Emmaus City Church | United with Jesus in what He is doing in, with, and for Worcester, MA: Revival

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Saturday, September 20, 2025

Revive New England | Consecrate a Refresh on United Prayer

Promised Breakthrough + Joshua 3:5

Consecrate yourselves,

for tomorrow

the LORD will do wonders

among you.

+ Joshua 3:5

Throughout the past two years, people who follow Jesus in New England have together been leaning into more prayer and worship across states, congregations, traditions, ethnicities, and cultures.

The hope is trusting that God comes where He's wanted, so we will continue to posture ourselves to open the door for His Holy Spirit to hit a refresh on a movement of united prayer in our region.

Here are notes from previous times together:

+ In Our Time w/ Jon Tyson: 3/15/23

+ In Our Time w/ Asbury Team: 3/8/24

+ Consecrate: Build New Altars: 8/10/24

In keeping with this commitment, people throughout New England gathered again today on Saturday, September 20, 2025 to praise, pray, and posture themselves together to listen to the Lord and lean in with each other to experience His heart for New England.

"Consecrate 2025 - Join Us!" Video

The invite for Consecrate 2025 was to see:

When a wave comes,

you have three options.

You can stay out of the water

and miss it.

You can be out of position

and get rolled by it.

Or you can be ready in the water

and ride it to shore.

The Church in New England

stands at a defining hour.

After decades of spiritual decline,

a wave is rising:

a wave of God's presence

and His Kingdom.
And the question is:

Are we going to be

ready for it?

Joshua 3:5 says,
"Consecrate yourselves,

for tomorrow the LORD

will do amazing things

among you."

Consecrate 2025 is a

regional call to consecrate

our hearts to covenant together

and prepare for awakening.

Come encounter His presence.

Catch the vision

for extraordinary prayer.

Get equipped to build

altars of prayer in your heart,

the Church, and the city,

and strengthen the unity

across New England.

So that's what five of us from Emmaus City Church did. And Consecrate 2025 proved to be a holy convocation for us in beautiful ways, providing a call for us to align our hearts with God’s purposes.

As we gathered on a beautiful Saturday morning, God ignited fresh hunger, deepened unity, and empowered us as part of Jesus' Church to continue to labor for awakening in New England.

With a Spirit-filled atmosphere among the people gathered at Crossroads International Church in Attleboro, Massachusetts, encounters with God were experienced through times of worship and prayer. We received a compelling vision for commitment to prayer via the New England Revival Covenant, and we were encouraged to build altars of prayer through establishing regular rhythms of prayer.

Here are some additional notes from some of the main sessions.

The Day You Plant Is Not the Day You Eat the Fruit

David Thomas

"Sowing for a Great Awakening"

Asbury Theological Seminary

When the rains fall,

the water knows where to go.

If it happened before,

it can happen in Worcester

(Providence, Springfield, Attleboro,

Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut).

We need an outpouring.

"I am hearing your desperate cries,

so don't stop."

+ Jesus

We're seeking an event together

that leads to community

into a journey of hope.

Covenant is banding together.

We need relationships that are

Unbreakable.

Unoffendable.

The work is humbling,

never ending,

always in repair.

Become utterly immune

to Church hurt.

We renounce it.

We may feel it,

but it won't break us.

If I had cherished sin in my heart,

the Lord would not listen.
+ Psalm 66:18

It's the price of needing fellowship,

and the cost of participating

in the sufferings of Jesus.

Jesus won't skip over

our local churches

to get a better region.

The relationships may be

the only rescue

we get on this awakening.

I can't look at the news

without withering

unless I look through the lens

of awakening.

I was braced for the worst, but

Jesus is bringing the beautiful.

It's the "J" curve.

I have never been alive

when the American Church

has been in an upturn.

We have

a trowel and a sword.

The resistance

is only going to intensify.

Get back your voice of

travailing prayer

for your neighbors

Jesus died to save.

Be wrecked by Jesus,

ruined in the real of the

westernized, compromised

American Church experience.

Pray,

"You are a covenant-making,

covenant-keeping God.

We hold You to Your promises."

Travailing, enduring, tenacious prayer.

It comes to those whose hearts

are willing to be plowed up.

This the prayer of the Hebrew slaves

who groaned to God in their suffering.

This is the prayer of Hannah who

the priest thought she was drunk.

This the prayer of the prophets

who cling to God like a belt at the waist

(ex. Jeremiah 13:1-13).

This is the prayer of the Psalms
(ex. 126).

This is the prayer of Jesus: During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, He offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverent submission (Hebrews 5:7).

"Come and see

the Christians pray."

The not-yet-believer:

You're saying that

the way you pray

is how God feels, longs for me?

I am nothing more

than the son of

my mother's (St. Monica) tears.

+ St. Augustine

Will we be decidedly less casual

in our prayers for this region?

