Pastoring “The Mixture”
Something Is Stirring
There is something in the air. We are standing on the edge of something. Sunday mornings and evening prayer gatherings are swelling again. Young people want to learn how to pray. The ice and snow of a long season of spiritual winter seems to be melting.
But Spring Is Messy
My birthday is in early April so I feel okay in saying the transition from winter to spring may be the yuckiest season in the year. Snowmelt makes mud. Streams overflow. Rotting leaves that were frozen and hidden in the snow come up to the surface.
That’s what this season feels like—spiritually. After years of dormancy and discouragement, the soil is thawing, but the landscape is complicated.
A Freshly-Loaded Word
The word revival used to be a simple word. It meant the restoration of the church to New Testament normalcy—sleepy Christians awakened, nominal Christians converted, non-believers radically drawn to a beautified church. It meant the Kingdom advancing in word, deed, and power.
Today, that same word is showing up in unexpected places. Turning Point USA, for instance, has built a “faith” network for pastors, calling for a “God-centered revival in America.” Charlie Kirk, its founder, spoke often about “revival” before his tragic death—Charlie’s ministry and language often mixed spiritual awakening with a sense of political agenda and urgency. The memorial service held in his honor looked, depending on your perspective, like a passionate worship night, a political rally, or both at the same time.
I have been using the word “revival” for nearly twenty years. For many of those years, it felt like few other people were using the word. Lately this has changed. In the past month, I have read articles in The Atlantic, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal that focus on trying to make sense of what people are calling “revival.” And as I read these articles I am becoming aware that for many Americans, “revival” increasingly carries political overtones. It does not mean to others what it has meant for decades to me. Instead, it is being adopted into the vocabulary of a new kind of Christian activism.
That is not to suggest that those using the word revival in this way are being insincere. Many of them genuinely love Jesus and want to see America turn back to God. What I am saying is that when we talk about revival, we’re increasingly speaking into cultural echo chambers where that word no longer lands neutrally.
For some, it now evokes hope; for others, suspicion.
So what do we do? Do we retire the word entirely? That would be a bummer for me—as I direct an organization called Revive New England. Do we double down to reclaim it? Or do we learn to pastor its messiness?
When Revival Itself Gets Messy
Jonathan Edwards lived through a season that looked a lot like ours. The 1730s and 1740s were explosive. Churches across New England filled with weeping and shouting. People fell to their knees in repentance. Whole towns were transformed. Yet alongside the glory came confusion: fanaticism, pride, emotional extremes, and a backlash of skepticism.
Edwards spent a great deal of time seeking to interpret the revival and defend it to its detractors. This in itself should be a hint to us that it’s not just the word revival that is messy—but the reality itself.
Edwards wrote,
“There are a great many errors and sinful irregularities mixed with this work of God… yet it does not hinder it from being very glorious.”
For Edwards, a true outpouring of the Spirit always includes three active agents in the same moment: God, human flesh, and the devil. In other words, the divine, the natural, and the counterfeit coexist in the same field—just like the wheat and the tares in Jesus’ parable. The enemy doesn’t sow his seeds in barren soil; he plants them right where God is moving. And doubtless he plants them there because God is moving. Satan does not magically go on vacation when revival comes—he works overtime.
That means we shouldn’t be shocked when we see spiritual awakenings that are messy—emotionally volatile, politically entangled, or socially disruptive. It has always been that way. In the same crucible, we find both the gold and the dross.
Here is a recent and somewhat loaded example we are probably all aware of: At Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, Erica Kirk forgave her husband’s killer (a jaw-dropping, Christlike act of mercy). In the next moment, the US President told the same crowd that he “hates his opponent” and does not want the best for them. This posture, while understandably human, is in complete contradiction to the example and teachings of Jesus. The crowd cheered for both comments. That is “the mixture” on full display.
How Do We Respond to a Mixture?
In the messy mixture that was the First Great Awakening, Edwards watched pastors fall into two opposite traps. Some embraced everything that happened, baptizing every emotional outburst as proof of divine power. Others dismissed the whole awakening as deception because of the excesses.
Both missed the point.
