Transforming Revival Comes to America
The Story of the 10 Days Prayer Movement from 2007-2008
During the summer of 2007, I once again traveled to Yale for the Institute of College Revival and Awakening. In 2006, George Otis Jr. had shared amazing stories of transforming revival from the island nation of Fiji. Bodies were healed, the dead were raised, towns were transformed; even the earth and water were healed through the simple power of prayer, fasting, and repentance in this remote nation.
George had shared about the Healing the Land team who were instrumental in this move of God. This year, Savi, the Fijian leader of the Healing the Land team was a keynote speaker. Rhonda Hughey, an American who had been working closely with the native Fijians, shared as well.
Savi and Rhonda were eyewitnesses of what I was longing to see. As they shared, their methodology I was surprised to learn just how similar their strategy was to the vision of 10 Days.
Rhonda and Savi shared how the Healing the Land team operated. The tribal chief would invite them into a town or village. Often, but not always, this would happen because of an insoluble problem the village was facing. The chief would “stop everything” in the town for seven to ten days. There was a call to fasting along with three daily times of extended prayer. Meanwhile, repentance happened both in the larger meetings and house-to-house, with the Healing the Land team leading villagers to reconcile with neighbors, to repent of sin, and to (literally) get rid of idols.
Over and over, the Healing the Land team witnessed a moment when “God came to town,” often around seven days into the process. When “God came to town”, there would be a sign in the natural world to confirm what was happening spiritually. Most often, the natural sign would be rain. After this, the spiritual atmosphere would shift. Miracles, signs, and wonders would become commonplace, the dead would be raised, and the land would be healed, with miracles affecting soil fertility, the health of the water, and plant and animal life taking place in villages.
My jaw was on the floor. The strategy of the Fijians, stopping ev-erything for a period of seven-to-ten days to pray and repent, was al-most identical to what God had shown me for 10 Days. However, if I was right, God wanted to see this exact thing happen all over the world, at the same time, and in an annual, repeatable way. Could it be that 10 Days was God’s plan for people around the world to experience the same type of transforming revival that was impacting Fijian villages, but on an annual basis?
I continued to dream with God—what if a Fijian style transform-ing revival started touching down in multiple, large cities at the same time? What if western cities had the same experiences with God’s power as remote Fijian villages—what if “God came to town” in New York City, or Washington D.C.?
The Fijians continued to stretch my sense of what was possible, fill-ing my heart with a hunger to see what they were describing happen in the United States. I also realized what we were up against. In a tribal culture, people obey the leader. The chief could shut down a village and lead people into prayer. How could we see that happen in the highly individualistic western nations? How was it possible for cities to shut down for prayer and repentance? At the very least, it would take the en-gagement of political and business leaders, as well as the church. Most likely, it would take some kind of external crisis as well.
The impossible dreams of God were stirring in my heart.
10 Days Pentecost 2008
In the fall of 2007, Cassi and I did the 10 Days of Awe on our own. For some reason, God didn’t lead me to do anything larger. It was be-coming clear to me that the fall 10 Days, while a much bigger part of God’s plan, was taking longer to mature than the 10 Days Pentecost. While I was eager for the vision to come forth, I also had a new-found patience. He would make everything beautiful in His time. My job was simply to be a steward of the vision He had entrusted me with, and not quit. I continued to watch and wait, trusting Him to do what He showed me in the fullness of time.
In 2008, we headed back to Northfield for a second spring 10 Days. Our event in 2007 completely changed my life. Because of this, I want-ed as many of my classmates as possible to have a similar experience. While there were many wonderful things about our seminary experi-ence, the biggest thing missing was a dynamic, face-to-face encounter with the God we spent so much time studying.
I also knew my classmates—no seminary student would ever do 10 Days unless I could make it available for course credit. And so, after hours of work with the administration, we were able to offer 10 Days of Prayer as an elective for course credit at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
As we began 10 Days 2008, everything was completely different. The incredible experience of John 17 unity that unexpectedly landed the year before was now inexplicably absent. In fact, there were several disagreements. Some people didn’t like the worship music; others had theological questions about what was happening.
“The Bible says people should not pray in tongues together without interpretation.”
