Andy Stanley Backs Up on Strange ‘Stop Praying, Just Go to Work’ Statements; Admits to Christian Post that he Contributed to Confusion

Andy Stanley

North Point Community Church lead pastor Andy Stanley clarified to The Christian Post about tweets he made earlier in the week that appeared to be criticism of Southern Baptist Convention leaders calling for a spiritual revival, explaining that he was talking about local revival rather than a Great Awakening-style revival.

On Tuesday, Stanley tweeted,

• “Instead of praying for revival leaders of the SBC should go spend three weeks with @perrynoble Why pray for one when you can go watch one.”
• “Praying for revival equates to blaming God for the condition of your local church.”
• “Why not call the Church to pray for the things Jesus & New Testament writers prayed for? Why add Revival to the list?”

• “Churches that need reviving most are the very churches that resist it most.”

Stanley conceded that the conversation spiraled beyond what he had intended it to be after he and others began diverging on what they meant by “revival.”

When asked to define the term, Stanley acknowledged to CP that he was speaking in terms of local revival. The Georgia megachurch pastor also explained that he wanted to draw attention to the revival-like growth and atmosphere at South Carolina’s New Spring Church, pastored by his friend Perry Noble.

“I realized about half way into what became an almost four hour discussion that many, maybe most, of the response was coming from people who were thinking more in terms of an awakening like America has experienced in the past,” he said.

He added, “I can understand the confusion and I definitely contributed to it.”

As the son of a former president of the Southern Baptist Convention, Stanley explained much of the frustration evident in his Tweets stemmed from growing up in Southern Baptist churches listening to church leaders pray for “revival” while being unwilling to make the organizational changes necessary to reach people.

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SOURCE: Morgan Lee
Christian Post