Spring City Fellowship
260222Sunday
Sunday February 22, 2026 10:15AM Service

      • Psalm 150:3NIV2011

  • Be Enthroned
  • Build My Life
  • All Hail King Jesus
  • All Honour
  • What A Beautiful Name
  • What He's Done
  • Goodness Of God
  • Our Theme for 2026 is “Embrace Transformation”.
    Transformation is the inward change that we experience when we become more like Jesus.
    Romans 12:2 ESV
    2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
    Transformation is a process that is ongoing throughout our lives.
    The last four weeks I have been reviewing the 4R’s which describe who we are and what we are about.
    Our vision at SCF is to “Encounter God’s Transforming Love.”
    How do we do that? (Four R’s)
    Respond
    Restore
    Release
    Relate
    What if there was a 5th R? What would that be?
    It would be revival - that’s what we all hope and pray for!
    Our church is part of a movement that grew out of revival. There is a little booklet in our membership packet called “The Handprint of God”. It is the story of how the Hopewell Network gat started out of what was Hopewell Mennonite Church in Elverson. A big part of the story was when the bar owners in Elverson, John and Sandra Shantz gave their lives to Christ and started sharing Jesus from their bar and later restaurant. You know them and Pastor John and Sandy - the former pastors of this church.
    But before that happened, there was a deep hunger for God in the people of that small Mennonite Church. They were pursuing God in prayer, asking for more of the Holy Spirit and changing the things in their lives and in the church that didn’t fit with what they saw in the scriptures and demonstrated in the early church.
    Jim and Bobbie Evans lived in the brick house across the street from our church. They were drawn to what God was doing in Elverson. They had a Bible study in their home which later became the first church plant out of Elverson - Spring CIty Fellowship. Dave and Vicki and Alan and Linda were part of that Bible study as young adults.
    I attended that Bible study several times as a young teen. I grew up around the corner from here on Kolb Road. My older sister Jeanette attended the Bible study and was part of the youth group at Elverson. I remember attending Bible study with her. The twenty fool wide row home was packed with about thirty people. They were singing and readding scripture and people were sharing what the Holy Spirit was speaking to them. My impression as a Mennonite boy who grew up in a very religious family was, “these people are reading and studying the Bible because they want to and no one is making them do it!”
    These are stories of revival, when God moves by His Spirit and people are drawn to it and their lives are transformed.
    This church was born out of revival and whether we explicitly say it or not, that is something that we all desire and work toward.
    What is revival?
    REVIVAL A renewed desire for spiritual things, brought about by the work of God. (ESV Concise Study Bible, p 1470)
    We use language like, “God really showed up in our service today.”
    Or, “The Spirit was really moving.”
    We talked about that a bit with the first R - Respond.
    We do not come to God except that we are drawn by His Holy Spirit.
    John 6:44 MSG
    44 You’re not in charge here. The Father who sent me is in charge. He draws people to me—that’s the only way you’ll ever come. Only then do I do my work, putting people together, setting them on their feet, ready for the End.
    I like the Message Bible here because it describes this passage as a kind of cycle with momentum.
    We respond to God and God responds to us responding to Him.
    And that leads to more people impacted by God and responding to Him.
    The whole thing eventually takes on a seemingly spontaneous character; a kind of “life of its own” beyond what anyone expects or even imagines.
    This is when people usually begin to recognize what is happening and label it as “revival.”
    Some of you may be aware that there has been an outpouring happening in Florida at Southeaster University for about two weeks now. They are not calling it revival at this time because, as they told one reporter, revival can only be clearly identified in retrospect. We can know that something was a genuine move of God when we see the character of its fruit.
    This is from SEU’s website:
    There was a fire that was lit during the five sessions of SEU Conference, but it did not leave when the speakers stepped off the stage. We witnessed students with hearts of desperation and hunger returning to their first love. The theme of the conference was Do it Again, just asking that the Lord would come and show us His love and power again. He has surpassed our expectations, Unleashing a move of God onto our campus. 
    We are not just witnessing an event on campus; we are witnessing the commissioning of a people. Our goal is to sit at the feet of Jesus so that when we eventually leave this room, we leave transformed. Every sphere of influence we enter, whether the classroom or the marketplace, will witness the foundation built in these sacred moments.
    As I was preparing this message, I had the livestream from SEU playing in the background. I would find myself just spontaneously weeping. Not thinking about anything in particular - just moved in my spirit by the worship.
    That is revival - it is a miraculous intervention of God but working through people - drawing them to Himself and building momentum as people respond to Him.
    Revival is not something that is easily defined or described.
    However i will attempt to summarize it as a hunger for God which leads to renewed commitment and radical obedience.

