When Revival is Real vs. Religious Hype: How to Discern Authentic Spiritual Awakening w/ Dr. Nathan Finn

Johnny Ova: Welcome everybody to the Dig In Podcast. I am your host, Pastor Johnny Ova, here with the great Dr. Nathan Finn. Dr. Finn, thank you for joining us today. I'm looking forward to our conversation.

Dr. Nathan Finn: I am so excited. Thanks for the opportunity.

Johnny Ova: We got through all the tough questions before we started recording, like whose action figure is that over there. So now we've got all the easy ones.

Dr. Nathan Finn: That's right, it's nothing but softballs from here on out.

Johnny Ova: All right. Before we get into discernment, I want to start here. Can you help us understand what biblical revival actually is? And is there a difference between revival, renewal and awakening?

Dr. Nathan Finn: This is such a great question, and one of the reasons it's so great is that nobody's 100 percent sure what the answer is. Here's the way I like to talk about it. There are all these different R words that we love and one A word. There's revival and renewal and reformation and reform, and there's awakening. They're all up on the Venn diagram, and they all overlap with each other. I'm not sure there's a slam dunk answer as to which is which. But here's what I would say. They are all movements of the Spirit of God. They tend to begin with an individual or a group of individuals, often a church, and at some point they go viral, if you will, and become a bigger deal that has a bigger impact than just the impact on that person or that church.

Dr. Nathan Finn: We always want that movement to be outward. So praise God for whatever the personal version of that is, but we don't want it ever to be just the personal version. And we don't want it to just be about what the Holy Spirit's doing in our church. We want to see communities transformed, neighborhoods transformed, even nations transformed. I'm not saying everybody would agree with me on this, but I tend to think in terms of personal renewal, revival that comes to a church or a group of churches, and spiritual awakening, which is when revival goes viral. The guy down the road might say it a little differently, but we're still arguing for the same sort of thing. I think that movement and that pattern is what's most important, even if we dicker sometimes over the best terminology to capture it. We know it when we see it.

Johnny Ova: I think the word you just used, terminology, is so important. The words we use, because a lot of times these words just get thrown around when we have a good worship service. The worship was great today, it was revival in this place. Well, maybe. But painting a clearer picture helps us get on the same page. I'm sure you experience this too. A lot of Christians, and sometimes me too, have a hard time telling the difference between transformation and emotionalism, which I know we're going to get into today. I feel God moving, but is he really moving? Or did I just get excited? Is there legitimate transformation coming from this?

Dr. Nathan Finn: Sure. I've been in worship services where all the hands go up, and I'm not 100 percent sure the Spirit's moving. Other times none of the hands go up, and it seems like the Spirit's moving. So even the way our bodily postures respond to worship might not be indicative of a special outpouring of the Spirit, though it might be.

Johnny Ova: So good. That's the limitless God we serve. When we get into the mode that it has to look one way, I think it gets a little dangerous, because now you're convinced God's not moving unless the ceiling blows off your church and God's voice starts thundering down from heaven. I can think of myself. Some of the biggest moves of God came in the quietest moments of my life. It was almost like a realization, an understanding, a removal of the veil from my eyes. So, you've studied revivals from the first century all the way through today. What are some of the unmistakable marks that appear in every genuine move of God across history?

Dr. Nathan Finn: Whenever we look through Christian history, and I think this goes back to biblical precursors of revival in the Old Testament and the New Testament, whether it's what happens under Josiah's reign or whether it's Pentecost, we tend to see at least three things. Number one, people of faith go deeper into their faith. They grow spiritually, and not just the slow burn growth we ought to expect in the Christian life. This is a jump forward. There's a pronounced work of the Spirit where people are growing faster and deeper than would normally be the case over the same period of time. The second thing we see is an increased number of lost people coming to faith in Christ. Revival starts with the church, but very quickly we start to see more people than we would expect turning from their sins and trusting Jesus alone as their King and Savior. Not just the fruit of ongoing evangelism, but, wow, the Lord is really moving here.

Dr. Nathan Finn: The third thing is that it begins to move outside the four walls of the church, not just in terms of touching individuals who come to faith in Christ, but we begin to see some impact on the culture. That's looked different in different revivals at different times. During the First Great Awakening, you have all these ministries started that make all kinds of difference, not just local church ministries but parachurch ministries related to missions or caring for the poor. Or think about the Second Great Awakening and some of the great activism movements that come out of it, arguing for temperance or the abolition of slavery. There's a movement that contributes not just to the foundation of the gospel but to authentic human flourishing, as we see the impact of the gospel even on people who don't believe. Things are better because God is moving.