“The weakness of human nature,” Edwards wrote, “has always appeared in times of great revival of religion, by a disposition to run to extremes.”
In other words, revival doesn’t create human weakness—it reveals it.
In our moment, the same twin dangers exist. On one side are those who seize the language of revival to baptize their cultural agenda, who see political victory as synonymous with spiritual awakening. On the other side are those who have grown so weary of hypocrisy and manipulation that they reject the very possibility of revival altogether. These folks can become so guarded and critical and offended by the mixture they can’t see when God is clearly at work.
We can’t afford to live at either extreme. We must become, in Edwards’ words, “judicious observers of the times,” able to distinguish the genuine from the counterfeit without losing hope for the real thing.
Why God Allows Mixture
Here is perhaps Edwards’ most profound contribution to revival leadership: mixture is not a failure of God’s sovereignty; it is part of His pedagogy.
God allows mixture, Edwards said, to humble His people, to expose our pride, and to teach discernment. It’s how He keeps the glory for Himself.
If everything in a revival were perfectly pure, people would take credit for it. Our names would end up on the banners and hashtags. So God allows cracks in His earthen vessels—so that it will be obvious that the all-surpassing power is from Him and not from us.
That’s pretty sobering if you think about it. The impurities of revival are not an excuse for cynicism; they are an invitation to humility. Just because God uses people, doesn’t always mean He approves of everything we’re doing, or even the condition of our hearts. The fact that God still works through us, and through others—even through those we disagree with politically—should drive us to our knees.
Jesus instructed His disciples to be wary of both the yeast of Herod and the yeast of the Pharisees. Herod made alliances with Rome and put his trust in politics. At the same time, the Pharisees were so self-righteous and judgmental they couldn’t perceive what God was doing right under their noses.
How to Pastor a Mixture
Edwards called for a leadership that neither quenches the Spirit nor allows for excess and the loss of decency and order and/or heterodoxy and syncretism. Here are a few practical ways to do that.
1. Test Fruit, Not Fireworks.
Edwards said not to judge a movement by its intensity but by its outcomes. The real marks of the Spirit are humility, love, obedience, and unity—not just loud emotion or and certainly not political influence.
For pastors today, the question is not, “Are people fired up?” but “Are they becoming more like Jesus?”
2. Preach Christ.
During the First Great Awakening, some preachers became the show. Edwards insisted the true work of the Spirit always magnifies Christ, never personalities or parties.
In our moment, we must keep the gospel central, refusing to turn revival into a campaign slogan or a culture-war tool. Revival that does not lead to repentance at the cross is not revival.
3. Gently Correct.
Our role is to pastor zeal, not to crush it. Correct gently; teach discernment; point passion toward love and holiness. The Lord’s treasure is carried in clay jars. Handle with care.
4. Build Spiritual Infrastructure.
Revival without formation is a bonfire that burns hot and dies quickly. Edwards discipled converts into rhythms of prayer, Scripture, and community life. He wanted sustainable awakening, not sporadic spectacle.
Pastors today must do the same—build prayer rooms, mentoring networks, and shared rule-of-life structures that give new fire a place to live. As deliverance and inner healing break out as a result of revival fire, you must allow for Christ-centered, grace filled, Bible-based learning for those seeking to walk in freedom and grow in Christlike virtue.
5. Stay Low.
Perhaps the most searching of Edwards’ insights: spiritual pride is the most dangerous mixture of all. Once people start rejoicing more in their experiences than in Christ, the whole work begins to rot from within.
The only safe posture in revival is humility. As Edwards put it, “When God is about to do a great work, He sets His people to praying.” Prayer is always the antidote to pride.
As somebody once said, “A man who stays on his face before God, cannot fall from that position.”
Revival and Politics: A Need for Clarity
How do we talk about “revival” in an age where it’s become politically charged? And when the word “revival” seems to mean different things to different people. It’s helpful to name what’s happening. Teach your people about the concept of mixture. Apply it to our current moment.
Here’s how I have talked about it: There are genuine stirrings of the Spirit in many corners of the Church. People are repenting, praying, giving their lives to Jesus. On the other hand there is also a powerful temptation and powerful political incentives to channel some of that hunger into a political narrative—to equate the kingdom of God with the success of a particular movement or nation.
