So I wanted to share with you an email that my brother sent me. He has some interesting thoughts on our revival and the theme this year. I hope you enjoy what he has to say. I’ll be sharing his thoughts from time to time.
“I learned recently that our church was going to have a 12 week revival. I must admit when I first heard this I had 2 trains of thought, 1 good and 1 not so good. You see I come from the “old school” and revival for us was going to church every day or night as long as the revival was going on. This meant for a 12 week revival I was going to have to go to church and listen to a preacher for 84 days or nights. I do not know if I could handle that or not. On the other hand the “old time” revivals were some of the best memories of my childhood/teenage years. There is just something extra special about a revival. Well as I learned more about our revival I learned that it was a 12 week/Sunday revival. Well that is a little different. Still sounds exciting. Then I learned that the theme for the revival was “Touched”. Well where did that come from? “Touched” what does that stand for? What kind of theme is that for a revival? Where is the “On fire for the Lord”, “Mighty is the Lord”. Maybe they just wanted a one word theme? What about “Blessed”, “Peace”, “Joy”, “Love”, “Power” you know something to really get the blood flowing. Something to get excited about. I thought well there has to be a reason. There has to be a meaning behind “Touched” that I am just not seeing. Unless of course leadership/pastor is a little “touched” in the head. No I am just kidding.
Touched….Touched…what does that mean? How is that important in my relationship with God? How can I get fired up about “Touched”? Well I started where I always start looking up the definition on Google.
Touched-Dictionary.com
- Moved; stirred
- Slightly crazy; unbalanced
Okay so how does this help me with figuring out why we are using “Touched” as our theme for revival? Moved; stirred, well maybe this fits. When you are having revival you want people to be “moved” you want people to be “stirred”. How do you want them to be moved? How do you want them to be stirred? Once they are moved and stirred then what? What does it mean to be moved and stirred? Look at the second definition, “slightly crazy; unbalanced”, how does that fit? So we want everyone to think becoming a Christian makes you crazy? Revival to me is more than moved or stirred and I do not think we are crazy for being Christians so again why did we pick “Touched” as our theme. What am I missing? Well I have been taught over the years that when looking at words or trying to define them that sometimes we need to look at the root word. I will be honest I do not always know what that means but I do notice that the word “touch” is the main word so I am assuming it is the root word. So let’s look up the definition of “touch”.
Touch-
- Come so close to (an object) as to be or come into contact with it
- Handle in order to manipulate, alter, or otherwise affect….especially in an adverse way
- An act of touching someone or something
- A small amount, a trace
This is what first comes up when you ask Google for definition of “Touch”. When I go to Dictionary.com which is what I used for “Touched” I get over 30 different definitions. In fact you get 34 different definitions and that is even before you start putting the word in phrases like “touch down”, “touch up”, etc. As we keep going we might get into some of those definitions but for right now let’s just stick with what we have. I like it simple. So when I look at these definitions again I ask myself what makes this word so important to use it as the theme for a 12 week revival? Come close to, come in contact with…I get that we want people to come in contact with the gospel, we want people to come in contact with Jesus. So it is starting to make a little sense to me. Handle, alter, affect…again we want the world to see how our relationship with God alters us, affects us, and how He handles it all for us. Little more sense to me. Act of touching someone…well as Christians I guess we are to “touch” others? If we have a relationship with Christ we want everyone to see how He has “touched” our lives right? Little more sense. Small amount, trace…okay I am lost again. As I was going through the definitions a thought hit me, touch is one of the five senses. So I started thinking about that and how maybe that was why we chose this to be our theme. As I was thinking about this I started thinking which of the five senses is the most important to us. I tried to answer this question myself and came up with all kinds of different answers. Sight is pretty important thing, however I have known many blind people and they seem to get along alright. Hearing that is another pretty important sense, however as I get older I realize that my hearing is getting worse and worse and I also know many people who cannot hear anything and they are doing alright. Some of them are even “stars”. Taste, I like food so much that taste would probably be a hard sense to loose. Of course if I did not have the sense of taste I would probably eat a whole lot better. Think about it I would not care if I was eating fish, or asparagus, or broccoli, or all those foods that I do not like now. Of course I would not be able to enjoy a good cooked steak either. Okay so what about smell? If I lost the sense of smell, how would that really hurt me? I would not have to smell cow manure, or dirty diapers, or sewer back up. That might really come in handy. I decided that I would ask the question to my trusty old Google and you know what I found out, people had the same thought I did. Then I came across this little tidbit of information and it really changed my mind.
“Touch is most important because all 5 senses are the sense of touch. Sight is the tissues in your eye being touched by light. Hearing is tissues in your ear being touched by vibrating air. Taste is the tissues on your tongue being touched by the chemical blend that is food and drink. Smell is tissues in your nose being touched by a chemical blend in the air. And touch of course is the tissue that is your skin being touched by anything. – See more at: http://www.thenatureinus.com/2006/03/which-of-your-five-senses-is-most.html#sthash.24DfuuKk.dpuf”
Wow when you read this and really think about it. Everything starts with a “touch”. Everything that happens in my life happens because of a “touch”. Everything I see is because my eyes are “touched”, everything I hear are because my ears are “touched”, everything I taste is because my tongue is “touched”, everything I smell is because my nose is “touched” and of course everything I feel is because I am “touched”. Now we are getting somewhere. Now things are starting to make some sense to me. When I look at this word from this perspective it is a very powerful word. It is a word that means a whole lot more than what I thought it did.
My life revolves around being “touched”. Everything that happens to me good or bad is because of being “touched”. What more powerful word is there? What other word can you use to describe your relationship with Christ? What other word would you want to use for a revival than “Touched”? In order for revival to happen you have to be “Touched”. Wow and I have not even started to look up scriptures yet. I have not even started to see how God uses the word or how God “touches” me.”
By Paul Watts
Until next time take full advantage of the opportunities that you have to let God “Touch” your life. Then take those time and reach out and “Touch” others with His love. I love all of you and look forward to hearing how the Lord is using you. See you next time.
Pastor Rob