Johnny Ova: That's awesome. I love talking about the revivals and seeing these accounts. It's just so cool to me. Let's start with Jonathan Edwards and the Northampton revival of 1734. What made that awakening authentic, and how did Edwards himself wrestle with discerning true conversion from religious excitement?

Dr. Nathan Finn: One of the things I love about the Northampton revival is that Jonathan Edwards wasn't looking for revival. Of course he wanted the Holy Spirit to move, but Edwards was a Puritan. He's one of these guys who believes in week-by-week, everyday faithfulness. You preach the gospel and trust the Lord with the results. He's preaching on justification by faith alone, something Protestants had been talking about for 200 years at that point, and all of a sudden, through his regular preaching ministry, the Lord begins to move in a pronounced way. It's not just one service or two services. There's a snowball effect. So there's something about Edwards just wanting to do what he was supposed to do, and you get this outpouring of the Spirit. I think that was the first indication to him that something different was happening, because he didn't go in and say, now I'm going to preach my revival sermon. He didn't even say, we've been praying for six months for revival, which I'm all in favor of doing. He was just going about his regular ministry, and the Lord poured out his Spirit.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Fast forward about ten years. The Northampton revival is an early stage of what becomes the First Great Awakening, and you've got George Whitefield all over the Eastern Seaboard preaching the gospel. Lots of decisions are being made. That's when, with a little hindsight, Edwards starts asking, how do we know true revival from false revival? That's where his wonderful book Religious Affections comes from, along with his shorter writings on revival. What Edwards is famous for is arguing for positive and negative tests of revival. By negative tests he doesn't mean counterfeit revival. He means this may or may not be an indication of revival. Lots of emotion may or may not be an indication of revival. Lots of people being convicted of their sin may or may not be an indication of revival. Then there are the indications that are definitely revival: lots of people coming to faith in Christ, believers growing in faith, hope and love, maturity in doctrine, greater consistency in ethics. When we see that sort of fruit play out long term, we know that's a revival.

Dr. Nathan Finn: So Edwards isn't against emotions. He's seen emotions. And obviously he wants people to come to faith in Christ. But Edwards says we don't fully know revival until a little time has gone by and we can look back and say, I think this is what the Holy Spirit did, not just in a moment, but here's how he was at work and here's how that fruit continues to come.

Johnny Ova: So it's that continuous fruit. Emotion can be part of it, but emotion can't be the only recipe. It's got to lead to some type of fruit or transformation.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Absolutely. Edwards would be all for emotions. I'm all for emotions. Sometimes when the Spirit moves, people are broken and they express that with great emotion. Other times it's a slow burn, and the Lord moves in the slow burn just as much as he does in fire falling from heaven. We don't want to put God in a box. The proof is in the pudding. What do these people's lives look like six months later? What do they look like 12 months later? What do they look like 24 months later? That's when we can start to say it wasn't just that the Spirit moved, but that was revival.

Johnny Ova: So good. Let's turn the page now to the Second Great Awakening, which gave us Charles Finney, who some say manufactured revival through techniques. Where's the line between preparing for God to move and trying to manipulate a spiritual outcome?

Dr. Nathan Finn: This is a great question. There's not a good way to answer it without getting into the different convictions Christians have about certain doctrines. So I'm going to make a generalization. As a general rule, my friends who are more Reformed or Calvinist love them some Jonathan Edwards, and they're very suspicious of Charles Finney. My friends who are less Calvinistic appreciate Edwards, but they look at how the Lord worked through Finney and they get really excited. I'm not saying there's no right and wrong in those debates. I also think sometimes we care a little more about that than the Lord does. He works through both of these men in different ways. Edwards was more interested, especially as time went on, in what he could do to prepare for revival than our Reformed friends sometimes give him credit for. And Finney wasn't as interested in manufacturing revival as his critics accuse him of.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Here's what Finney did think. He felt there were certain patterns in Scripture and history, and if we did these things, the Lord often blesses that with revival. Early in his ministry he made some pretty strong claims, no doubt about it, that the right application of these means results in revival. But as time went on, Finney recognized that wasn't the most mature way to think about it. We're looking for the Spirit to do something unusual. So the best way to think about Finney is that he reminds us it's a good and godly thing to long for revival and to pray for revival. It's a good and godly thing to tell people when you're having preaching services. Part of it is he's just advertising what they're doing. It's a good and godly thing to have new Christians, or people who wandered away and came back, testify to what the Lord has done. I'm not saying Finney did all those things perfectly, but we do a lot of those things today. Even people who are theologically more like Jonathan Edwards do them.

