Our church has planned a series of special meetings for next week. For lack of a better term, we are calling this series of meetings, collectively, a "revival." For some, the word revival conjures up images of old-time month-long tent meetings, with singing and shouting and a loud, Bible-thumping preacher in a sweat-soaked white shirt calling all who will to "be saved!" before it's too late.

For others, it means a week-long series of special services where a vocational evangelist from that certain denomination speaks each night after someone from the congregation sings a "special" while the offering plates are passed.

Still others remember times when the Spirit of God arrived at the beginning of a regular meeting and the church family was so touched that they came together night after night, week after week, maybe even month after month, until the outpouring subsided.

Whatever comes to mind when you think of revival, I invite you to put all those presumptions aside if you really expect God to move in your life.

True revival purges the hearts of believers and leaves them thirsting for more of God. True revival sometimes burns through the church and leaves more empty pews than full ones, at least for a while. Rest assured that if it was true revival, the seats will fill again, but with folks who truly want to serve the Lord.

True revival touches the very heart of believers before exploding into the community and shaking the very world we live in. True revival changes us from within first, then brings that much needed change into our homes, our churches, our jobs, the marketplace, and beyond.

We have all experienced revival man's way: a series of meetings set for such and such a week during such and such a month because that's when the denomination is running its big promotion; big arenas filled with onlookers and the curious from society, waiting to see just what it is that these Christians find so pleasing and gratifying about outdoor crusades; small-church meetings where sincere men of God pleaded for hours with the lost to turn their very souls over to God.

But when the music fades, the programs are gathered up and placed in the trash bins, and the visiting preachers collect their offerings and leave town, what is left? Are we better off than we were before the meetings began? We can only hope.

We've experienced our own brand of revival. It's time to ask God to show us what true revival is: it's time to experience revival God's way.