Reclaiming the Meanings

Evangelism. There, I said it! While I'm at it, how about...revival? Yeah, yeah, I know: I'm from Kentucky, so I've experienced everything from growing up in the Episcopal Church to attending Mass with my Roman Catholic maternal grandmother to tent revivals at my paternal grandparents' Southern Baptist church where they try to yell Jesus into you to watching folks speak in tongues and falling out in the aisles at the church where a girl I dated in high school went. (No snake handlin', though!)

On Pentecost Sunday (May 23), Presiding Bishop Michael Curry preached during a service calling for revival in the Episcopal Church. Here's the thing, though: I understand well the hesitancy with the words "evangelism" and "revival". With unfortunate good reason, they have some negative connotation. But it hasn't always been so and need not continue to be. As Anne has pointed out in her Good News to Go forum series, it's a matter of definition. As we are now fully entered into the long Pentecost season, let's do some deeper searching, not only about the meaning but about the practice of evangelism and revival, and then do what would serve those words and our practice well: reclaim their meanings so that folks might actually hear and receive the good news of light and love in our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Marc