kivengere.

I read this in the wee hours of the morning, and I've been chewing on it for much of today. 

This is a quote from Bishop Festo Kivengere (1919-1988), a man often referred to as "the Billy Graham of Africa." He said this right before persecution in Uganda by President Idi Amin drove him from Uganda:

"Revival doesn't come to respectable Christians. If you think that because you're a good church member, or because you belong to such and such organization, you're going to be revived you had better forget it. The basis of revival is men and women shattered by their failures- aware that all is not well, helpless to do anything about it…. The church is like our African grasslands, where I herded cattle as a boy. Huge fires roar over it, and the land looks black and dead. But immediately after the first rain, the grass springs up more luxuriantly than ever. The plains turn green and the cows fatten. No fire passing over the church can destroy the seeds of victorious faith. And the church in Uganda today is springing up, rich, green and growing." 

I love that. 

Let's pray for the persecuted church and their seeds of victorious faith. 

And let's repent of our "respectable Christianity."  

The quote is from the book,  A God-Sized Vision- Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir. It's crazy good.