"Jesus, I don't have to see it,
but I will pray for it."

Ten Lepers by James Christensen

Sam Gibson

Pray.NYC

Church of the City New York

I want to be the leper

who comes back

and thanks Jesus.

I want to be the spy

who comes back

with a good report.

+ Church of the City Story

Woman has a dream.

No religious background.

Darkness everywhere.

Figure in light comes in the room.

Room filled with light.

Figure begins to leave ...

Woman calls out, "Wait!"

Jesus, "Don't worry.

When you wake up, repent."

Calls pastor (closest church)

in morning,

"I don't know

what it means to repent."

Comes to faith.

Husband comes to faith.

Serving in local church

for past 6 months.

When normal people give

an unprecedented "Yes" to Jesus,

significant things happen.

Movement goes from

Complacency to

Curiosity to

Conviction to

Capacity to

Cost for Christ. }

But when public capacity

begins to surpass

private capacity for prayer ...

Ask,

"What's your private capacity

for prayer?"

Are we asking for something
(i.e. weight, glory of God)
we don't have the capacity for?

Can you increase your capacity 1%?

Expect great things from God.

Attempt great things for God.

The attempt will cost us dearly

or it will be worth nothing.

+ William Carey

+ Read Luke 14:25-33

The Cost of Discipleship

to Follow Jesus Wholeheartedly
(focus for ECC on Saturday, 9/6)

Jesus says there's,

| 1 | a cost of love,

| 2 | a cost of building, and

| 3 | a cost of war.

Jesus has lovers,

builders, and warriors.

If you don't know

which one you are,

ask someone.

| 1 |

The Cost of Love

There is a weight to the cost

of loving Jesus above all else.

Do you fight for

your 2% of capacity that "you own"

more than lukewarm people

hold onto 100% of their lives?

If Christ is not all to you

He is nothing to you. ...

If He be something

He must be everything, and

if He be not everything

He is nothing to you.

+ Charles Spurgeon

Bonus:

Monday, January 13, 2025

Reappearing Church | Practicing Presence + Prayer for Revival

Psalm 126 by Salt + Gold

When renewed and revived,

we discover the same phenomenon —
a person or a handful of people
who have gotten to the end of themselves,
who cannot tolerate it anymore,
who fall at the feet of Christ
and are filled with His presence,
who become infectious agents
of His Kingdom in the world.
Contenders for His renewal.

+ Mark Sayers,

Reappearing Church

Along with Ready or Not, We Died Before We Came Here, A Time to Heal, Red Skies, God in the Garden, Anonymous ... and Longing for Revival, Reappearing Church by Mark Sayers since I read it for the first time during the fall of 2021 has been a key book the past few years that continues to fuel my thoughts, prayers, and meditations heading into 2025. Part of the reason why is captured in what Mark says during the 60-second trailer for Reappearing Church:

This dangerous question kept

coming into my head,

this time from God,

it could only come from God:

"What if at this moment

I would like to renew

the Western Church?

"What if I have to let

it get so bad?

What if you have to get

to the point where you're

incredible worship that is just

trying to be as close to the culture

as possible, it's not going to work?

"Leaders who project this

atmosphere and personal of cool

and seem really relevant,

that's not going to work?

"You can download every Netflix series,

comment on it,

watch every independent movie,

listen to every cutting edge album,

reference it in your churches,

and that's not going to work?

"Because renewals happen

when people get to

the end of themselves,

when there's nothing left

to rely on except

contending on your knees for

God's presence to move."

My hope in the year ahead is that Emmaus City Church will grow in praying and contending together on our knees so that we may learn how to walk with more unhinged resurrection hope, seeking to see to join what Jesus is up to in us and in Worcester.

Reappearing Church:
Personal Renewal Is Friendship with God

"It is time for you, noble friend,
to be known by God and
to become His friend,"
wrote the early church father
Gregory of Nyssa.
This is the root of personal renewal
— a friendship with God ...

... Freed from the rule of the crowd, from our instinct to anxiously herd into the group-think, from the buzz of constant distraction, we turn from the faces of those around us to look upon His face. As we do this, we begin to grasp who He really is, and strangely as we look toward God, our true selves come into clear view. We are struck by how far we fall short of Him, how we have tried to remold Him in our own image; our pitiable games at playing god are exposed, the ruse of radical individualism is shown for the fraud it is. Just at the moment when, in comparison to God, it seems that we as humans could not shrink any smaller, the divine hand of grace reaches out to remake us. Shocked by the seeming incongruence of such a moment, we find ourselves again standing before the paradox of the cross, in which justice and love are held together.

Every renewal and revival
begins with people
who reach such a moment,
who truly come to the end of themselves,
discovering the depth of their own sin and
the immensity of a holy God
who is intent on removing
rebellion, evil, and ill from the world,
yet who sent His Son to die upon the cross
to invite us to be on His side
in the remaking of the world.