Dr. Nathan Finn: So I'm interested in what we can learn from all of these guys. I think the Lord worked through all of them. Finney reminds us that preparation matters. It's okay to be intentional. And Jonathan Edwards reminds us that we can't drum it up. The Holy Spirit's still got to do it, and God moves in mysterious ways, his wonders to behold.

Johnny Ova: Amazing points. I often think God blesses the intentional too, the preparation, because it shows you take it seriously. At our church, and I'm sure many churches, we run a lot of sermon series. We're preparing weeks of sermons in advance. That doesn't mean God doesn't move in our church, because if God wants to flip the script on a whim, God will flip the script, and we'll let the Spirit flow as it needs to. But it shows the heart. We want people blessed. We want them to receive this word. There's something we believe God is stirring, and I think God blesses that. On the flip side, I think sometimes we deify these guys way too much, Finney and Edwards. They're humans like me and you. They make mistakes like me and you. They were doing what they thought was best. And I'm sure there are things in my life and your life we could point to and go, man.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Sure. Finney said later in life he was a little too man-centered early on, and Jonathan Edwards got fired from his church not for preaching the gospel but for calling people out by name when he was preaching, which is dumb. It's not wise. So they're not perfect. One of my mentors had a great saying: every man has feet of clay, and the bigger the man, the easier it is to see those toes. We need to remember these guys aren't perfect. There are no superheroes in the Christian life except Jesus. There's nobody who's an absolutely perfect role model. But these were good men, and they got things right more often than they got them wrong. We're never going to fully agree on what they got wrong, because we bring our own preferences to the table. But we can thank God for evidence that he moved through both of them and through all the other men in this great train of revival preachers throughout Christian history. Praise God for the work of spiritual awakening.

Johnny Ova: One hundred percent. You've also written about the Moravian hundred-year prayer meeting and how it birthed the modern missions movement. What's the connection between authentic revival and missional outreach?

Dr. Nathan Finn: They often go together. I don't know that we can say they go together 100 percent of the time, but I think we can say they almost always go together, and certainly over our lifetimes and our great-great-great-grandparents' lifetimes they've always gone together. Here's the great thing about what we call the First Great Awakening. It wasn't just one outpouring of the Spirit. You've got the Moravians in Europe, whom the Spirit is moving among. You've got other Pietists in Europe. You've got evangelicals in England. You've got Puritans like Jonathan Edwards in New England, as well as Presbyterians and others. The Lord's doing the same thing around the same time in different places across the transatlantic world. One of those movements is this hundred-year prayer meeting with the Moravians, a group of religious refugees who didn't fit in anywhere in continental Europe. Most of them were some type of Bible-believing Lutheran, a few were Bible-believing Calvinists, but they knew they didn't fit in anywhere.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Part of their ministry was that they began this hundred-year prayer meeting, and one of their prayers, when almost nobody was preaching the gospel cross-culturally, was that the gospel would spread to the ends of the earth. As people read about what the Moravians were doing, and the baby steps they took, intentional steps, but baby steps, to spread the gospel cross-culturally, it started to inspire people like Jonathan Edwards, some of the English Baptists, William Wilberforce and John Newton. Many of the earliest intentional mission movements among evangelicals in the English-speaking world came about, humanly speaking, though through the work of the Holy Spirit, because they were aware of what the Moravians were praying about and doing, and they were trying to extend it even further. For them, revival begat missions begat revival. Whenever God moves in one place, he raises up men and women to take the gospel to other places, and he moves there and raises up men and women to take it further. They wanted to see global spiritual awakening. Their prayer was, Lord, let it begin here, let it spread there, let it go everywhere. Whether it was the Moravians, Jonathan Edwards, William Carey or William Wilberforce, they were all singing that same tune, and we continue to sing it today. We've been shaped by them as we think about the relationship between spiritual awakening and kingdom advance here, there and everywhere.

Johnny Ova: Here's what confuses some people. Some revivals have weird manifestations, like Cane Ridge, and turned out to be genuine, while other emotional movements, or what seemed like great revivals, just fizzle out. How do we evaluate unusual spiritual phenomena as a whole within these revivals?

