“If you win them with music, you’ve won them to music. If you win them with children’s ministry, you’ve won them to children’s ministry. If you win them with politics, you’ve won them to politics. If you win them with your personality, you’ve won them to you, but not to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

A pastor has warned attendees of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annual Meeting against using things like “politics,” “social justice” and “music” to grow their congregations instead of the Gospel.
Juan Sanchez, senior pastor of High Point Baptist Church in Austin, Texas, gave the Convention sermon on Wednesday morning in Anaheim, California.
Sanchez preached about Ephesians 4:11-16, noting that in the Bible passage, Paul of Tarsus writes about the foundational importance of prophets and apostles.
“The foundation of the Church is the apostles and prophets because that is the group to whom the Father revealed that Jesus is the Christ,” Sanchez explained. “The foundation of the Church is this revelation of the Father that Jesus is the Christ. He is King, He is Lord. It is through Jesus that God will bring together all that has been broken.”
Sanchez then warned against using other means to increase membership numbers, telling those gathered that “we cannot build the Church on any other foundation.”
“If our primary end is merely church growth,” said Sanchez, “we will be tempted to build on other foundations. We’re tempted to build our churches on a foundation of music styles, or age-graded ministries, or even politics or social justice or even our own personalities.”
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It is this aching longing that fuels our recurring (we might say continual) desire to experience revival. But it’s not the mere experience of spiritual refreshment we desire; we long for the Place, the Person, where all the refreshment comes from. We long for what Jesus longs for: that we would be with him where he is, to see his glory.

Most earnest Christians have a deep longing to see and experience a spiritual revival. Many regularly pray for it. But ask a hundred such Christians to describe what they’re longing and praying for, and you’re likely to get dozens of different answers, depending on how their cultural backgrounds, church traditions, theological paradigms, and personal experiences have formed their concept of what a revival is.

Some think of revivals primarily as large-scale historical events that result in many people converting to the Christian faith, leaving notable effects on the wider society (like the early chapters of Acts or the “Great Awakenings”).
Some think of revivals primarily as what happens when Christians in a local church or school experience renewed spiritual vitality and earnestness together (like what took place at Asbury University in early 2023).
Some think of revivals primarily as strategically designed and scheduled events that aim to evangelize unbelievers and/or exhort believers to pursue a deeper life of personal holiness and Christian service (like Billy Graham’s evangelistic crusades).
And some think of revivals primarily as what happens whenever an individual Christian experiences a transformative, renewing encounter with the Holy Spirit.

Now, apart from some debates over definitions (like what differentiates revival from renewal), most earnest Christians would agree that when the Holy Spirit moves in power to give new life to unregenerate people and renewed life to regenerate people, the results can look like all those descriptions — and certainly more.
But when earnest Christians long for revival, despite whatever concept and phenomena they associate with that term, they’re not really longing for that concept or those phenomena. If you were to ask those hypothetical hundred Christians to press deeper and describe what they most deeply long for when they long for revival, I believe the nature of their answers would be very similar.
“It’s You”
To illustrate what I mean, let me describe a touching scene that occurs at the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the third book C.S. Lewis wrote in his seven-part Chronicles of Narnia series. After another wonderful Narnian adventure, just before Aslan sends Lucy and Edmund back to our world, Lucy says,
“Please, Aslan, . . . before we go, will you tell us when we can come back to Narnia again? Please. And oh, do, do, do make it soon.”
“Dearest,” said Aslan very gently, “you and your brother will never come back to Narnia.”
“Oh, Aslan!” said Edmund and Lucy both together in despairing voices.
“You are too old, children,” said Aslan, “and you must begin to come close to your own world now.”
“It isn’t Narnia, you know,” sobbed Lucy. “It’s you. We shan’t meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?”
“But you shall meet me, dear one,” said Aslan.
“Are — are you there too, Sir?” said Edmund.
“I am,” said Aslan. “But there I have another name. You must learn to know me by that name.” (247)
If you haven’t read the Narnia books, it’s important to understand that Lucy and Edmund hadn’t enjoyed merely a few childish, holiday-like adventures in Narnia. They, along with their two older siblings, had been Narnian kings and queens for decades. They had fought in fierce battles, and shed their blood and tears for its defense. They had loved and cared for its citizens. And their encounters with the great lion, Aslan, had transformed their lives. Narnia felt more like home to them than any place they’d ever been, and when they weren’t in Narnia, they longed to be there.
So, when Lucy says, “It isn’t Narnia, you know,” she’s saying something profound. There’s a deeper longing inside her than her longing for Narnia. It’s a longing that fuels her longing for Narnia. And she names it for Aslan in two words: “It’s you.”
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The body can be weighted, measured, nipped, tucked, prodded, poked, whatever. The soul on the other hand, since it is immaterial, cannot. Does this make the Christian position somehow weaker, or beyond any real scrutiny? No.

Do you have a soul? Can science say anything about it? Can science disprove it?
Brian Cox, the musician turned professor, says science makes it plain the soul does not exist. If there was some other material source present in the body, it should be detectable in some way. Since the soul is not detectable in some measurable way, it must not exist.
This reminds me of a conversation with a skeptic friend some years back. He told me if I could prove what organ in the body is the soul, he would gladly believe. But that demonstrates the problem, doesn’t it? He believes only those things that can in some way be reduced to a material explanation are real. Furthermore, I never claimed the soul is an organ in the body. It is easy to begin talking past each other on points like this.
The Christian belief is that the soul is an immaterial part of the human condition. To be a human is to have a material body and an immaterial soul. Humans are a unit of soul and body. The body can be weighted, measured, nipped, tucked, prodded, poked, whatever. The soul on the other hand, since it is immaterial, cannot. Does this make the Christian position somehow weaker, or beyond any real scrutiny? No.
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