Vivified!

Last Wednesday during prayer meeting Pastor Sam requested that we fast and pray for BBCN's Revival Services & Anniversary Sunday which run from October 18 through October 25, and also the November 1st music event being held at Evander Childs High School.

So, for those of you who weren't at church to hear Pastor Sam's impassioned announcement, let me reiterate it here. I strongly encourage as many of us as possible to fast and pray. If you aren't familiar with fasting as a spiritual discipline, I'd recommend that you read "God's Chosen Fast" by Arthur Wallis. It's a short book packed with Biblical support for the engagement of this discipline, along with important practical information so that people new to fasting will learn to do so safely.

It is important to add fasting to our prayers because of the seriousness of the battle we are in. We are not interested in people flooding the altar with tears or dancing their socks off at a gospel concert. What we long for is to see lives that have been transformed by the power of God. What we need is to see people respond to the wooing of the Holy Spirit: not just for a week, but for a lifetime.

We have had too many years of people engaging in external rituals with no corresponding internal change of heart and mind and spirit. Bronx Bethany, let's get real. Fast and pray, and watch God as He reveals who has been made alive and who has not.