Dr. Nathan Finn: My caveat is that I don't think we're ever all going to agree on the what. But I think we can ask how the Holy Spirit can help us be discerning, with open Bibles, calloused knees, love for one another, and a sensitivity to what he's doing. Where revival comes, there is also chaos, because Satan loves to respond to revival with chaos. Revival comes to Northampton, and within a few months you have a couple of suicides from people who were emotionally troubled as they wrestled with spiritual experiences, and it puts a damper on that revival. When I talk to students about Cane Ridge, I say Cane Ridge is three things at the same time. It's a fantastic preaching experience. It's like an old-fashioned gospel hymn sing, whatever their version of that was. And it was like the NASCAR infield. You had people who were there because they loved the crowd, and they're getting drunk and fornicating back in the woods, because Satan loves to attach chaos to revivals.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Then we get to some of the controversial things we see today. I look at some of the recent revivals among my charismatic and Pentecostal friends, and I think it's real revival. I think the Holy Spirit's moving. But some of those manifestations, like barking like dogs, I have trouble finding an example of that in Scripture. I'm not sure the Spirit's moving in that manifestation, even though I think the Spirit is pouring out his power in the preaching of the gospel in those revivals, and many people are coming to faith in Christ. There will always be things like that we debate. Is that specific thing a work of the Spirit? But when people are coming to faith in Christ, when those who are already Christians are going deeper, and when it's spreading beyond the four walls of the church and impacting communities and neighborhoods and nations, I think we can call it revival, even if there's some man-centered stuff mixed in, and even when Satan comes alongside and sows chaos. I'd rather cheer on what it seems the Lord is doing in the big picture, even if I have concerns about little parts, than put the microscope on the little parts and say God can't move if we get anything wrong.

Johnny Ova: It's almost a balance. One of my mentors used to explain it as tightening the rope and loosening the rope. Sometimes you've got to tighten things up, and sometimes you've got to loosen things up. The way I understand it, for revival to hit, whether a global revival or a community revival, you can't be so tight that you choke out every move of God, but you can't be so loose that chaos is breaking out everywhere either.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Absolutely. The church is bigger than we think it is, and we have Scripture, which gives us our final authority for faith and practice, including how to assess all these different manifestations. We're never going to completely agree. But when Jesus prays, let them be one as we are one, I think we can live out the implications of that prayer if we have open Bibles, calloused knees and generous spirits. You don't have to agree with everything everybody's for to be excited about what God is doing through those folks over there. We spend a lot more time picking nits than we do cheering on what the Holy Spirit's doing among other brothers and sisters in Christ, in other traditions and other places, who are seeking to be faithful just like we are.

Johnny Ova: So good. Let's get specific about red flags. What are some warning signs that what looks like revival is actually hype and emotionalism, or even worse, spiritual manipulation?

Dr. Nathan Finn: It can be faked, and some people are really good at faking it, because again, Satan sows chaos. But as a general rule, I think it's when we don't see consistent fruit in those three big areas. When we're not seeing lots of people come to faith in Christ, just a lot of excitement, the Lord might be at work, but it's not really revival. When we see a lot of emotion and hype, especially with a lot of focus on key personalities, whether it's the preachers or the music, but people aren't growing deeper, in doctrinal soundness, in love for neighbor, in their walk with Christ and how they live out the Christian life, I'm not saying the Lord's not moving in any way, but that's probably not revival. When it's all about one group getting bigger and bigger, say a conference blows up and goes on for days, or a church keeps getting bigger, but it's not really having an impact on others around them, it's just their thing growing, I'm not saying the Lord's not in that, but I'm not sure it's revival, because it's not spreading beyond the four walls of the church.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Then there are the bigger concerns. Are we seeing lots of people get excited, but the gospel's not being clearly preached? Or lots of people getting excited, but there are obvious theological errors, where just about everybody else would say, man, those folks are weird, and they're the only ones saying, we're not weird, we're being faithful? Those are red flags. And any time we sense the key leaders are becoming personalities in their own right, even if it's not overt and intentional, and the fruit is that they're starting to build their own kingdom and following more than pointing people to the Master, that's a red flag. It might not mean the Lord's not using that guy, but someone needs to come alongside and say, hey, you need to check yourself before you wreck yourself.

