Synopsis: This is a very stark assessment of the Body of Christ in the state of Tennessee following the HJR 803 Month of Prayer and Fasting. In this article, I will explain three basic ideas, and then my conclusions. First, the elected officials involved are to be commended for their risk and sacrifice to obey the Lord; next, the immature should be encouraged, but soberly educated on the real condition of things; and lastly, the leadership of the Body of Christ largely missed the assignment of this month due to self-congratulation, distraction, and pride. Because of this last point, our state (and nation) will receive some level of corrective judgment from God in the coming weeks and months.
Article: I am writing this on August 2nd, 2024, just two days removed from the final meeting involving the Month of Prayer and Fasting in Tennessee brought on by HJR 803. This is my personal perspective on the “success” of it, so to speak. It is my hope that by writing this sober assessment, we could more effectively repent and turn to the Lord and then, build up the Body of Christ to His standard, not ours.
This writing comes out of frustration with my brothers and sisters in Christ across the state. I acknowledge that progress has been made, but it is my observation that we are “far too easily pleased,” as CS Lewis said. And I would add, “with ourselves.”
I write this as one who attended 9 Solemn Assembly Meetings associated with this month and watched videos of countless more; as one who helped plan and carry out the Assembly in Blount County; and as one who had several conversations, calls, and text exchanges with leaders across Tennessee throughout the last 6 weeks regarding the purpose, progress and “success” of this situation. I don’t claim any leadership role in this. But for what it’s worth, I’m an ordained pastor who has tried to understand and live a life of intercession for the last 20 years. And what I have seen in the last six weeks has given me both hope and tears at the same time.
The Good
1) Our governmental leaders.
First the good news: the passing of HJR 803 tells us that we have 82 State Representatives and 27 State Senators who voted to recognize our sins as a state, ask for forgiveness from Jesus Christ and invite the Holy Spirit to fill our government, our churches, our schools, our businesses and our homes. We have a governor who signed that into law. Many more elected and appointed officials, including mayors, commissioners, judges, and others came to Solemn Assemblies to pray and repent, and many of those humbled themselves publicly and on camera. These men and women, who took risks to honor Jesus Christ, have been allowed by God to hold positions of authority in this state. This demonstration will embolden many more to stand up for righteousness from their position, and other righteous people will get involved in government for the first time. If “righteousness exalts a nation…” (Prov. 14:34), it most certainly exalts a state as well.
It is this man’s opinion that the elected officials that have participated in everything involving HJR 803 are to be commended, starting with Rep. Fritts. They have sacrificed tremendously to call the Body of Christ to action. They risked their careers and traveled thousands of miles at their own expense to gather the Body of Christ, explain the need for repentance, and encourage us to turn back to the Lord. They also made it personal. Rep. Fritts started each meeting by repenting of his own sin. Many others did the same. They did the job of church fathers and mothers.
At the final resolution meeting, “Moving Forward as One,” on July 31st in Nashville, Pastor Michael Obi was asked to pray over the elected officials present there. Before he prayed, Pastor Obi said the Lord told him, [speaking of the elected officials] “You have been like Mordecai and Esther, and you [the elected officials] have touched the heart of God because you crossed the line that some say you cannot cross to call the people to fast and pray. The Lord is giving you favor, and favor to this state, just like the King gave favor to Esther.” This completely bears witness with me.
So, to be clear, let me say that this critique is not aimed at Representative Monty Fritts or any other elected official involved in this month’s activities. As I hope will become clear, the intended audience of this reproof is the Body of Christ in Tennessee at large, and specifically, those in Christian leadership. Even more specifically, I am laying much of this situation at the feet of those who are a part of the “prayer movement”. If there is to be real and lasting change, we must discern how we got here. To put it bluntly, if Tennessee had an effective SPIRITUAL leadership, would the elected officials have had to risk so much? I think not. More on this in a moment…
2) It was a small beginning, but it was a beginning. Every single county in Tennessee was connected.
It is truly “unprecedented” and “miraculous” (like everyone is saying) that some kind of prayer of repentance and request for mercy came from every single county of the state, and all starting from the same words: the Resolution. I don’t know of any revival or movement at any time in history that ever started with such comprehensive agreement. The gravity of His mercy toward us and the potential of His grace going forward is overwhelming.
Many reports have come back about incredible moments from the individual county meetings. In some counties hundreds of people gathered. In other counties, less than 5. Yet across all 95 Tennessee counties, people gathered, worshiped, prayed and repented together without respect to denomination or pet doctrines. There were powerful times of people on their knees and faces. People who had never thought about prayer or fasting this way showed up to stand before God. Praise the Lord!
If you are one of those who threw yourself into the Lord this month, disrupted your own routine to fast and pray like never before, I want to encourage you: keep going. Don’t return to the religious routines and rhythms you were in before. Follow the spiritual hunger and get connected to those who are making repentance a long-term priority. Comfort is our enemy right now, and the Spirit is saying “Come out!” not “Well done!”