“When that girl sings, she sounds like Jesus is her boyfriend.”
“Some of these people are doing weird things—what if it’s demonic?”
Many of my seminary friends were struggling with the same issues
Frustrated with our inability to break into a deeper experience of God’s presence, we tried a new approach. We invited everyone into three days of fasting, from Sunday night to Wednesday night. We also pulled back on some of our worship led evening sessions and had prayer for three nights that highlighted other kinds of prayer: Scripture, intercession, and silence. On Tuesday night, we had a corporate prayer meeting of about forty people sitting in utter silence for an hour and a half. You could hear empty stomachs gurgling as the minutes ticked by slowly.
Labor Pains
On the morning of Wednesday, the seventh day, I was attending to the mundane realities of hosting an event, welcoming new families, solving problems, being a host. Our gathering was significantly larger this year. 24/7 prayer was ascending night and day. Good things were happening.
And yet, having tasted John 17 unity in 2007 and realizing we were coming up so short of it, I was restless inside. I needed to get alone.
I found a room where I could be alone with God and turned on some worship music, lifting my complaint to the Lord.
“God, if we can’t see John 17 unity happen with a group of people who are doing nothing but praying for 10 Days, how will we ever see it happen in the entire church?” I asked.
It wasn’t an accusation against God, it was the cry of a desperate heart.
As I cried out to God, I began sobbing and groaning heavily. Waves of tears and groans would come steadily every four to five minutes, last for several minutes, and then lift, and then come again.
A few months earlier, my wife had given birth to our second child, a beautiful little girl named Sabbath. As I was recovering from one of these waves of weeping and groaning in prayer, I had a realization—
“I’m in labor!”
While it struck me as strange for a man to be in labor, no sooner had I realized what was happening than a new wave of weeping and groaning hit me.
After about forty-five minutes, the experience lifted. I felt like a wrung-out sponge. As I found out over the next days, several other people in our group were experiencing labor pains in other parts of the building on the same day.
The Outpouring
Early in the afternoon, on a beautiful spring day, three of us were talking on the yard near the prayer room. Enjoying warm sunshine in a beautiful place with great friends was almost as good as being in worship.
As we continued chatting, we heard a shout from the prayer room. Someone blew a trumpet. Two of us looked at each other—we could both sense it. Something was happening spiritually and we needed to be there right away.
As we entered the room, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit had al-ready begun. We gathered in a circle, holding hands, as the power and presence of God was poured out on us. Several people began sponta-neously speaking in tongues for the first time. God was releasing other gifts as well. The presence of God was strong. This was the beginning of what I had prayed for that morning—God was responding.
When God Comes to Town
That evening would be unlike anything I had ever experienced. As the worship began, one of the young men, Josiah Armstrong, stood up with a word from the Lord.
Josiah prophesied, “I see a cloud the size of a man’s hand.”
He was referencing the cloud Elijah’s servant saw after Elijah prayed seven times for rain in 1 Kings 18. In the passage, the cloud was the sign that rain was on the way. At that point, we had prayed seven complete days.
He continued, “God is going to send rain in the natural tonight as a sign of what He’s doing in the Spirit.”
To this day, I don’t understand what happened next, but as soon as Josiah said these words, the entire room smelled like rain. As everyone in the room breathed in the scent of rain at the same time, there was a collective, audible gasp.
“What is happening?” I wondered.
I rushed outside to check for rain. All the stars were visible with not a cloud in the sky.
After the outpouring that afternoon and now Josiah’s word, we con-tinued late into the night with corporate prayer and worship, followed by ministry to one another in small groups.
Well after midnight, I found myself headed to bed, exhausted but satisfied—what a day! I entered my apartment quietly without turn-ing on any lights, being careful not to wake our children. As I walked in the dark towards my bed, feeling my way forward with my hands, through the open window I heard the sound of a gentle rain just be-ginning to fall.
And then it hit me—God had come to town.
What the Fijians had described happening over and over in their villages, we were now experiencing right here in the United States. Af-ter seven days, God’s presence had come flooding in. And just like in Fiji, He had confirmed the spiritual reality of his coming with a natural sign—the rain of Heaven had come.
Overflow
The next three days were wild.