Johnny Ova: It reminds me a little of the Lonnie Frisbee story. Here's this run-and-gun preacher, newer to the faith, who pairs up with what ended up being the Vineyard movement, and they try to bring some stability. As genuine and exciting as that was, it turned a little off base, at least in my opinion, where there was spiritual control. I watched a documentary on him on Amazon Prime, and there was one line Lonnie said that was so good: the people want the goodies, but they don't want me. I was like, man, so true.

Dr. Nathan Finn: That's good stuff.

Johnny Ova: So Asbury 2023 really captured the world's attention. I'm not asking you to play judge and jury, but what principles should we use to evaluate movements like this as they're happening?

Dr. Nathan Finn: Is the gospel being preached? Are lives being changed? Is it more about the kingdom and less about building something in that place? And what sort of fruit are we seeing from it? I look back at Asbury 2023, and I don't know that enough time has gone by to say it's a revival with a capital R. But I have no reason to question that it was a legitimate stirring of the Spirit. Some of the students from my university drove there and were impacted by what the Spirit was doing. And I think we've seen some fruit: young lives that are changed, more people going to the mission field, more people serious about their faith, even going into, quote unquote, secular fields. To me that's good fruit. The cool thing about Asbury is that if you look back over their history, they've had about a half dozen stirrings of the Spirit at different times. The Lord has done something in that place, a pattern of revival every generation or two.

Dr. Nathan Finn: In the 1970s there was a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit that still bears fruit today, so much so that almost everybody would say there was an Asbury revival in 1973. I hope in 15 years the fruit from 2023 is so clear that nearly every big-hearted Christian would say, that was obviously revival, look at what's happened there. I don't have concerns about Asbury. I praise God for what happened there, and I hope what happened at Asbury happens in 2025 and 2026 at universities all over the country. Make it so, Lord, please.

Johnny Ova: I'm adding a question here, because this popped into my head, and I'm not asking you to get political. I want to talk for a second about Charlie Kirk and his assassination. Whoever's listening, whether you were for or against him, agree or disagree, that's fine. I also own a marketing company. That's what I do for a living. I'm a pastor at the church, but it's a long story, I also run the marketing and the website for the church. We've been able to build that up. Our website gets over 60,000 hits a month at this moment, which is awesome. And in the two weeks after Charlie Kirk passed away, the number of searches for churches near me or Christian churches, and the number of people saying they're coming back to church, went way up. Whether you agree or disagree with his politics, there's no doubt it stirred something in people to take another look at church. I don't want to say could, because God can do anything, but what would you say about something like an assassination causing a stir of the Spirit and bringing people back to church in one way or another?

Dr. Nathan Finn: That's happened throughout history. Not necessarily an assassination, but some big tragic thing happens. For example, the stock market crash of 1857, which comes right before the Businessmen's Revival of 1857 and 1858. Or all the concerns in the postwar era about nuclear war and communism, and that's when the Lord's raising up Billy Graham, who's preaching the gospel all over the place. So uncertainty, chaos, tragedy are sometimes in the background, and the Lord works through them. He doesn't cause those things, but he works through them to generate spiritual interest in people's lives. I think something like that is happening right now. Now, whether it's revival, I don't know that we can say at this moment. I've been on several podcasts and talked about this, and I've written a little about it recently. You mentioned there's some debate about Charlie Kirk. I expect people who really love Charlie Kirk to say, of course it's revival. And I expect people who, maybe even more than Charlie Kirk, don't love Donald Trump to say there's no way it could be revival. Here's what I would say. We don't know.

Dr. Nathan Finn: But the Spirit is moving among people. There are more people who are Christian curious today than there were 90 days ago, and that's at least in part because of the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. So I think the Lord is at work. Is it revival? I don't know, but I pray it's revival, and I pray we see the fruit of it in the coming months. What I don't want is for us to get so worked up in our political opinions, about what one man said or didn't say, or what his friends or foes said about him, that we miss the fact that young people, especially young men, are more interested in the things of God than they were two years ago or even six months ago. I hope it's a revival. Lord, let it be so. But let's see what the fruit is in the coming days. For now, let's be good stewards of all the people who are more interested in the faith than they were a few months ago, and let's be good apologists and evangelists and disciplers as we connect with those folks.

Johnny Ova: Great point. All through history, evil and negativity have brought so many people to church. So what's our role in this? If God brings revival sovereignly, because God is sovereign, what's our role? Should we pray for it, prepare for it, faithfully preach and wait?

