Surrender for Revival

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Surrender for Revival: God Is Up to Something in My Town…

John Kimball, Lead Pastor of Palmwood Church in Oviedo, Florida (www.palmwoodchurch.com)
November 6, 2021

Last night was an incredible experience. While the rain drove us all inside at the last minute, followers of Jesus from all different ethnic backgrounds and church traditions gathered together for one purpose: to lift up the Name of Jesus. It was a concert to our King, during which there was praise, unadulterated worship, and a prayerful plea for our city.

[LINK: You can watch a video of the Lift Up Oviedo event here]

The worship experience was like nothing I’d experienced before – over two hours of non-stop praise and worship to Jesus. To look around the room, people from all over our city gathered and in varying postures were fully engaged in making much of the Messiah. But what many of them likely did not know is that this event was over 150 years in the making.

Not too long ago, our friend William Mikler explained the spiritual history of Oviedo during one of our Oviedo Christian Ministers Association breakfasts.  He told us that the founding patriarchs of several Slovak families settled south of Lake Jessup to farm – devoted Christian families and would become prominent names in our city’s history. These patriarchs marked off their land and then, staking a spiritual claim for the Lord, prayer walked the perimeter of their collective farms to dedicate all that land to God for His glory alone. In the middle of that land was the community of Slavia. But it was not called this because of their region of origin. No, it is because the Slavic word “slava” means “glory.” This was to be a place set apart for God’s glory from the beginning.

These patriarchs dedicated the land to God and prayed that He would help them remain faithful, using the land for both serving others and as a witness for Christ. Further, they prayed that God would use this land to raise up and send out missionaries to take the gospel around the world. It is no coincidence that Reformed Theological Seminary’s largest campus is in Oviedo. It is no coincidence that ministries like Ethnos 360 (formerly New Tribes Mission), Cru (Campus Crusade), Wycliffe Bible Translators, Pioneers, Ligoneer Ministries, Forge and Man in the Mirror are all headquartered nearby.

Oviedo has a strong Christian spiritual history. And while worldliness has crept into the city’s culture like everywhere else, there is no denying that God has never abandoned our region – honoring the prayers of those early settlers. It is certainly a blessed city — experiencing incredible growth over the several years because of its proximity to the University of Central Florida, now the nation’s most populous campus.

Fast forward to the last 5 years. A small group of pastors began meeting weekly – first at Canterbury Retreat Center, then at Reformed Theological Seminary, and when forced by COVID-19, online – to pray for revival in our city. These pastors remained faithful through sometimes intense spiritual warfare. These pastors were consistent as they prayed for many needs, to maintain their focus on the revival of Jesus’ Church in Oviedo and then a resulting awakening of people who do not yet know Jesus, beginning at Oviedo, and impacting our region and the world. These pastors prayed. These pastors did battle. These pastors experienced repeated personal and family attacks. But they did not relent. And God began to move.

The first signal was when Rick Lee, our local banker, was moved by the Holy Spirit to build a coalition of spiritual leaders to launch The Gathering – an assembly of Christians from all backgrounds and multiple churches for a meal, prayer, worship and service together. The Gathering was hosted on the bank’s property and the focus was maintained on building a very real sense of Christian community among folks that did not regularly fellowship together. Satan’s grip on our city shifted and was weakened. A second The Gathering event was held and there were prayer, youth ministry and service projects added all over the city. Satan took another hit. A third event – a special dinner and intercession gathering for our city’s schools held at The Master’s Academy provided an opportunity to send prayer teams to all the school campuses around the city for prayer. A fourth event the next year — this time a breakfast in partnership with the Oviedo YMCA – was again held to intercede for our schools right before the school year began – with campus invitations from several principals. Satan’s dominion was being dismantled.

Then came 2020. The church in Oviedo was hit hard – and our sense of community was also targeted. Many churches were devastated by the pandemic and the required closures of all large indoor gatherings. Some churches would not survive. Other congregations experienced a disproportionate number of infections and deaths. It was a brutal attack. The beautiful unity we had been experiencing was partially broken by all the social unrest and racial tension that exploded in the wake of several African American deaths around the country. For 18 months there was no noticeable common, Spirit-led movement of God uniting the many congregations of our city.

But the prayer of our forefathers, coupled with the ongoing intercession of these pastors, was unshakable. Satan could not use the “perfect storm” of 2020 to stop what the Holy Spirit was planning for Oviedo. And in the Spring of 2021, one of those pastors, Bishop Jayson Quinones, had a vision of a large, public worship gathering – focusing on two things: lifting high the name of Jesus, and interceding for real revival. Lift Up Oviedo was born.

