplish for his church, it is his will that there should precede it the extraordinary prayers of his people…If we are not to expect that the devil should go out of a particular person, under a bodily possession, without extraordinary prayer, or prayer and fasting; how much less should we expect to have him cast out the land, and the world, without it!”

What is the basis for the REVIVAL COVENANT?

The New England Revival Covenant built on five stacking core convictions. These are our need for:

• Revival

• Extraordinary Prayer for Revival

• Visibly United Extraordinary Prayer for Revival

• A Strategic, Sustainable Rhythm of Visibly United, Extraordinary Prayer for Revival

• Explicit Agreement to a Strategic, Sustainable Rhythm of Visibly United, Extraordinary Prayer for Revival

What are the commitments of the REVIVAL COVENANT?

Those who sign the New England Revival Covenant are committing themselves first to extraordinary prayer – seeking the Lord Himself, then his hand for revival in the church and the advancement of his Kingdom. And second, they are committing themselves to a strategic rhythm of extraordinary prayer…praying:

• Daily as individuals

• Weekly with others from our local church / ministry

• Monthly with other believers in our geography outside our local church. The encouragement here is to take the opportunity to pray with peers (pastors with other pastors, youth with other youth, etc.)

• Annually or more with the Greater Body of Christ in cities and towns.

The final part of the Covenant is an open and unfinished list of the names of all individuals, ministry leaders, churches, denominations, and associations who are in agreement. The door is open for you, your church, and your ministry to add your name.

The time has come for us to make an agreement to seek the Lord in extraordinary, united prayer for revival. In the words of Zechariah: “The inhabitants of one city will say to another, let us go at once to seek the LORD of hosts.
I myself am going.” Will you go with us?