Such moments then become
seeds planted in harvest.

No longer do we face
the heavy task of defining ourselves,
or crafting our own identity;
instead, He will do that now, when
we fully give ourselves over to Him.

He will begin molding us into a redeemed version of ourselves we could never believe possible. For He wishes to shape us, so we can return to our original purpose of partnering with Him in His plan to move history to His purposes, flooding the world with His presence.

Reappearing Church:
The Searching Manifestation of Presence

(With true friendship with God), the barred rooms reserved for our personal autonomy must be opened up, the keys must be handed over. His presence must be invited to flood in, filling every inch of our lives.

For our goal is not self-actualization,

nor self-expression; rather,

it is life with God.
Life with the presence.

We must decrease,
so He can increase.

For as we decrease, we become more filled with His presence, taking His presence with us into our lives, into the web of relationships in which we move, the places we visit, the moments in time we inhabit ...

The Western life system
has formed us
in a particular way
that creates people
who resist the move of God
in subconscious ways.
The average Westerner
is a radical individualist
who is deeply afraid
of compromising their autonomy.
He or she determines
their self-worth and identity
primarily horizontally,
via the media, culture, or peers.

We are shaped by the
passive-aggressive tone of consumerism,
where we want maximum say
with minimum responsibility.

We are shaped primarily by
our fluid and ever-shifting feelings.

We yearn for community and connection,
yet fear commitment and consistency.

We wish for justice
while desiring hedonistic payoffs.

We religiously point the finger at others
while jealously guarding our own right
to do as we please.

All these factors place us
in a spiritually precarious place.

The hard truth is that even when we come to the end of ourselves, stepping into a holy discontent with our culture, these patterns have deeply shaped us. They have turned us into the kind of people ... who most likely will resist renewal ... J.I. Packer writes that "it is with this searching, scorching manifestation of God's presence that renewal begins, and by its continuance that renewal is sustained." His presence is both the destination and the road. As His presence comes among us during renewal, our flesh — that part of us which wishes for autonomy, to achieve our own kingdom separate from God — is confronted. It feels the scorching of His presence. This can happen on both a personal and corporate level as God shapes and prepares us for the end of history when His presence will fill the earth, and to mold us into agents of His presence in the world, partnering with Him in His renewal plans.

Reappearing Church:
Holiness, Conviction, Confession

God is holy, and so are His dwelling places. His temples — our lives, the Church, or creation — must be filled with His holiness. In 1904, a revival touched Wales. Upwards of 100,000 people came to faith in an outpouring of God's presence that radically changed the face of the country. A crucial spark that lit the fire of revival occurred when a young man named Evan Roberts prayed with a small group of young people after a service. He left the Lord challenging them to do the following:

+ Put away any unconfessed sin
+ Put away any doubtful habit
+ Obey the Spirit promptly
+ Confess Christ publicly

All seventeen responded, choosing the way of holiness. This quiet and sacred moment, a foundation, must be seen in relation to the incredible and visible victories that occurred in the large-scale move of God across Wales.

Renewal cannot come without holiness.
God wishes to rid His temples
of what does not please Him.

Conviction can be met with defensiveness and avoidance, or even then temptation of self-condemnation, yet its true partner is confession. When God lovingly shines a light on an area in which we fall short of His standards, it is an act of mercy. The divine sword comes, but its intent is to cut us free of the net that ensnares our hearts. For as James instructs, confession brings spiritual power and effectiveness: "Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective" (James 5:16).

Reappearing Church:
Hardened Soil Turned Back
into Fertile Earth

We recently renovated our home. Our backyard was dug up, and a truckload of fresh, rich, fertile soil was brought in. We sowed into the ground a bag of expensive grass seed to ensure a lush lawn. However, it was summer, and the scorching sun was arriving. Apart from a few areas, the grass struggled to grow. Months later, the grass still was in patches, and the fertile rich soil had hardened into a grassless surface. My suggested solution was simply to buy some more seed online and throw it on the hardened ground. Much wiser was my wife, who went out one afternoon with a rake, breaking and digging up the hardened soil. It was an act of destruction that had to precede the creation to come. If I had gone ahead with my foolish plan, the seed would have sat on top of the hardened layer of earth, only to wash away when the rains came.

Before His rains of blessing
and renewal come,
the soil must be broken up,
turned over,
so we can be ready to receive.

Hardened soil must be
turned back into fertile earth.

In renewal, the breaking down
must come before the building up.
God prepares the soil of the heart

by sending His presence to convict us.

