I want to talk to you about some of the most exciting times in the life of a local church. You say, “What is that?” The time of special meetings. In the life of a local church, often there are special times where we set aside services for a specific emphasis. For example, we have our conferences. We have Youth Conference and Pastors Conference. We have Missions Conference. Many churches have a fall and a spring revival.
I want to talk to you a little bit about how to get the most out of especially a church revival meeting. Sometimes we have a tendency to try and make something big at the outset. And let me say, you don’t need to make it big. If God steps in, God’s gonna make it big. But sometimes we’ll be doing things like this: we will add in more singing than normal, and that might not be bad, but sometimes we can sing the congregation to death. Congregational singing. For example, in your normal services, maybe you sing three, two congregationals, four congregationals. Well, don’t overload them with eight during your special meeting. You need to know your people. If your people cannot sing for that long, then don’t do that to them. If you don’t have a dynamic song leader and your congregational singing is a little bit dead, then don’t add more deadness into the service.
The same thing goes for special music. I mean, don’t overdo it with special music. Have your best special music groups lined up and ready. If I were you, I wouldn’t use an outside singing group. Many churches do. That’s fine, but I would want to make sure that the outside group knows it is not their concert. We’re seeking the face of God, not here for a show. Also, can they hit the ball when they sing? Are they gonna sing songs that help the spirit and help the service? Are they gonna do something that might bring into question my stand on music? I don’t want them to take over my meeting and to kill the spirit. Be careful with too much outside music coming in.
Also, I found out when you have outsiders come in, sometimes it can stifle the liberty of your own people. And my revival meeting is for my church family. I want them to get help. I want them to use the altar. I want God to speak to their hearts, and I don’t want to hinder that.
When you have a special meeting, let me say this, we don’t have to add in a thousand new announcements. In fact, if I were you, I’d keep the announcements very brief. Here’s the announcement. We have church again tomorrow night. We have church again in the morning if it’s a conference. That’s the announcements that you need to know. We don’t have to go through the list of birthdays and anniversaries and prayer requests every service. Dead time is just that. It is dead time, and you’ll lose people in those long spread-out seasons of announcements. Keep the thing moving. Have an order of service. Don’t schedule God out, but do have some structure to what you’re doing.
I think these tips– because I’ve seen it– I’ve traveled enough to know that if you’ll just do these things, and be mindful of your people and what is best for them, I believe you can get the most out of your special meetings.
Pastor, I hope this has been a help in your Christian life today.
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