In the weeks immediately before the event was to take place, scores of people were committed to intercede for the gathering and for our city. Several of us met in various places just to pray together. Some of us gathered at the location of the event to prepare the space by tearing down spiritual strongholds in prayer (2 Corinthians 10:3-5). There were some very specific visions given to at least two leaders – at different times and unknown to each other – that were almost identical.  And we were also made aware of a related and timely prophecy coming from a known prophetess in Ireland:

“•••I SAW THE HARVEST FIELDS OF FLORIDA ARE WHITE AND A MULTITUDE OF WARRING ANGELS ARE NOW BEING ASSIGNED TO THIS LAND…A GREAT UPROOTING AND TEARING DOWN OF DEMONIC STRONGHOLDS ARE TAKING PLACE,… WATCH! FLORIDA WILL FALL UPON ITS KNEES UNDER WEIGHT OF HIS GLORY, A PLACE SEALED AND SET APART FOR A MIGHTY DEMONSTRATION OF SIGNS, WONDERS AND MIRACLES,…FLORIDA WILL BE SEEN RISING UP FROM HER SICK BED CLOTHED IN THE GLORY OF THE LORD AND GOING FORTH TO AWAKEN AND RAISE UP OTHER NATION STATES THAT ARE SLEEPING AND DEAD….I SEE IN THE SPIRIT THE STATE OF FLORIDA AS A FUSE,…AND THE FIRE OF HIS GLORY SUDDENLY IGNITING THAT FUSE,…WATCH! FOR THERE IS AN EXPLOSION OF HIS GLORY AND POWER COMING OUT OF FLORIDA THAT WILL TOUCH ALL FOUR CORNERS OF THE NATION…”

God is orchestrating something huge. And it looks like Oviedo may be at least one of its “fuse” points!

Last night set the stage for what this author believes is a coming revival of Christ’s Church in our city that will rival the great spiritual movements in early America. I believe God is even now purifying his Church – all ethnicities, denominations, backgrounds, and traditions – and is raising up a unified body that celebrates our distinctives in a way that makes our unity on the essentials and Jesus’ mission more powerful than ever before. I also believe that God may already be separating out all those who are churchgoers but have no real relationship with him (Matthew 7:15-23). Those who gather are not full of desire for religion, but desire for Jesus! Those who gather have not set their hearts on a particular theological framework, but on the mission of Christ in all its vast variety and beauty!  Those who gather are not distracted by politics, social hurdles, or anything else that has so injured our nation in the last two years – they, together, have the powerful focus of worship and witness! They are true brothers and sisters in Christ who can disagree on minor things and actually love each other for it! And last night, such was on display for over two worshipful hours.

As I write this, it’s coming up on 24 hours since that experience. I have watched the video of Lift Up Oviedo last night twice already – I cannot get enough of it. I have a sense that God is building his “team” in Oviedo and that team building is accelerating. I am humbled to be a part of it. And so I surrender myself to Jesus once again and I pray. Will you join me?

  • Father, continue to purify your church, the real church, the collected church of faithful followers of Jesus in all her beautiful diversity
  • Father, send a fresh and powerful wave of your Holy Spirit to convict, expose, heal, prepare, equip and send out your children
  • Father, honor the dedication and prayer of our city’s forebears – raise up and send out many servants from Oviedo to effectively wield the grace and truth of the gospel of Jesus
  • Father, revive the church of Oviedo
  • Father, give us a passion for Jesus
  • Father, give us a thirst for your Word
  • Father, give us a yearning for Jesus’ mission to seek and save the lost
  • Father, heal all those things that divide us – produce in us the fruit of forgiveness
  • Father, produce in us real spiritual maturity in Christ
  • Father, produce in us real Christlike character in everything
  • Father, woo us and bring us fully under your kingdom rule and reign – correct and transform anything in us that causes us to resist you
  • Father, send us and use us for your glory
  • Father, send us and use us as your instruments of a fresh and global awakening!
  • Father, protect us – post your angelic guard all around us so we are free to accomplish your task
  • Father, provide for us – give us the skills, gifts, understanding and resources we need for successfully carrying out your mission
  • Father, build strong kingdom partnerships through us – that the combined effort of your saints would be unstoppable
  • Father, help us to listen – first to you, and also to each other
  • Father, help us to love – real, other-oriented, self-sacrificial love like Jesus’ love for one another
  • Father, help us to have Jesus’ compassion on the lost and frightened
  • Father, prevent us from being distracted
  • Father, go before us and give us success in destroying what remains of Satan’s dominion in the name of our King Jesus!
  • Father, make us one as you and Jesus are one
  • Father, enable us to be real peacemakers – applying the gospel to brokenness in families, marriages, businesses, churches, communities, governments and more
  • Father, let nothing stop what you are doing through us
  • Father, protect our health, our homes, our families so we can remain undistracted
  • Father, make your name great in the earth and silence all your opponents
  • Father, may many of those opponents see what you do through us and surrender themselves to you as well
  • Father, grow our love for you – and may it be contagious to the whole world, exposing the deceptions of false religions and philosophies so people turn and love Christ
  • Father, protect us from our own sinful desires and temptations that they can never again have victory over us – guard our minds and hearts in the name of Jesus!

I pray all this in the name of my King and my Savior, Jesus the Christ. Amen.