A God-Sized Vision Quotes

“I arrived back to find Revival in over twenty villages with the same accompaniments as we had on the station, conviction and confession of sin under great emotional stress, followed by great joy and zeal to win others,” Brazier wrote on December 12, 1936. “It was a common practice for the whole congregation to spend the whole night in the village church, chiefly in prayer and praise. A feature of this conviction was that it came as a result of prayer and not as a result of preaching. These ‘revived’ people are a joy to question for Baptism. Whereas it is often hard work to draw anything spontaneous from the average candidate, these are just full of what the Lord has done for them.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“The effects following this movement are wholly good — the church raised up to a higher spiritual level, almost entire absence of fanaticism because of previous careful instruction in the Bible; not one case of insanity, but many thousands clothed in their right mind; scores of men called to the holy ministry; greater congregations, searching the Word, as many as two thousand meeting in one place for the study of the Bible; many thousands learning to read, and making inquiries; multitudes of them pressing upon the tired missionary and native pastors praying, “Give us to eat.” I beseech you do not listen to any word suggestions of doubt as to the vitality and reality of this. Drunkards, gamblers, thieves, adulterers, murderers, self-righteous Confucianists and dead Buddhists, and thousands of devil-worshipers have been made new men in Christ, the old things gone forever.29”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“Between 1906 and 1907, the Presbyterian churches grew from 54,987 members to 73,844. The Methodists grew from 18,107 in 1906 to 39,613 in 1907.24 Extending this range to a five-year period, Korean churches altogether added 80,000 converts, more than the total number of Christian converts during eighty years of missionary activity in neighboring China.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“Presbyterian missionary William Blair remembered. The prayer sounded to me like the falling of many waters, an ocean of prayer beating against God’s throne. It was not many, but one, born of one Spirit, lifted to one Father above. Just as on the day of Pentecost, they were all together in one place, of one accord praying, “and suddenly there came from heaven the sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” God is not always in the whirlwind, neither does he always speak in a still small voice. He came to us in Pyongyang that night with the sound of weeping. As the prayer continued, a spirit of heaviness and sorrow for sin came down upon the audience. Over on one side, someone began to weep, and in a moment the whole audience was weeping.21”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“The Post confirmed 100,000 conversions in Wales and said police found no crime to investigate amid “an almost complete realization of the Golden Rule in all affairs of daily life.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“By June the revival began to wane. But Roberts’s vision had been realized. An estimated 100,000 confessed Christ. The Congregationalists added 26,500 members. Another 24,000 Welsh joined the Calvinist Methodist Church. About 4,000 opted for the Wesleyan Church. The remainder were split between the Anglicans and several Baptist groups.13 The effect on Welsh society was undeniable. Output from the coal mines famously slowed because the horses wouldn’t move. Miners converted in the revival no longer kicked or swore at the horses, so the horses didn’t know what to do.14 Judges closed their courtrooms with nothing to judge. Christians wielded the revival as apologetic against the growing number of skeptics who derided religion. Stead argued: The most thoroughgoing materialist who resolutely and forever rejects as inconceivable the existence of the soul in man, and to whom “the universe is but the infinite empty eye-socket of a dead God,” could not fail to be impressed by the pathetic sincerity of these men; nor, if he were just, could he refuse to recognize that out of their faith in the creed which he has rejected they have drawn, and are drawing, a motive power that makes for righteousness, and not only for righteousness, but for the joy of living, that he would be powerless to give them.15”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“Roberts called upon Christians to pray for Wales. He believed the church of Jesus Christ on its knees is invincible. Roberts exhorted audiences toward greater faith and spiritual power. He urged them to confess all known sins and reconcile immediately with anyone they had wronged. He spurred Christians to shed any lingering doubt that hindered their relationship with God. He called on them to obey the Holy Spirit without flinching. And he urged all believers to make public profession of their faith in Christ. His messages were not noted for their expert handling of God’s Word, even if they were consistent with its message.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“Few of us are tempted today to dream too big. Rather, our vision shrinks to the size of our limited experience. Yet all things are possible for those who believe in the God who created the heavens and the earth. In our disbelief, we can ask God for inspiration to believe. Then he may give us a vision of divine size.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“For Calvin, then, a God-sized vision constitutes far more than having a “big” vision of God’s capacity to display great power in the world. Rather, it calls us to completely reorient our frame of reference through which we look at the world. Someone who lives with a God-sized vision affirms that gaining knowledge of God precedes gaining knowledge of man. To acquire this knowledge of God, we turn to Scripture. There we see Christ, and in reflecting on Christ, we gain more knowledge of God the Father. As Martin Luther observes, Christ is a mirror of our heavenly Father’s loving heart. Yet this Father will also judge according to his own standards of righteousness, not ours. This God holds the nations in his hands. He alone empowers our ministry. We must not depend on methods, cultural exegesis, strategies, and techniques (helpful though some of them can be) as our end-all approach to doing ministry. We desperately need to depend on the power of the Holy Spirit in our day-to-day lives. A God-sized vision helps us to understand that the Lord really does love us and care for us. He provides for us. The doctrine of God’s providence gives us both courage and comfort. Trusting that God as our loving heavenly Father wants our good, we can even dare to pray the Lord’s Prayer with sincerity, including the phrase “Thy will be done.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“A gentleman once asked me whether I allowed my children to read the books of infidels. I told him yes: for they must become acquainted with them sooner or later, and while I am living I can confute the arguments they use,” Dwight explained. “I should be unwilling to have them find these arguments unawares, with nobody to meet them.”12”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir

“It was wonderful to see the change soon made in the manners of our inhabitants. From being thoughtless or indifferent about religion, it seem’d as if all the world were growing religious, so that one could not walk thro’ the town in an evening without hearing psalms sung in different families of every street.”
― Collin Hansen, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories that Stretch and Stir