How to Ignite Revivalists

School Culture

Supernatural schools exist to produce students who know God and carry revival. In order to ignite revivalists through your school, we encourage you to intentionally communicate what a revivalist’s lifestyle looks like. It’s important to be intentional to teach the core values a revivalist lives by and how those values dictate his or her daily choices and behaviors. As you provide your students with vision and wisdom for how they are destined to live as revivalists, they can start to make proactive steps forward into their calling.

Redefining Our Internal World

Our lifestyles are produced by choices and behaviors that are fueled by the core values we develop on the inside. Jesus used the picture of a tree in John 15 to illustrate how our lives are funneled through our personal core values, producing or lacking the fruit of His Spirit. Much like a tree grows from a root system, our lifestyles are developed out of the set of beliefs we embrace. They drive our actions on a daily basis.

When we discover we have a root system that does not reflect the truth of who we are, we can be led by the Holy Spirit and partner with community to establish a new set of core values in our internal world. This process creates greater levels of prosperity in our lives because we uproot the things that do not produce life and replace them with truth.

A Journey of Transformation

As school leaders, we have the privilege of guiding students as they seek to restructure their lifestyles to reflect the behaviors and values of a revivalist. To help students start the process, it’s important to clearly communicate what a revivalist’s lifestyle looks like in your school environment. When you provide a clear structure of your expectations for them, you can help them adopt kingdom core values.

At BSSM, we tell our students that our school rules have been formed out of the framework of our core values. Moreover, our rules are the guidelines that help them create a strong, healthy inner world that will propel them into the lifestyle of a revivalist. We also convey that a new lifestyle is something often learned from the “outside in.” In other words, we ask our students to follow rules rooted in our core values, even before they feel like a natural part of who they are. When students adopt our rules, they can begin to establish a new inner world that ignites the kingdom in them and throughout the world.

Set up Your Students and Leaders for Success

We encourage you to take time at the beginning of your school year to set your students up for success by communicating your school core values, the rules that support them, and why each of those rules is important. Also, it’s crucial to make sure your school leaders are ready and equipped to lead your students into personal transformation. To help your students and leaders be successful, here are some steps you can take at the beginning of the year:

  • Define revivalist for your students. Your students need to understand the definition of a revivalist and how their actions should reflect that definition (and your school core values). Take time at the beginning of the year to go through the definition line by line. At BSSM, we communicate our definition of a revivalist to our students on the first day of school: “a believer who is focused and passionate, willing to pay any price to live in community, purity, and power because they are loved by God, whose manifest presence transforms lives and cultures.” We go through this definition line by line and communicate how students’ actions flow from this definition. Here is a short excerpt from the Revivalist Lifestyle handout in the Student Handbook  we provide to our students that demonstrates our expectations:

The following is a practical expression of choices and behaviors that flow from your mission of becoming a revivalist. We have found them very helpful in creating an atmosphere that advances the kingdom. Let’s break down the definition of ‘revivalist’ and demonstrate the choices and behaviors we believe naturally flow from it…

Focused — You can have anything you want, but you can’t have everything you want. Focused people make a ‘To-Do’ list and a ‘Not-To-Do’ list. Students with focus have a ‘yes’ in their spirit so strong they can say ‘no’ to distraction and compromise. Focus is key in accomplishing all that God has called you to become. So, at the very least, focus is expressed by the following:

  • Come to class on time and participate.
  • Quiet down immediately when someone begins to address the class.
  • Give whoever is speaking the honor of your full attention.
  • Please get enough rest so you are able to enjoy being in class.
  • Always turn your chair and/or body to face the speaker.
  • Turn your cell phone ringer off and don’t answer it in class.
  • Choose revivalists to lead your school. Our school dean, Dann Farrelly, tells our BSSM school leaders every year that, “If we aren’t living as revivalists, we can’t produce revivalists.” It’s important that your students see and experience the lifestyle of a revivalist through your school leaders. We encourage you to invite leaders that are living out your school core values and a revivalist’s lifestyle to add strength to your school environment. Take time at the beginning of each school year to review the definition of a revivalist and your school core values with your school leaders. Encourage your school leaders to memorize the definition and evaluate how their lives reflects the definition so that they can successfully lead your students into becoming revivalists.

When you intentionally communicate with your students about what a revivalist’s lifestyle looks like, they can be inspired and supported to develop a lifestyle that produces revival. We encourage you take time to define the lifestyle of a revivalist in your school and create ways to convey that definition to your students so that they can be ignited to fulfill their true destinies.

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