It was in 2007 that I read Streams of Living Water by Richard J. Foster. Now, that was a unique book. It brought together the spirituality of Leonard Ravenhill, Assembly of God, Billy Graham, and St. Francis of Assisi. It brought the Baptist, the Pentecostal, the contemplative charismatic Catholics, and the Wesleyan-holiness people into one spot. And in one way or another, blended them so that you don’t feel confused, but fulfilled in every dimension of Christian spirituality as its described in the Bible. It truly was an “eat the meat and spit out the bones” approach to applying the Bible to your spiritual life. It was also educational in that it forced you to think outside of the theological box; and like Wesley, to sort of adopt an evangelical ecumenism, or what he had called a “catholic spirit,” in one of his sermons.

Since 2007, instead of going the way of Billy Graham into Christian universalism, I’ve gone more in the direction of Leonard Ravenhill and David Wilkerson. This means that the priority of Christian spirituality is laid on the Wesleyan-holiness tradition, because it helps you flesh out the Gospel and preach it properly, and to view the building of fervent evangelistic sermons, as the most important “work of an evangelist,” that a preacher of any type could be “called by God” to do (2 Tim. 4:5; Heb. 5:4). Second to that, comes the call to private prayer. As far as I understand, Ravenhill had a few heroes in the life of prayer: 1. E. M. Bounds, 2. David Brainerd, and 3. A. W. Tozer. He believed that cultivating a private prayer life opened you up to the influence and guidance of the Holy Spirit; and could even alter other people’s conversions with God’s presence, and create revival events that surpass human control and planning.

Ravenhill and Wilkerson both believed in prophetic ministry or sharing words of knowledge during services, but laid such a small emphasis on them, because they knew that they were so prone to abuse, confusion, and scandal. They believed that a preacher’s primary task was PRIVATE PRAYER and building EVANGELISTIC SERMONS; and so they stuck to those two main tasks.

I also think that John Wimber, with whom Ravenhill ministered on occasion, can teach us to supplement the Wesleyan-holiness and Assembly of God spirituality with a stronger charismatic emphasis on worship, the presence of God, and divine healing. And that these spiritualities, when converging are healthy, if they’re put in that order. It also agrees with the general three-fold set of priorities that Assembly of God set for church life so long ago: 1. Evangelism, 2. Edification, and 3. Worship (see P. C. Nelson, Bible Doctrines, pp. 91-94).

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Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water (HarperCollins, 1998).

Mack Tomlinson, In Light of Eternity (Free Grace Press, 2010).

Leonard Ravenhill, Why Revival Tarries (Bethany House Publishers, 1959).

—. Meat for Men (Bethany House Publishers, 1961).

—. Revival Praying (Bethany House Publishers, 1962).

—. Tried and Transfigured (Bethany House Publishers, 1963).

—. Sodom Had No Bible (Bethany House Publishers, 1971).

—. America Is Too Young to Die (Bethany House Publishers, 1979).

—. Revival God’s Way (Bethany House Publishers, 1983).

David Wilkerson, The Vision (Spire Books, 1974).

—. Racing Toward Judgment (Spire Books, 1976).

—. Set the Trumpet to Thy Mouth (World Challenge, 1985).

P. C. Nelson, Bible Doctrines (Gospel Publishing House, 2009).

John Wimber, Power Healing (HarperCollins, 1987).