NEW ORLEANS (BP)–“On Jan. 22, 1995, I lost control of my church and it’s the best thing that ever happened to me,” John Avant told students at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary during a chapel service Jan. 22, two years to the day after revival began at Coggin Avenue Baptist Church in Brownwood, Texas, and spread to campuses and churches across the country.
Avant told the seminarians he originally wanted to quit as pastor of the established church after his first year and a half.
“I told God, ‘I can’t do anything with these people,'” he said.
Avant said he felt the Spirit of God reply back to him, “Now that you understand that you can’t do anything, I’m going to do something with these people.” Avant said he realized his focus had been on the congregation’s problems, such as their opposition to change.
When he shifted his attention to people who wanted a closer walk with God and who were seeking reconciliation for marriages, families and friendships, the church began to experience renewal.
Avant described how God prepared his congregation for revival when they heard of the ministry of Fernando Hernandez, a former gang member who had become a Christian and who was leading many troubled youth in Brownwood to Christ through his testimony and care.
At first, Hernandez was supported through a local charismatic church, but he needed additional help to care for his family so he could devote his time to the city’s youth. When the Coggin Avenue church heard about Hernandez’s ministry and purpose, they voted to cosponsor Hernandez. The mutual support and prayers for Hernandez’s efforts opened the doors for Avant to pray not only with the pastor of the charismatic church, but also with other Christian leaders in the city. Many of them began meeting regularly for interdenominational prayer.
On Jan. 22, 1995, at the close of the first of the two Sunday morning services at Coggin Avenue, a college student attending the church came forward, led by the Spirit to share a passage of Scripture from Joel 2. He wept, saying, “Our campus needs revival. Our church needs revival.”
A woman from the congregation joined him at the microphone, voicing her agreement, and one by one people came forward to confess sin, receive Christ for the first time or yield to God in obedience to a call.
So many people were responding to God’s work in their lives that Avant did not feel he could end the service. Sunday school classes, which usually followed the first service, were canceled, and as people arrived for classes and the second service, they were met by excited church members who told them to go straight to the sanctuary to see what was happening.
At the same time, other denominations in Brownwood also were experiencing this dramatic movement of the Holy Spirit, Avant said, their congregations renewed as they responded to God’s power.
Avant went home that afternoon fearful, unsure of how some church members would feel about the morning’s events. But when he returned to the church that evening, he was approached by a senior adult who said, “I’ve been praying to see revival (at Coggin Avenue) for 40 years.” Avant was assured of the senior adults’ support.
“The opposition melted away,” Avant said, adding the church has grown in numbers and strength since that day, revival spreading as church members shared God’s renewing power with co-workers and friends.
Three weeks later, students at Howard Payne University in Brownwood also experienced revival during a seminar led by Henry Blackaby, director of the Home Mission Board’s prayer and spiritual awakening office. Accountability groups were formed on the campus to maintain spiritual growth. Racial reconciliation and healing of broken relationships were among the results of revivals at Howard Payne and other campuses, Avant said.
As Avant has been invited to speak at many universities, seminaries, churches and conferences since Brownwood first experienced revival, he continually has challenged pastors, professors and administrators to have the courage to let God have control of revival on their campuses and in their churches.
Sharing some thoughts from Jeremiah 33:1-3, Avant, now pastor of New Hope Baptist Church, Fayetteville, Ga., closed his message by reminding NOBTS students “great movements of God often follow moral collapse.” He urged the students to be a part of God’s work of setting people free from their moral and spiritual prisons and to be trustworthy leaders who will bring glory to God through obedience, flexibility and humility.
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