Last month, Ric Seaver and I were blessed to attend the “New Room Conference” in Franklin, Tennessee, a suburb of Nashville.  New Room is a conference and movement that has come out of Seedbed publishing, which is connected to Asbury Seminary in Kentucky.  It is a fresh expression of Evangelical, Wesleyan, Spirit-filled Christianity and has some of the most exciting material available for we who are working for and looking for a new Great Awakening!

One of the main focuses of New Room is resurrecting the Wesleyan band meetings. Band meetings were the “engine” of the Wesleyan revival of the 1700’s in England and America. They were part of a two-pronged strategy of John and Charles Wesley that included Class Meetings and Band Meetings. Many historians credit this strategy for the revival, at least from our human perspective (obviously, the Holy Spirit gets the most credit!).  The Class Meeting was a small group of 12-15 people who gathered each week to ask the question, “How goes it with your soul?” and to watch over one another in love.  The Band Meeting was an even smaller group of 3-5 people (all men or all women) who met each week to ask five questions, the first of which was “What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?”

What?

Yeah, that’s right.  The Band Meeting was formed to fulfil the biblical command of James 5:16, “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”  We Protestants like to think that we only need confess our sins to God, but James clearly states that this is not enough. Why? Because there is healing power that transforms us when our sins are not safely kept in the dark!  “For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.” (John 3:20)

Are you interested in “banding together” with other earnest Christians, seeking to grow in holiness?  Ric and I have materials to get you started.

Blessings,

Pastor Glen