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A bit of Sunday reflection and consider the"awakening" some years ago if you go to my previous post on awakening you  will find out a bit more about historic changes in the community.

Come back and consider:
What signs are there of people looking for faith?
What is in my church or community to encourage faith?
Where are the hindrances?
Am I the blockage to an "awakening" ? 

For a community to be revived some would save certain conditions are required or helpful. What are these conditions?

When an awaking took place in the past in the islands, Rev Kenneth Macrae had strict tests to affirm it was a work of God and not just some minor hysteria.

He as well as other denominations would hear reports at there centres of works in communities. ( Free church, Church of Scotland, Scottish Baptist Union etc.)

By 1939 a wide revival work was present in lewis. At the Free Church Assembly he( Kenneth Macrae) recorded “evidences... that the Lord is effectively working in the hearts of men”.

There was concern over certain phenomena. At Point meetings were reverent and with solemnity. There was elements of excitement and hysteria. Yet clear evidence of lasting conversions.

By 1938 the phenomena of swooning, of out cries, of temporary paralysis of limbs and muscular spasms or jerks drew much attention. The press searched for stories. People would collapse, others rise together, some weep or call in Gaelic on their relatives. Some lost all power to their limbs and would be carried to other rooms to recover. These things caused controversy. Some ministers affirmed the physical effects as God's. In their thinking All the phenomena was linked to revival. Others were concerned how the media were presenting the situation.

MacRae spoke at one meeting of the Free Church Stornoway on the:

Unusual features of the present religious movement in lewis.

He was convinced there was a revival in Lewis and a work of God. But he wanted people to consider some of the peculiar features of it.

In particular MacRae wished the meeting to consider that in Park... convulsive fits.

Grimshader ...trembling or tremors...with crying.

At point and Shader ...trances and women praying and exhorting ( ...and a good deal of disorder). He noted further:

• Those or some could not give an explanation to what was happening. Rather than looking for the work of the Holy Spirit people were disappointed if there was no manifestations.
• Secondly MacRae saw a sense of superior order of Christians taking hold with those who had experienced some of the manifestations.
• He felt that matters might lead to unscriptural extravagances.
  
  

He also talked and reported on other happenings in the country, quoting Kilsyth and Cambuslang.

He concluded that the manifestations were neither good or evil but hysteria.

He quoted the medical observations for hysteria.

• Highly strung people mainly young women
• Infectious
• Associated with convulsions tremors and trances
• Attacks are always in an audience never alone.
• Those effected say they could not help themselves.
• If wanted to those effected could have controlled themselves.
• Delusions and hallucinations
• Consciousness not lost.

MacRae was concluding that mass hysteria was happening in Lewis and his concern was separating it from the work of the Holy Spirit.

Hi did specifically acknowledge the work of the Holy Spirit at that time.

Quoting the action of McChenye from Dundee. He was supporting the need to have religious meetings closed by 11.00 pm. “Lest Good be evil spoken”.

It is clear from MacRae there is a need to discern what is of God and a work of the Holy Spirit and what is not. While he saw the Lewis revival as of God, not all was his making. It is easy to be tricked in times of revival to assume all phenomena are in connection with the spirit of God, and to question it is to hinder that Revival. There is a more discerning Church today- but a good warning nevertheless.

There have been many Scottish revivals and in particular in the 19^th century the country had “breakouts” in different parts. Alexander Macrae tells us that almost all revivals have been started by lay preachers. He has also noted that some if not all revivals have started when someone talked about a previous revival. The retelling of past works has inspired and moved the hearts of others. Whilst we would acknowledge that a Blessing of God transforms a meeting which can continue into revival, it is when people “work at it” with a sense of urgency and expectation that we see results in terms of a deepening of faith across communities. The work of the Haldanes is a good example of this. The North East coast revival in 1921 shows the spread and catalytic effect from a work. it started in Norfolk in 1921 and spread to Caithness Scotland the the travelling movement of the fishermen.

Now go back and ask the questions at the begining of this post again and reflect.

Caithness work -on this blog 

Alexander Macrae, Revivals in the Highlands and Islands, 1998

 

Kenneth MacRae, Diary of Kenneth MacRae

revivals  Scotland wiki