How Should We Prepare Financially for a Revival?

“Online retailer Tigris.com’s stock plummeted today as the people of Nineveh donned sackcloth and ashes to see if God would spare them. The company noted that margins on sackcloth and ashes are very low, and the command to fast has dramatically reduced sales.” (Jonah 3)1

“Construction supply giant Jerusalem Depot’s stock rallied on speculation that the cupbearer to the king was surveying Jerusalem’s walls and was planning to repair them.” (Nehemiah 2)

“Beyond Cud, a producer of pork products, experienced a significant price decline as an up-and-coming Rabbi named Jesus was blamed for sending thousands of Beyond Cud’s pigs to their death.” (Mark 5)

The three fictional headlines above were my humorous attempt (give me grace) to imagine how CNBC or the Wall Street Journal might describe the impact of these revivals from a business perspective.

I recently toured the site of the Asbury Awakening with Zach Meerkreebs, a leader during the outpouring. He described the events, the spirit, and the logistics as people descended on the campus. Since then, spiritual outpourings have occurred on numerous other campuses worldwide. Renewal movements touch many people at deep levels, and those changes affect how people live, including what they buy.

It raises the question: How should we prepare financially for a broad-based renewal or revival?

Step 1: Assess your discipleship where faith and finance meet.

Renewal movements often represent swift fixes to cultural excesses. How did Asbury students point to today’s excesses? Many turned in their phones. Perhaps better described as anxiety-producing machines with e-commerce capabilities that also make calls, our phones create or magnify many challenges. Is looking at everyone else’s highlight reels causing you to spend money on the wrong things? Are you more focused on reaching the next level of wealth or lifestyle? Tim Keller noted, “Jesus warns people far more often about greed than about sex, yet almost no one thinks they are guilty of it… If greed hides itself so deeply, no one should be confident that it is not a problem for them.”2

Step 2: Get ready economically as well as spiritually.

Asbury’s President, Kevin Brown, believes, “Gen Z is emerging as a corrective to the casual Christianity that has marked our religious landscape and characterized our dechurching movement.”3 As Keller noted, Christians have become comfortable with our current economic relationship. Any correction is likely to involve scaling back spending. Would anyone like to defend the proposition that our society spends too little on itself?

The paradox of thrift observes that recessions often start because economic risks increase, people cut back on spending to protect themselves, and the cutting back causes a recession. Unlike in other areas, when cutting back, it pays to be first rather than last.

Make sure you are doing well at work. Paul instructed the Thessalonians to “…make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business, work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.” 

That is still fantastic advice.

Step 3: Prepare for some market volatility.

The stock market is made up of companies that profit from the existing system. About 50% of the S&P 500’s value is from technology, communication services, and consumer discretionary stocks. Many companies' bottom lines depend on your phone habits.

Jesus sums up a section of the Sermon on the Mount with this simple phrase: “You cannot serve both God and money.” (Matthew 6:24b). Many evangelical Christians seem to assume this doesn’t apply to the economy or the stock market even though they derive their value from the same processes and products we warn people against.

As we continue to pray for revival, our hearts must be more aligned with God’s heart for the lost and a pure and spotless bride than it is with our possessions and the creature comforts of our western culture.

1 The Tigris River runs through Nineveh.
2 Tim Keller, Counterfeit Gods
3 What the Asbury Revival Taught Me About Gen Z | Christianity Today