As God's holy presence comes among us, because it comes to fight the flesh, a conviction regarding sin will be felt strongly. In light of His presence, what was accepted before can no longer be tolerated. Sin must be discovered and exposed to the light of His coming. When this happens, "it is time to cease excusing our sins by calling them shortcomings or natural weakness, or by attributing them to temperament or environment. It is time to cease justifying our carnal ways and materialistic outlook by pointing to others who are the same," writes Arthur Wallis, noting that we must step into this conviction, which removes the way in which our flesh is resisting His Spirit, for "we must face our sins honestly in the light of God's Word, view them as He does and deal with them as before Him. Until we do, it would be well that God should withhold the rain of revival."

Reappearing Church:
Contenders for His Renewal
Through Prayer and Fasting

The Church begins when a disparate and disheveled group of very ordinary people, crying out to God, are filled with His presence. This handful of renewed people, with no army, no political power, and little funds, would turn the world upside down.

At every moment the Church has been
renewed and revived,
we discover the same phenomenon —

a person or a handful of people

who have gotten to the end of themselves,

who cannot tolerate it anymore,

who fall at the feet of Christ

and are filled with His presence,

who become infectious agents

of the Kingdom in the world.

Contenders for His renewal.

I shall see no hope
until individual members of the Church
are praying for revival,
perhaps meeting in one another's homes,
meeting in groups amongst friends,
meeting together in churches,
meeting anywhere you like, and
praying with urgency and concentration
for a shedding forth of the power of God,
such as He shed forth
one hundred and two hundred years ago,
and in every other period of revival,
and of reawakening.
There is no hope until we do.
But the moment we do, hope enters.

+ Martyn Lloyd-Jones

Those renewed, experiencing a microcosm of revival within themselves, those who are hungry and thirsting for righteousness, find each other.

We discover that

much of our holy discontent

is born of a life that is suffering

from what Richard Foster calls

"the agony of prayerlessness."

Our lives are designed

to be in intimate relationship

and friendship with God.

When we don't pray,

we become spiritually dehydrated.

Understanding now

that the challenges of life are

to be met not with futile human striving

but on the bended knee,

prayer becomes indispensable to living.

As we step into contending prayer, no longer do we fill awkward silence with perfunctory prayers and laundry lists of inconsequential requests. Instead, rumbling, reverberating, desperate prayers begin.

Prayer Begins

Eventually holy discontent forms

into a desire to pray

that can no longer be ignored.

With the status quo no longer tolerated,

the only way forward is

to cry out to God

for His intervention into the world.

Prayer moves from something desirable

but rarely practiced in the Christian life

to something indispensable and foundational.

Small Groups Begin Praying Together

A handful of people find each other.
They are united by their driving desire
to pray and contend for God to act.
In the north of Scotland,
two elderly disabled sisters
prayed together by their fire,
leading to the Hebridean revival.
The revival that broke out in New York
during the nineteenth century
can be traced back to
a handful of businessmen praying
at lunch in a small room in Wall Street.
The awakening that occurred in South India
in the 1930s was contended for
by three preteen boys, w
ho had become transformed by God,
and early each morning prayed
in the jungle on the edges of their town.

Contending & Standing in the Gap
Prayer that proceeds God moving
is contending prayer.
To contend is to struggle,
to stretch for something.
This is proactive prayer,
beseeching God to move,
in which we cry out for God's mercy
on behalf of ourselves,
our communities, and nations.
To, as the book of Ezekiel states,
"Stand before me in the gap
on behalf of the land" (22:30).

Contending Prayer is Spiritual Warfare

As we adopt the posture of contending,
it becomes vital to understand
that we are not contending against
those who come against us in opposition,
but as Scripture teaches us,
the powers and principalities,
the forces that resist Christ's rule,
wishing to keep us in a state of enslavement,
and oppose God's plan of renewal in the world.
We practice contending prayer,
then, to acknowledge that God fights
our spiritual battles for us.

Key Renewal Principle:
Renewal Only Comes with
Prayer and Fasting

Contending prayer then becomes normative
amongst those seeking renewal.
Such prayer asks God to
change our churches, our culture,
and our world,
yet it also changes us as we pray,
reshaping us in the patterns of the Kingdom.

+ Excerpts above from

Chapter 9: Preparing for Renewal &

Chapter 12: Remnants in

Reappearing Church: The Hope for Renewal

by Mark Sayers

Bonus Quotes

You never go away from us,
yet we have difficulty in returning to You.
Come, Lord, stir us up and call us back.
Kindle and seize us.
Be our fire and our sweetness.
Let us love. Let us run.

+ North African St. Augustine of Hippo

Christianity has died many times

and risen again;

for it had a God who knew

the way out of the grave.

+ G.K. Chesterton

Bonus Podcast

Rebuilders:

Frontline of Renewal Reports

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

Pages

Saturday, September 20, 2025

Revive New England | Consecrate a Refresh on United Prayer

Monday, January 13, 2025

Reappearing Church | Practicing Presence + Prayer for Revival