The Bad – Our Response Doesn’t Merit Celebration Yet
With these things in mind, we must realize that there is still a long way to go, and the Body of Christ in TN is not nearly as righteous as some pastors would tell you. Some seem to think we are just a few band-aids away from being right with a Holy God. Many that went to meetings are celebrating right now like revival is already here, while the truth is most Christians didn’t respond at all. You could compare this situation to Darius’ decree in Daniel’s day (Daniel 9), where the government gave God’s people permission and provision to return to Him. Yet the vast majority of Christian leaders in this state responded to the call for repentance with a yawn.
This state is home to the international headquarters of 6 major Christian denominations, and upwards of 5 million Christians live in TN. Yet if each Resolution meeting averaged 100 people (a high estimate, and not accounting for duplicates) then a pitiful 9,500 people responded. I believe Zech. 4:10 is true, and I do not despise this “day of small beginnings,” but a response of 0.19% is not a reason to stop and celebrate.
It is perfectly fine to thank the Lord for bringing this resolution about, and it is wonderful to worship together as the Body of Christ across the counties, but when celebration is this far out of proportion with real change, we are simply celebrating ourselves. Many, many times at the meetings there was celebration, but no repentance. II Cor. 3:16 says, “Nevertheless when one turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.” This is a wonderful verse, but HJR 803 was not repentance! It was a call for repentance! What’s the point of realizing we have veils between us and God, if we’re not going to “turn to the Lord” in repentance that changes our lives? I fear that the spiritual leaders were so excited, we forgot to stress to our people that we must turn from our wicked ways FROM NOW ON for veils to be removed!
It took decades to create this distance between us and God. It took decades for these problems to develop in our state. Why do we think that it is time to celebrate after only 31 days of sparsely attended meetings? Is it possible we’re simply celebrating ourselves?
Missing the Assignment
And this is just one of several ways that the leaders in the Body of Christ missed the assignment. The stated goal of the resolution was to “seek God’s hand of mercy”, and Rep. Fritts went on to say with the accompanying letter (dated May 29th) that he would visit each county seat to “read the resolution, promote the need for repentance and pray.” As Rep Fritts said often, “The elected officials will carry the wood, but the church must start the fire.” They did their part, but where’s the fire? I fear that the pastors, spiritual leaders and intercessors mostly failed.
It’s hard to start a spiritual fire with the conditions we’ve created. I don’t mean the “leading indicators” at the beginning of the Resolution. It is heartbreaking to see the condition of our state, but it’s the heart of the people that is the issue. This is the fault of the pastors and other spiritual leaders going back decades. We have not taught on repentance. We have not taught on the fear of the Lord. We have not taught on the holiness of God. We have not taught that Jesus Christ desires to fill every part of our culture, including government, through our bold witness of Him. Instead of teaching people to “deny yourself, take up your cross and follow” Jesus, we have taught an “improve-your-life” gospel, where instead of crucifying the flesh, we post it on social media. Even the idea of revival is taught as “if we get enough organized prayer going, Jesus will come and fix everything so the American Dream can continue.” No wonder sobriety was rare, and celebration was way too easy at the Solemn Assemblies. This sort of popular teaching and discipleship is like a diet of sugary foods: a lot of energy, but malnutrition is inevitable. And the Body of Christ has been sick with this messaging for a long time.
It is no wonder then that so few that came to the meetings understood the purpose of the Solemn Assemblies, and actually repented. The people were unprepared. The evidence was also in most of the pastors. In keeping with the popular teaching topics I mentioned, there wasn’t a lot of actual prayer and repentance. In all the meetings I either attended or watched, I saw a slim handful of pastors take the microphone, repent and pray as they were asked to, then sit down. The VAST MAJORITY of leaders/pastors/intercessors that were asked to pray/lead repentance used 90%+ of their time to talk, teach, preach or say how great all of this is, and then ended with a short prayer.
In some cases, rather than repent, the leader would go into declaration. I’m not against declaration. It is an essential part of intercession. We are seated in Christ in heavenly places (Eph. 2:6), and Jesus said we should be telling mountains to move (Matt. 21:21-22). But a Solemn Assembly is a place and time where God’s people do business with HIM, and I can’t see how rebuking Jezebel, the Free Masons or “the spirit of pride” has a place in that moment. (I heard “mature” leaders pray all those things this month.)
There were even moments with spiritual leaders where someone was actually kept from repenting. At one point, a major spiritual leader directing a meeting was handing a microphone to the next pastor in line and said, “Pray a prayer of praise and thanksgiving for us.” A few moments later they said the same thing to the next pastor in line. There had been no time for repentance in that meeting yet. How can we praise and thank God for forgiveness if we haven’t apologized yet? When it’s time to humble ourselves, and we defy instructions to pray differently, or not at all, that’s either an immature leader or just haughtiness.