    Hunger for God

    The very first revival was in the book of Acts when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the followers of Jesus.
    We know it as Pentecost - the outpouring of the Spirit on the occasion of the Jewish feast of firstfruits.
    But notice what they were doing up until the outpouring arrived,
    Acts 1:14 AMP
    14 All of these with their minds in full agreement devoted themselves steadfastly to prayer, [waiting together] with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with His brothers.
    They were together, seeking God in prayer.

    Pray with passion.

    You can’t make revival happen, but you can create the right conditions.
    I don’t know of any revival that wasn’t first preceded by much prayer.
    There is something about people praying together in unity that creates a landing place for the Holy Spirit.
    I also know of places where lots of prayer has gone up and revival doesn’t happen, at least not in the same way.
    Prayer is a catalyst, a necessary prerequisite, but revival is a sovereign act of God.
    Some people get this wrong - they think if they just pray more or pray harder - they can bring revival.
    I know more than one person who became disillusioned this way.
    Prayer doesn’t make God do anything - prayer makes us more aware of God and what He is doing.
    Prayer is sitting in God’s presence.
    Prayer is listening to His voice.
    Prayer is allowing our hearts to be aligned to His.
    You have all heard the saying, “prayer changes things”
    We usually take that to mean that God is going to change our circumstances because we prayed.
    Sometimes it works that way...
    I think more often when we pray - I mean really pray passionately - the first thing that changes is us!
    I wonder how it would change our prayers if we prayed expecting to change?
    Just think about it...

    Begin with repentance.

    Acts 2:37–39 NLT
    37 Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?” 38 Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away—all who have been called by the Lord our God.”
    When Peter is preaching to the crowd on the day of Pentecost, the first thing that we see the Holy Spirit do is bring conviction that leads to repentance.
    Often when we think about revival as exuberant worship or miracles, signs and wonders but revival normally begins with repentance.
    In the Hopewell story, John and Sandy came to Christ - and there is a whole story behind how that happened,
    but they came under the conviction of the Hoy Spirit which caused them to recognize the truth about Christ.
    I have told the story of the revival that I experienced as a student at CFNI Stony Brook. That revival began with a service where students began confessing their sins. We had days where classes were cancelled because students couldn’t stop weeping. And after several days, it turned to spontaneous joy and even laughter.
    In SEU, on the last evening of the conference, there was a time of repentance that sparked a spontaneous all-night worship session.
    It all sparked during a morning session at a nearby church when author Jennie Allen closed out her message and then invited the 2,300 students present to openly confess their struggles.
     For 15 minutes, one voice after another began loudly confessing things like pornography, fear, insecurity, anger, adultery, and even abortion. What broke forth was pure freedom and release. As Rivera described it, “It was probably one of the wildest things I’ve ever experienced in my entire life… What it created wasn’t shame. It created this sense of freedom. Something broke in the room immediately.”
    Repentance is part of revival.
    I would say it even stronger - there is no true revival without repentance!
    Was there repentance in the upper room among the disciples before the day of Pentecost?
    The Bible doesn’t explicitly call it that but we know that they were reflecting on and talking about all that happened.
    We know that they appointed a successor for Judas Iscariot.
    I think the implication is that they were also repenting
    for not recognizing Jesus sooner,
    for imposing their own ideas of grandeur onto his teaching
    and for not being more obedient to His words.
    That is why Jesus told them to wait for the Holy Spirit.
    They were not just waiting for the Holy Spirit to arrive.
    They were waiting for the Holy Spirit to do what needed to be done to make revival possible.
    As we pray for revival, what are we expecting? Is repentance part of it?

    Renewed Commitment

    Acts 2:41 ESV
    41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
    I don’t know how many times I have read that verse without really thinking about the impact that must have had on the group of disciple and on the Jewish community in Jerusalem.
    They were about 120 people in the upper room.
    In one day they became at least 3120!
    I don’t think the upper room was that big.
    We are normally about 35-40 people on a Sunday morning.
    Can you imagine if we suddenly became 100 or 300, let alone 3000?
    When we pray for revival, we would do well to think realistically about what that might mean?
    Are we really ready to do what it takes if God answers our prayers?
    That is why praying for revival is not just praying for God to move but it is also praying for God to prepare us for Him to move.
    So I have a suggestion...

    Add fasting to prayer.

