Children and young people in revival

It is not uncommon for adults to have low expectations of the spiritual understanding of children and therefore disregard their spiritual experiences. Some developmental theories have had a guiding influence on the thinking behind some published materials about, and for children’s ministry. There is a view that children should not be taught certain doctrines and that children, prior to late adolescence, would not be able to make an informed and independent response to the gospel!

Even a cursory study of the influence of revival on children and young people blows these ideas out of the water! But there are other reasons to study this subject – to warm our hearts and raise our expectations.

Some of the characteristics of the involvement of children and young people in revival challenge the practice in some contemporary youth work which often short-changes the time for overt spiritual activities and maximises the time for entertainment.

Enjoyable prayer

Would we expect children to be excited about prayer today?

In 1816 in the village chapel, Capel y Nant, near Saethon, Gwynedd, a bored disabled boy wanted to find some rest and quiet between the end of the preaching service and the start of Sunday school. He crept into the church loft but his peace was shattered when the daughter of one of the elders joined him. Both children were moved to pray and they were soon joined by others in their serious entreaty. Apparently the venue was no hindrance to these children and young people who made prayer a regular weekly event and often met out of doors among the prickly gorse bushes. Eryl Davies, who writes about this event in his book The Beddglert Revival (Bryntirion Press) indicates that prayer was for them an ‘enjoyable’ experience. The following year revival came to Capel y Nant.

Harry Sprange has made a study of children in the history of the church, with an emphasis on revival. His study focused on 300 years of Scottish church history, from the eighteenth-twentieth century and has been published in Children in Revival (Christian Focus). He too makes many references to the fervent prayer of children. He records one incident in an institution in Edinburgh on 1741 when the house-mistresses were woken up with the voices of the girls in prayer and praise.

In April 1742 in Kirkintilloch, near Glasgow, sixteen children were meeting in a barn to pray in preference to play. And in Cambuslang a group of children between the ages of nine and thirteen were meeting together for prayer three times a day.

At Carrubbers Close Mission in Edinburgh in 1860 hundreds of children met regularly for prayer. At the time people said that their prayers were a challenge and rebuke to older believers.

Children’s prayer meetings were also prevalent in the 1904 Welsh Revival. Many took place in school playgrounds.

The revival in the 1950’s in the Belgian Congo also resulted in groups of children spontaneously meeting for fasting and prayer without any adult intervention or organisation. In fact the adults were challenged by the children ‘why haven’t you taught us these wonderful truths before?’

Conviction of sin

In Kilsyth, outside Glasgow, in 1742 upwards of seventy-five children between the ages of nine and eighteen were awakened to a sense of sin and their need of a Saviour. One six-year-old girl was in great distress. She told the minister that she had become aware of her sin through the preaching. One wonders how many six-year-olds are hearing sermons in our contemporary evangelical churches?

In Shapinsay, Orkney in 1861 it was reported in the local paper that boys of ten and eleven years of age were experiencing great anxiety about their souls.

Conversions

Accounts of revivals all record conversions among children and young people, in families, in schools, in institutions (such as Muller’s orphanage in 1858), in churches and in Sunday schools. Jonathan Edwards recorded that little children were brought to Christ in great numbers in the revivals in New England, USA and Robert Murray M’Cheyne made similar comments about the Dundee revival in 1839.

Zeal

One could hardly say that this was a hallmark of many of today’s young people! Not so in times of revival. In 1904 in Wales it was nothing for young people to walk fifteen miles to attend a youth meeting.

The local press in Blaenau Ffestiniog recorded groups of children, some as young as three walking around the village singing revival hymns.

Discipleship

How easy it is to keep children ‘on ice’ after they have professed Christ. In a desire not to encourage false professions or put pressure on the young there is a tendency to ‘wait and see’ when a child indicates that he has trusted Christ as Saviour. Babes in Christ can stay babies because we lack the faith and the opportunity to encourage their spiritual growth.

The opposite was true in times of revival. In Beddgelert in 1817 the Rev John Williams started a regular doctrine meeting for children and young people. Actually these were a precursor to revival which broke out shortly afterwards.

In Charlotte Chapel in Edinburgh in 1905 1,000 people were converted. Children were baptised, ten at a time, and 230 of them attended a Bible study specially set up to nurture them in the faith.

Fruit

In the various accounts it has been noted that many children and young people who were affected by revival have gone on to ministry or church leadership. Through revival God has built His church and secured its future leadership.

Warmed and challenged?

Has your heart been strangely warmed by this brief overview of revival among the younger generation? Are you stirred to pray for the children in your family and in your church? Above all will you have greater expectations of the spiritual experience of children and act accordingly? Our God doesn’t change.

Sheila Stephen lectures in Youth & Children’s Ministry at WEST.