Other Common Distractions
Here is a list of other common things I witnessed that ran contrary to repentance:
- A Patriotic Pep Rally. For the life of me, I never understood why singing “God Bless America” at one of these Solemn Assemblies seemed appropriate. Now I love this country, and I am very grateful, but reading the lyrics, it is a song from the perspective of an already blessed country that would like a little more blessing from God. That is not where we are right now! Why would God have any interest in blessing us when we clearly just want to add Him to our plans? Why would He bless us when we haven’t repented? Or repented for about 5 minutes? Forgiveness is instant because of the power of the blood, but restoring a broken relationship? That’s not something you can do in a one-hour meeting. Or a month. It seemed so doubleminded to be chipper about America while also trying to have Godly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:10).
- A Church Pep Rally. I heard many prayers at meetings that turned into talking about how great the Church was for doing this. “We’re the head and not the tail!” or “The Lord’s Ekklesia is rising up now!” Or, and this is a direct quote from a pastor, “Years from now, when they talk about the origins of the Great Revival that swept America, they’re going to say it all started right here, in this county, under this big tree today!” That was said on July 1st, Day One, by a pastor who talked for 8-10 minutes, then started to walk off before saying, “Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot to pray!” Brothers and sisters in Christ, that is 100% hubris. In fact, it is the height of delusion for the Christian leaders of TN to be speaking of our own greatness, when it is our fault that repentance is a foreign concept. It is true to say that ultimately the highest authority in the state of TN is the Body of Christ. But that makes us ultimately responsible for all of the trouble in our state right now. It’s not the time to stand tall, but to get low.
- Humanism: Unity for unity’s sake, prayer for prayer’s sake, etc. What is the actual solution to the trouble? Jesus Christ. Not getting together more as the Body of Christ, not establishing prayer groups with T-Shirts or “prayer towers” in every county in the state. It is the kind of repentance that means reorganizing everything in our lives and churches around Jesus Christ and nothing else. Organization/ administration without godly sorrow is just more humanism. We all know how to build a church, organization, ministry without the Lord. The true test of all our efforts is this: is the root, strength and fruit of our work Jesus Christ? Here’s another example of what I mean: I heard a pastor say at a recent resolution meeting, “Do you want revival? Just spend your next meeting praying for anyone with a need. People love being prayed for!” Of course, they do! But if all we do is help needs, we have become people-focused, not Christ-centered. What about the Lord Jesus Christ getting what He wants? What about giving Him the reward for His suffering, a Bride without spot or wrinkle? (Eph. 5:27, Rev. 19:7-8) You can call it whatever you want, but if people are the focus, that’s not revival.
You could sum up the distractions like this: the centrality of Jesus Christ has been lost and replaced with humanism, religious machinery and blind pride, even in the so-called “remnant/intercessory movement.”
Conclusion: The Future
I must speak so directly because I am gripped by the Lord for His purposes for this state. After all, we are His workmanship, created for His good works (Eph. 2:10). I fear we could miss our opportunity to change course and fulfill His plans. Yet, I am encouraged in some ways. I believe the Lord knew what He was getting into when He inspired Rep. Fritts to write HJR 803. The Lord knew that we were amateurs at repentance, and full of contrary agendas. The Lord knew that most have been taught a church-system that was built like a business, run by those with gifts and talents, centered on the people, and making no impact on society or government.
The Lord knew all of this and yet He stirred up Monty Fritts and others to bring this whole month about. Why? Perhaps it was like Ez. 43:10, and it is the Lord “showing the temple to the house of Israel.” The Lord is holding up the original standard to us, so that we can see our current condition. The church-system cannot be remedied, BUT perhaps this is the time when many who have awakened decide to “come out and be separate” (2 Cor. 6:17) and get recentered on Christ and His purposes.
As for the judgment that we deserve as a state: I believe there is judgment coming on this nation that we will feel within weeks or months, and it will cause devastation on the level of the Book of Joel. I believe we have come to the place where the Lord is not going to rescue His people anymore. The American Dream is dead, and that’s a good thing because it has become the glorification of man. Yet the Lord is still working. The Lord is looking for those that are His, with no other agenda (Mal. 3:16-18). If He can find them in Tennessee, He will give them the strength and grace to endure the trouble. Through this, the light of Jesus Christ will be seen brighter than ever before.
The only preparation for all of this is a repentance so deep that we take nothing for granted.
David Townsend is Associate Pastor at Lionheart Fellowship, and one of the Elders. He has a passion for intercession and a love for the Body of Christ–that the Father would have many sons and daughters that reflect Christ, and that the glory of the Lord would rise in our area through His mature and prepared Bride. David and his wife, Morgan, have been married 13 years and have three amazing children: Luke, Anna and Samuel.