This temptation is not new. Every revival in history has faced some pull toward triumphalism. In Edwards’ day it was the pride of the New England Puritans who thought their colonies were the New Jerusalem. In ours, it’s the temptation to see America’s restoration to a mythic “golden era” as the same thing as the gospel’s advance.
We can honor those who sincerely love the nation while also firmly reminding them that the kingdom of God transcends every border and party. Our citizenship is first and foremost in heaven, and we eagerly await a Savior from there.
We need to help our people discern the difference between so-called partisan revival and spiritual awakening. The first is about regaining Christianity’s cultural dominance of a bygone era; the second is about Kingdom breakthrough, in anticipation of the coming of Jesus and the renewal of all things.
**Here is an important caveat. This is not to say revival does not have political implications. A full-bloomed revival will lead to societal awakening, resulting in the transformation and renewal of the habits, values, and structures of the surrounding culture, leaving a lasting legacy of Kingdom fruit for generations. Revivals have had profound political implications, the abolition movement was birthed in revival, as was the Civil Rights movement in the Mid-20th Century. Revivals have impacted our nation’s relationship with alcohol, as in the early 1800s, they have launched a whole set of institutions that care for the poor, or the sick, or that educate people, or send missionaries. Revivals have resulted in strengthened marriages, families, and public morality. The fruit of revivals inevitably affect politics. But we must be very careful about our motivational structure for seeking the Lord for revival. We don’t want to seek revival for America. We want to seek the Lord for his Kingdom to come…not just in our nation, but on earth as it is in heaven. Our motivational structure matters - like the heading on a ship as it leaves one continent for another. Staying on target is very important - or we will find ourselves landing on a very different latitude than the one we intended when we get to the other side.
Leading in a Tension
This is a time of awakening and upheaval. There is real spiritual momentum building, and yet, as Edwards warned, the devil “takes the advantage of the present warm zeal” to sow confusion and division. Like the enemy in Jesus’ parable. He’s at work in the middle of the night, sowing weeds in God’s field of wheat.
Our calling, as leaders, is to stay anchored. That means cultivating lives of prayer deep enough to withstand the noise, calling our people to love their enemies, and keeping the church’s allegiance squarely on Jesus Christ.
Revival leadership in a moment like ours requires both courage and tenderness—courage to name the distortions, tenderness to nurture what’s real.
We don’t need to defend God’s work; we just need to carefully and wisely discern it. The presence of mixture does not negate the work—it simply highlights the need for pastoral leadership. After all, it is in God’s infinite wisdom and sovereignty that He chose to use men and women to carry out His work - in spite of our frailty and proneness to wander.
Key Takeaways
Every revival is mixed.
Expect it. Plan for it. Don’t be scandalized by it. God works in and through flawed human beings.
Mixture is God’s classroom.
It teaches discernment, humility, and dependence. Let the messiness drive us to prayer, not to hopelessness or cynicism.
Judge by fruit, not frenzy.
The truest marks of revival are enduring repentance, deep love, and unity in Christ.
Guard the center.
Keep the gospel central and refuse to get sucked in by nationalism or partisanship.
Pastor the mixture.
Teach gently. Correct without shaming. Build spaces where zeal can mature into holiness.
Stay low and stay praying.
Revival begins and continues on our knees. Humility is the revival leader’s greatest asset.
Shepherding in a Spiritual Spring
Spring has come again to the Church. The snow is melting; the water table is rising. God is moving in ways that both thrill and unsettle us. We can’t control the weather, but we can carefully tend the ground God has given us. We can shepherd the people he has given us.
So when you see the mixture in your church, or its people—spiritual hunger tangled with politics, zeal mixed with pride, awakening mingled with confusion—don’t withdraw. Pastor it. Clarify it. Pray through it. Remember Paul’s admonition to Timothy:
“I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry.”
And finally, let’s not forget the Lord of the harvest knows how to separate wheat from chaff, gold from dross.
“It is the glory of God,” Edwards wrote, “to bring light out of darkness, order out of confusion, and to make His work go on in spite of all opposition.”
May He do this in our time. And may we join Him in this work.