    When Jesus came down from the mount of transfiguration.
    Which is arguably the closest thing to revival in the gospels.
    I mean, they were literally in the Presence of the Lord who was manifesting His glory - if that’s not revival, I don’t know what is.
    They come down from the mountain to witness Jesus delivering a boy who is oppressed by a demon.
    The disciples who were waiting there has tried to cast out the demon and were not able -they did it when Jesus sent them out two by two, but this time it didn’t work.
    The disciples asked Jesus why it didn’t work.
    Matthew records Jesus’ answer as having to do with their lack of faith.
    In Luke Jesus doesn’t give an answer but goes into taking about how He must suffer and his disciples didn’t understand it.
    Mark records Jesus words that we most often remember with this story.
    Mark 9:29 NKJV
    29 So He said to them, “This kind can come out by nothing but prayer and fasting.”
    I had to quote this in the King James Version because the earliest manuscripts omit the part about fasting.
    It was likely added by scribes later as a clarifying comment, as scribes sometimes do.
    Comments would start out as a note in the margin and eventually make its way into the text.
    When you look at the three gospel accounts together is becomes more clear why someone would do that.
    Jesu wasn’t just talking about praying.
    The disciples prayed.
    Every Jew in that day and every Christian in the early church prayed.
    We all pray - but we don’t alway mean what we pray or pray intently.
    We can pray and still lack faith.
    We can pray without understanding God or what He is doing.
    We can pray without any sense or real commitment to the thing that we are praying for.
    But add fasting to your prayer and now it becomes something different.
    Now you have some “skin in the game” as we would say.
    Jesus had “skin in the game” he was ready to give His life for that boy.
    Saying “prayer and fasting” helps to clarify the kind of prayer that Jesus is talking about.
    If you are praying for revival, try sacrificing something for what you are praying for.
    Make a commitment to follow through with what you are asking for.
    Give God your time and your money as a demonstration that you really mean what you are asking for.
    See what God will do with THAT kind of prayer.

    Follow the leading of the Spirit.

    One of the things that is evident in Hopewell’s story and at SEU and in every revival that I have every heard of is that people are not just praying and seeking God but are also actively following the leading of the Holy Spirit.
    In the Hopewell Story it began with a church that was looking to put faith into action by doing what they read in scripture and prioritizing that above their own traditions.
    In SEU it was a group of students that wanted to stay in the presence of God after the conference was over so about 600 of them went back to the campus chapel and worshipped all night.
    At CFNI every time the speaker would get up to speak, someone would spontaneously break out in laughter - until everyone was laughing.
    I have been in those services where there are moments where things are happening that are out of the ordinary and you begin to realize that people are acting the way that they are because they are being led by the Holy Spirit.
    I have also been in services where people act like the Holy Spirit is doing something and it is really just them trying to make it look like the Holy Spirit is moving - don’t do that!
    When we are asking God to do something - to send revival - we should look for how He may be leading and respond to it.
    Luke 11:11–13 ESV
    11 What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!”
    We know Jesus spoke this parable about receiving good gifts but did you know that He spoke it about receiving the Holy Spirit?
    Sometimes when the Spirit would move in a meeting people would say, “that can’t be from God, it was too disruptive!’
    If we are asking God, then what He gives us as a gift is good.
    If it’s disruptive - that’s our fault - the Bible does say to do things decently and in order.
    We may need to guide people in how to respond appropriately.
    But we don’t want to shut down or get in the way of what god is doing.
    We can trust God to guide us as to what to do as we seek to faithfully steward the gift that is entrusted to us.
    The key is to stay close to God and keep listening.
    Don’t try do do in the flesh what God is wanting to do by His Spirit.
    Galatians 3:3 CEV
    3 How can you be so stupid? Do you think that by yourself you can complete what God’s Spirit started in you?
    If we learn anything from revival, it should be that we learn to walk by the Spirit and to obey God’s voice.

