By Josiah Kennealy

Andy Stanley recently asked a question that stopped me in my tracks. He asked: “What’s the faith of the next generation worth?”

And then he answered his own question by saying: “Everything.” The faith of the next generation is worth everything! The stakes are high. 

My soul longs to see a generation rise up by bowing low. Making a difference by going the distance. To see the vibrant faith of the next generation is a vital imperative for the church! May the faith of the next generation in America be a faith that lives on. And yet, we have to ask is this happening? Something needs to change! 

There are hopeless people searching for answers. There are individuals struggling just to hang on who are trying to start up faith. Do they know they are welcome? Many of the youth who once filled our churches are wandering aimlessly. It’s high time we welcome them back to Jesus. It’s time we welcome them home to His church. 

The current climate in our world today reminds me of the setting surrounding the book of Joel in the Old Testament. To give a quick backdrop of what was happening in the world just before the book of Joel was written. The first thing to know is that a locust plague had just happened and it left the land bare. This was a warning from God to turn from their wicked ways or face a day of judgement. 

If we want to stir up revival in our personal hearts, our families, our churches, our community, in this generation, and ultimately in our world, I see these 5 things that really precede revival. I will weave them in and out as found in the book of Joel. These are a place to start: 

 1. Serious prayer with fasting.

Desperate situations call for desperate prayers. Have you ever been there? Maybe you were lost? Sick? In trouble? Facing a challenge personally? Praying with an anguish and an agony. Praying with a passion, a power, a persistence, and a purpose. 

 We see this in Joel right from the get-go. Things are bad, Joel is tasked with gathering God’s people for prayer and fasting. “Declare a holy fast, call a special meeting, get the leaders together, Round up everyone in the country. Get them into God’s Sanctuary for serious prayer to God.” Joel 1:14 MSG

It’s one thing to pray a nice, cute prayer like: “God is great, God is good, let us thank Him for our food.” And it’s another type of prayer to be called serious prayer. I can’t think of many other instances in the Bible describing such fervent praying. This would be the type of prayer that keeps you up from 11pm to 1am or wakes you up from 4am to 6am. 

I feel familiar with the feeling of being dependent on God, desperate for His presence, delighting in His son, desiring more of Him and less of me. Leonard Ravenhill once said: “The Church is dying on its feet because the Church is not living on its knees." I wonder what would happen if we truly prayed, fasted, and lived this out. 

Will it take a famine to cause us to be hungry? Hungry for the things of God, like His majesty and presence. Just to know Him. For His spirit guiding wisdom. For His word. For there to be a nation on our knees or a generation on our knees, there first has to be individuals set on fire drawn to our knees. Prayer paired with fasting preceded an outpouring of the Spirit of the Living God! 

2. Sincere repentance with life change. 

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity.” Joel 2:13 NIV The MSG translation of the same verse says “change your life” in the place of “rend your heart.” 

Repentance must precede revival. That is the message the prophet Joel came to share. Something had to change. Sin was the problem. The people of God had stopped worshipping God. Time is short. This is urgent. Wake up! Change your life. Rend your heart. We serve a turnaround God – am I willing to let Him turn my life around? That’s repentance. Turning around and changing courses. 

When I think of sincere repentance, I’m drawn back to the story of a freshman student who showed up at our ministry and had never heard the gospel. When he got there, he didn’t want to be there – and by the end of that night, he couldn’t believe he only had 4 more years. When he started his discipleship journey, he found things about the way he had been living were sin and he sincerely repented like I’ve never seen before. For example, he had a computer filled with illegally downloaded music, and he got rid of it. His small group was so inspired and moved that they got him iTunes gift cards as gifts. For him – there was a sincere repentance with immediate life change – even when it cost him something. 

Joel reminds us to return to the Lord our God. Who is this God? He is gracious. Compassionate. Slow to anger. Abounding in love. Relents from sending calamity. When the people do repent and do change, God intervenes. 

3. Spreading the message with boldness and authority. 

What catches me about the book of Joel is we have a job. “Make sure you tell them.” And “Don’t let this message die out.” We play a pivotal part. We cannot remain silent. We cannot be timid or fearful. We must share the gospel courageously. 

“Attention, elder statesmen! Listen closely, everyone, whoever and wherever you are! Have you ever heard of anything like this? Has anything like this ever happened before—ever? Make sure you tell your children, and your children tell their children, And their children their children. Don’t let this message die out.” Joel 1:1-3 

Who do we tell? 

Your children. Their children. Their children. A generational message. It reminds me of the worship song “The Blessing” by Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes that came out in March, with lyrics that declare God’s blessing over your children and their children. A generational blessing. Having become a first time dad this year has impacted my perspective on children and generations significantly! 

What is this message? 

Paul, who used to kill Christians until his Damascus Road encounter where he stood before God and had sincere repentance with life change, wrote in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” 

There has never been anything like it before, and never will be anything else like the good new of the gospel message of Jesus Christ. 

“Jesus came to pay a debt He did not owe because we owed a debt we could not pay.” –Greg Laurie 

4. Signs and wonders displayed.

Wonders and signs. 

Visions and dreams. 

Prayer and fasting. 

Worship and offerings. 

Generations and generations. 

These are some of the things that I long to see in our world today. Each of them begins with an inward transformation fueled by the same Sprit that rose Christ from that grave when He takes residency in our hearts. There can’t help but be an outward overflow of what’s going on inside. 

“And that’s just the beginning: After that—“I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people:Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters. Your old men will dream, your young men will see visions. I’ll even pour out my Spirit on the servants, men and women both. I’ll set wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below…” Joel 2:28-32

5. Spiritual outpouring on the old and young, men and women. 

• Revival was promised. (Joel 2)

• Revival was poured out at Pentecost. (Acts 2:16-21) – Peter preached that Joel’s prophecy had been fulfilled. 

• Revival is possible once again. 

“I will pour out my Spirit on every kind of people: Your sons will prophesy, also your daughters. Your old men will dream, your young men will see visions.” Joel 2:28

God is willing to forgive. Are we willing to repent? 

God is mighty and able to save. Will we simply surrender? 

God is calling. Will we answer? 

Who is this for and available to?

The beautiful thing about the gospel of Jesus is it’s for everyone, everywhere, anytime. Every kind of people. Every tribe and tongue. Every nation, country, and ethnic background. Every generation, young and old, men and women. 

Josiah Kennealy ministers to young adults, college students and raises up young adult ministry leaders across the nation through Young Adults Today. He is an author and host of the Young Adult Today Podcast. He and his wife Micah have one child and live near the Twin Cities.