Is City Reach Worth It?

I was searching online for something earlier this week and I ran across an interesting link on a Google search. The link said,

Is tent revival worth it?

I thought to myself, "That sounds interesting." As I was right clicking on the link to open it in a new tab, I realized it was a link from boggsblogs.com. Well, I thought, it may not be interesting but it should be familiar!

I wrote the post in March 2013 as we were gearing up for a big tent revival season. It was interesting to me and it was timely for me to read it now, over three years after I wrote it. I have hauled the tent tens of thousands of more miles, set it up dozens of times and preached under the tent a few hundred more services since March 2013. What do I think about it now? 

I still have the same opinion that I had back then and hold that opinion even more firmly.

I have pasted the pertinent paragraphs below and added a few lines relevant to City Reach at the end. I hope you enjoy.
______________________

I thrive preaching revival. I love to see God reaching for folks and them reaching out to God. I love preaching the Word and watching hungry people grab hold of it. I am an evangelist and I love the whole process of revival. There have been several occasions that I have preached 25-30 weeks of revival in a row. Probably not the smartest thing in the world for our health's sake but people go to work in the factory, construction site and office week after week, why shouldn't I? I love and believe in revival.

But throw 8-10 tent revivals into the mix and it changes everything. The tent revivals add a whole new meaning to the word, work. The tent set up, tent tear down each week, PA set up and tear down each night most places, the logistics of setting the meetings in advance, coordinating with Pastors to make sure everything is ready, pulling the trailer, finding a place to park, the enormous financial pressure and the list goes on and on...

I have not even mentioned the spiritual part of the meetings which includes sermon preparation, prayer, the actual singing and preaching and carrying the burden for each meeting. It seems as if we face more spiritual opposition under the tent than we do in normal revival. I suppose this is because we are daring to reach for those under the oppression or possession of the enemy and reaching for them out there on his turf. All of this on top of our normal responsibilities with the bus, regular revivals and family time.

So, is tent revival worth all of that?

Read my lips. It is absolutely worth all of that and more. It is wonderful to see people saved under the tent that have refused to go into our churches. There is no doubt about it. Everything that goes into having tent revivals is worth it.

There may be years that we do less tent revivals than other years. There may come a time when I am not able to keep up with the physical demands of tent revivals. It may be that we walk through other doors of opportunity as God leads and we do less tent revivals as a result of that.

But for the foreseeable future we want to preach as many tent revivals as possible. I want to take the message of the Gospel to the world as long as I can and I want to do it as effectively as I can. IF we believe the Gospel message and IF we believe the world needs to hear it then we have a duty to proclaim that message as loud as we can and for as long as we can.
__________________________________

When I wrote that in early 2013, the vision of City Reach was forming as a vague notion in my mind and had began to firmly materialize later in the year. Now, in May 2016 we are witnessing City Reach come to pass by the grace of God and the help of His people.

City Reach Tent Revival is more difficult than I ever imagined. It is more expensive than I anticipated. It has more challenges than I visualized. But it is better than I envisioned and we are more blessed than I predicted!

It is the most demanding and strenuous thing I have ever attempted both physically and emotionally but it is absolutely worth it! We are being blessed a thousand times over for any little irritation we encounter. We are super glad God called us to this task and we can not wait to see what the end is going to be!

Is City Reach Worth It? A thousand times YES!!!

Thank you for coming along for the ride. There are literally hundreds of you that are praying for us every day and that makes this worth it all by itself!

Thanks for reading.

Davy