    Radical Obedience

    One of the criticisms of revival is that it attracts a lot of spectators - people who come just to se or experience something out of the ordinary.
    That puts a lot of pressure on Christian leaders to give them what they came for
    and that results in movements that may have started with a genuine move of God going off course.
    I think the real challenge as a leader in revival is being responsible to give enough guidance in direction to make things safe and orderly
    but leaving room for what God is doing, recognizing and affirming the work that God is doing in individual lives.
    And then to direct that energy and momentum into something outward-focused - something that fulfills God's purpose in restoring the world.
    Revival movements can die out by becoming too ingrown or internally focused.
    The movement that I experienced in Bible school was like that for some people.
    Some people didn’t want to leave when they graduated.
    Some went home but moved back to the area because they felt like nobody understood them after what they had experienced.
    But some of us, took that experience and went out expecting God to do even more.
    I was pleased to see that at SEU there has already been an outward focus.
    On the last evening after the time of repentance there was another altar call, this time for who would respond to God’s call to ministry.
    Some said the whole room went forward.
    Another report estimated 2000 out of 3000 students responded.
    Eithers way, that is a pretty intense response to a significant commitment.
    I’m not going to do it, but I wonder how many in this room would say, “I will go anywhere you send me and do anything for you Jesus!”
    That was probably easier in our twenties when we didn’t know anything.
    But the truth is that we are all called by God.
    2 Thessalonians 1:11 NLT
    11 So we keep on praying for you, asking our God to enable you to live a life worthy of his call. May he give you the power to accomplish all the good things your faith prompts you to do.
    If I were to give that altar call, you would not be giving anything to God that He isn't already entitled to - you would just be responding to what should already be evident.

    Everyone is called to do something.

    Christianity is not a spectator sport.
    Don’t go to a revival just to see what is happening.
    Do you know what happens when you do? - You get swept up in the current of what God is doing.
    You might just find yourself serving in Africa or Asia.
    Or even worse - he might call you to Pottstown, Norristown or Spring City!
    Everyone who encounters God should expect that God has an assignment for them.
    After all, when you realize who God is and what He has done for you - that is not something that you can keep to yourself!
    That is why release is one of the four R’s.
    We expect that everyone has something that they are called to do.
    Revival should propel people into their God-given destiny.
    When the day of Pentecost happened in Jerusalem, it resulted in persecution.
    That persecution led to the spread of the gospel throughout the Roman Empire.
    Beware of the tendency to want to camp out when and where revival is happening - God will find a way to scatter us.

    Revival results in sending.

    Acts 8:4 NLT
    4 But the believers who were scattered preached the Good News about Jesus wherever they went.
    So before we call and outpouring of the Spirit or a move of God a “revival” we want to see the “fruit” or some result of what is happening.
    Is there evidence that God is doing something beyond what we could do?
    Are people encountering Jesus?
    Some people specifically look for people coming to salvation.
    If people aren’t getting saved they call it a renewal instead of a revival.
    Some people look for miracles or supernatural manifestations.
    Some people say it is more important to look to ask for testimonies of the transforming work of the Spirit.
    I think all of the above is possible and even likely.
    But the thing that I would like to know is “what happens next?”
    The thing that makes fruit what it is - the seed.
    Fruit is fruit because it is capable of making more fruit.
    One of the greatest criticisms of revival is that they don’t seem to last.
    They often die out after weeks or months.
    It is hard to sustain that kind of energy and momentum.
    People that have been in the inner workings of revival say that it gets exhausting after a while.
    It seems like a contradiction - but people can burn out from revival.
    So that should make us think not only in terms of what happens at a revival meeting or soon after, but what happens down the road because of the transformation that took place at that time in our lives?
    Much of the energy and momentum of revival is going to spin off and start other movements.
    The scattering is intentional - to preserve that momentum and allow it to continue to increase elsewhere.
    In a few weeks, I’m going to present a gospel strategy that I think is even bigger and more important than revival.
    But for now, you should know that revivals are not meant to last forever… or are they?
    The meetings may stop - the tent may come down.
    Sometimes they fizzle out because people just stop coming.
    Or sometimes they blow up spectacularly because a leader did not maintain their own spiritual life and health through the chaos of revival.
    Or maybe it is quenched by persecution - like in the Jerusalem church.
    That is not the end of revival ...its just the seed being scattered.
    How many of you are here today because of revival?
    What you experienced is still with you - no one can take that away from you.
    The only thing left is to find out what you will do with what happened to you.
    Will that seed of revival that you carry take root and produce more fruit?

    Questions for reflection:

    As we pray for revival, what are we expecting? Is repentance part of it? How would it change our prayers if we prayed expecting to change?
    When we are asking God to send revival we should look for how He may be leading and respond to it. If you are praying for revival, try sacrificing something for what you are praying for.
    If you have experience revival, or simply an outpouring of the Holy Spirit; “What happens next?” Will that seed of revival that you carry take root and produce more fruit?

      • Romans 12:2NIV2011

      • John 6:44NIV2011

      • Acts 1:14NIV2011

      • Acts 2:37–39NIV2011

      • Acts 2:41NIV2011

      • Mark 9:29NIV2011

      • Luke 11:11–13NIV2011

      • Galatians 3:3NIV2011

      • 2 Thessalonians 1:11NIV2011

      • Acts 8:4NIV2011

  • God Really Loves Us
Spring City Fellowship
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