By Alex Murashko

You can hear the excitement in Pastor Mike Kai’s voice when he talks about the explosion in numbers of salvations, transformed lives, and revival-like stories at Inspire Church in Hawaii during the last six months.

As the Hawaii-born pastor conveys what’s happening now at his church (inside and outside the walls) to what happened during The Hawaiian Revival (1836), ranked by revival historians in the top ten greatest of all revivals in world history, one could not fault Kai for calling the current spiritual shift a “revival.”

However, he recognizes that when it comes to talk of revival taking place in the here-and-now there are skeptics.

“I'm not calling it a revival,” Kai told Think Eternity recently. “I'm going to let somebody else name it. I'm calling it ‘a move of God’ because I think there's a move of God happening in the church, and I think the move of God is beginning in Hawaii.”

One of his ancestors was a pastor on the Island of Hawaii in the town of Hilo, where the revival began in 1836 after a New England missionary and other missionaries learned the language and spread the gospel, he said. “With all this history in my head about The Hawaiian Revival, I was saying, ‘God, if you did it before, you can certainly do it again.’” 

From last September until right before Easter there have been more than 7,000 salvations at Inspire Church, a multi-site congregation pastored by Kai and his wife, Lisa Kai.

The move of God also included what happened at a young adults conference hosted by Inspire Church recently. A speaker at the conference was preaching about spiritual warfare when “spontaneous repentance” occurred, Kai said.

“While the speaker was preaching on the demonic power in amulets and crystals and giving a personal illustration of what happened to his family, suddenly, people were taking off their necklaces, their wristbands, and bracelets and throwing them on the stage unprompted,” he said. “We're talking about Christians who think it's okay to dabble in new age mysticism. They became convicted. Also, young adults were getting convicted and walking up to the stage and throwing items on the stage in repentance.”

Ministry leaders at the conference then brought hammers to the stage. Those who brought items to the stage were given a hammer and asked to crush the objects.

“They started hammering the crystals,” Kai said. “They were tearing down idols, that's what they were doing. In addition, there were a record number of salvations at the conference. I call it ‘divine acceleration.’ Those are major marks of a move of God, or signs of revival. The one that got me the most was the spontaneous repentance. Nobody had to prompt them. Nobody said, ‘If you have a necklace, come throw it up here on stage.’”

Marijuana vapes were also being thrown on the stage, and because the vapes can explode when crushed, buckets of water were brought on the stage.

“People threw their vapes in the buckets of water,” he said. “People were crying in repentance. There are deliverances happening. We're seeing people getting healed. Not only saved but healed.”

Kai explained that during this time in the nation, and the state of politics in Hawaii, it has made him more fervent in his appeal for revival.

“I've been pastoring for 21 years, and during this last year I've never seen it like this before,” he said. “I have not seen such a more difficult time, socially and politically in Hawaii. In this climate, and through this climate, God is moving not only at my church, he's moving in a few other churches that I know of as well.” 

On Easter, Inspire Church had more than double the number of people than their regular attendance on a weekend. On the final night of a recent women’s conference at the church that was attended by 3,000 ladies, there were “still about 1,000 women left in the rows worshiping at 11 pm. At midnight, there were still about 100. They ended at 1:45 in the morning and it could have gone longer.”

Recently, with only two weeks’ notice, 1,300 people attended a pop-up church service on Oahu. Kai said that prior to the outdoor gathering, he thought that only 500 people at the most were going to show up.

The story about the pop-up service and other examples of God moving have encouraged Kai.

“There's a hunger for His presence. It's so Jesus-uplifting and honoring. It's been sweet and I don't want it to end. I pray that it keeps going.”

Alex Murashko is a lead writer for Thinke. He highlights Christ followers within the media industry at Media on Mission. Find Murashko on various social media sites such as Twitter and Instagram.