Dr. Nathan Finn: I think we should always be praying for the Lord to move, and it's okay to say, Lord, send a revival, and let it begin with me, like the old hymn says. So we should be praying and longing for revival. We should be sowing the gospel widely, in personal evangelism and in preaching. I would even include apologetics. You don't always get all the way to the gospel with apologetics, but I like what Greg Koukl says, that with apologetics we're putting stones in people's shoes so it keeps reminding them. So we're proclaiming the gospel and building bridges to the gospel here, there and everywhere. And as the Lord brings people to us, we're being good stewards and making disciples of those folks, not just saying, hey, we're glad you're here, give some money and join a small group, but really investing in them and helping them learn the Jesus way as they begin that journey. The Lord doesn't always move in response to that longing and faithfulness and proclamation. But when the Lord moves, it's often in response to that. So let's ask the Lord to move, trust him with the revival part, and focus on what's within our power with the help of the Holy Spirit, which is the faithfulness part.

Johnny Ova: Something to chew on there. I know you've studied this more than almost anyone. Are there historical patterns that suggest we might be approaching another great awakening? What should the church be watching for?

Dr. Nathan Finn: I do think there are historical patterns that give me reason to be hopeful. One of them, though it's not something we should be excited about, is that we're in a time of chaos and division. Again, it's often in chaos and division that the Lord starts to work. I'm not hoping for more chaos, but we're talking about history, and often when there's chaos and division, the Lord works in it. Another is the number of people who are Christian curious. There are all these folks who aren't just coming to faith in Christ, but are kicking the tires of the church and giving it a shot. Not just people at the grassroots, our neighbors, and in my university setting, young people, but even well-known people in our culture. People like the historian Tom Holland, and the atheist Richard Dawkins, who's now saying he's a cultural Christian. He's not born again, but he's more positive about Christianity than he was a year ago. People like Jordan Peterson. Joe Rogan is one of these people right now. They're curious and open, and I don't think they just drummed up that openness. I think that's the Holy Spirit softening their hearts and preparing to move in them, I hope, or at least through them to reach other people who are curious.

Dr. Nathan Finn: Then there's a mentality we see with some revivals, not every revival: a recognition that we are a counterculture. There was a time when America was much friendlier to the faith in general than it is now, and we lament the loss of that. But we also recognize that historically the church has been here before. And sometimes when the church has been here before, we find we're freed from cultural Christianity to run hard after Jesus and see the Lord pour out his Spirit. I look back to the pre-Constantine church, the early Anabaptist movement, the early Baptist movement, even Azusa Street. When the church or groups of churches were on the margins, the Lord poured out his Spirit, and we continue to see the fruit of that to this day. I think we could be in a moment like that. If we are, it would be a repetition of a pattern we see sometimes.

Johnny Ova: Exciting, very exciting. When it looks the darkest, our light shines the brightest, and this is our time as the church to step up. We're definitely looked at as a counterculture, but this is where we need to hold firm, love without conditions, really act like Christ, be like Jesus to this world, and stir that curiosity. All right, final question, Dr. Finn. For the pastor or Christian listening who longs to see genuine renewal in their church and community, what's the most important thing they need to know from your decades of studying revival?

Dr. Nathan Finn: Stay close and stay clean. I know that that's Christianity 101, but I really do think it's the most important thing. Pastors especially, and I'm a pastor as well, can start to become professional Christians. Cultivate a close walk with the Lord, and keep short accounts with the Lord whenever we stray into sin or start to drift. We want to be running hard after Jesus, and we want to be not just people who have repented, but people who are repentable, quick to repent whenever things go awry. I really do think that's the most important thing. Beyond that, there's the longing for the Lord to move, and being humble enough to say, Lord, even if in your sovereignty you don't do it in my church, I still want you to move in my city, and we'll get on board with whatever you're doing somewhere else. Having that kind of kingdom vision for the Lord pouring out his Spirit in different places.

Johnny Ova: I love it. Dr. Finn, thank you for your time today. How can people get hold of you? Are you on social media at all?

Dr. Nathan Finn: I'm not on social media a whole lot. I'm on LinkedIn, which is boring, and I'm on Instagram because I'm a college professor. The best place to find me is nathanfinn.com, my personal website, or my Substack, which is called Think Christianly, Live Faithfully. About once a week I write on topics like church history, apologetics and spiritual formation. Those are probably the best places to find me.

Johnny Ova: We'll have all those links in the description below. Again, Dr. Finn, I really enjoyed our conversation today. Thanks so much for joining me.

Dr. Nathan Finn: I did too. Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.