‘The Church Has Left the Building’: Wave of Revival Hits Southern California, Shows No Sign of Stopping

When the vision comes to pass: “In 2016, my husband Parker and I moved across the country from New York to California…

Posted by Saturate OC on Saturday, July 18, 2020

Only days before California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued an executive order blocking indoor worship gatherings and Bible studies, Saturate OC sponsored its first revival gathering on Huntington City Beach near Los Angeles, according to Fox News. “The church has left the building,” Jessi said in a Facebook post.

Sean Feucht, a Bethel Church worship leader, has led worship for the gatherings and said the movement reminded him of the Jesus People Movement from the late ’60s and early ‘0s. “It’s eerily similar,” Feucht told Fox News. “There were protests, racial and social strife. Hippies were getting saved. A movement happened in California and swept across America.”

Saturate OC had planned to hold revival services each Friday in July but now, a Facebook post says, the ministry has extended them through at least Aug. 7. “We are making decisions for Saturate on a weekly basis, so we can press into what God is saying and doing,” says the post. “We want to steward well what is happening and we can’t stop now that so many people are being saved, filled with the Holy Spirit, healed and set free!”

The movement has not come without criticism, Jessi says, but she adds on Facebook, “I got to the point where I no longer wanted God to bless my dreams – I wanted to bless His. I wanted to know what He was doing, and then do that. It cost a lot! It cost every thought that I had about God, about faith, and what Church looks like, my comfort, financial stability, friends, popularity, my ‘passions’. I had to get to the point where I felt peace with Jesus + Nothing.

“It’s easy to pray for revival,” she says. “It’s really really hard to say yes to mundane obedience. It’s hard when plans get cancelled. When Christians call you terrible names. It’s hard, but yet easy. You get God in-exchange. It’s hard to explain. The whole Joy through suffering begins to make sense. Jesus becomes really real and you figure out quickly why the disciples gave up everything – nothing else satisfied. You can’t fake this kind of faith – trust me I tried! … Revival is happening because people are smashing down idols!”

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