Fire on the Family Altar

Igniting Revival in Our Nation

By Cheryl Sacks

Revival will come to America when the family altar is restored!”

The Lord’s voice seemed almost audible as the words rang out in my heart. Our church was in the middle of a conference on “Revival and the Holy Spirit”—yet not one of the speakers had mentioned families in connection with revival.

How could something so simple as families praying and worshiping the Lord bring spiritual life to a nation? I thought.

As I stood on the platform waiting for my turn to speak, I breathed a prayer, “Lord, is this really You speaking?” Suddenly a young man stepped to the microphone and prayed the exact words I’d just heard: “Lord, restore the family altar in homes across America!”

Wow—what a confirmation!

As he was praying, I saw a vision of our nation covered in darkness. But all at once, lights began to illuminate the darkness. As families began to pray and worship together, their homes filled up with living light, which spread to other homes, quickly transforming the entire nation.

Many years have passed since then, and I believe we are beginning to see this vision fulfilled. We read statistics and news reports about divorce, single parenting, families in crisis, poverty, the national drug epidemic, and sexual improprieties. Yet, despite all this, God is unquestionably moving, and it’s happening at the family altar.

Altars of Hearts

Old Testament patriarchs worshiped at altars made of stone. Today we, as individuals and families, worship the Lord at the altars of our hearts. We can do this in any place at any time.

It is an amazing thing to come into the presence of God together as a family. This opens the windows of heaven and brings us out of the monotony of daily living into the riches of God. It gives us an opportunity to call out to the Lord for more of Him in our lives, and for friends, coworkers, and seekers at church to come to salvation.

These fresh encounters are contagious. The fire spreads. As our families become saturated with the heart of God, His hope, joy, and love bubble out of us, reigniting in others that which was reignited in us.

Our daughter Nicole and her husband Marco experienced this recently when they opened their family altar to extended family and friends. Nicole had been talking about the Lord with her personal trainer Jen, and with the children’s babysitter Christina. So Nicole decided to invite them to their family night of worship.

Several guests brought instruments—a keyboard and guitars—and everyone joined in worshiping the Lord. Jen, who had never been inside a church, said later that the experience was so profound she felt “like Jell-O.” She thought any moment she might break into tears. Jen has now accepted Christ, and her marriage, which was headed for divorce, is on the road to healing and health. Christina said she had never been in such a powerful spiritual setting. Her heart is open, and she is asking for prayer.

What everyone experienced that night was a powerful outpouring of God’s presence. It was an ignition of passion for Jesus accompanied by an infusion of spiritual life. It was a manifestation of God’s goodness.

This is revival, and God’s promise to praying families is this: those who seek Him will find Him.

The Power of Praying Together

The wife of a pastor in my city shares the powerful results of families in their church praying together:

Recently our church gave away 30 copies of The Prayer Saturated Family to members in our church. Almost all of them started holding a family prayer and worship night, and it has literally transformed their homes.

We have seen a lot of little miracles—but the biggest one came to a couple who started this practice. The couple had only been saved a few years, so they had not raised their kids in a Christ-centered home with prayer and worship. All their children are grown now and none of them knew the Lord.

The couple started family prayer and worship every Monday night and invited their kids to come. One by one they started coming and accepting the Lord as their Savior.
Two have been baptized. Their son, who had become a Buddhist, called his mom. “I can’t come to family prayer on Monday nights,” he said. “Could you change it to Tuesday nights so I can come, too?”

So his parents changed it. That son now comes faithfully, and they are having good conversations. The parents are confident that the Holy Spirit is at work and that their son will come to know the Lord.

My husband Hal and I have been praying together to see revival in our church for more than 30 years. One recent Sunday night we arrived early for the downtown-campus church service, mainly attended by students from the nearby universities. Young people had already lined up down the street and around the block. Once the doors opened, the sanctuary and balcony quickly filled. The crowd overflowed into the chapel and into the courtyard, where the service was being live streamed. The atmosphere was electric. Students worshiped with passion and zeal. Many responded to the message and gave their hearts to Christ.

This is not a onetime occurrence. It is happening in our services regularly. What we’re experiencing is not “church as usual.” It’s fresh and alive!

Do It Again, Lord!

There are “fiery hot spots” like this popping up across our nation. In some places it looks like the Jesus Movement all over again. The Jesus Movement (late ‘60s and early ‘70s) was God’s response to the heart cries of mothers and fathers, interceding for their kids’ deliverance from drugs and promiscuity.

Pastor Chuck Smith and his wife, residents of Costa Mesa, CA, ignited the movement. On their way home from church they noticed the hippies wandering the streets, and the Smiths began praying together for them. Then they started inviting the hippies into their home for prayer, worship, and Bible study, and the Jesus Movement spread exponentially. Tens of thousands came to Christ and thousands were baptized in the ocean.

The family altar’s power to ignite revival goes back hundreds of years before that. In the late 1600s the Puritan minister Richard Baxter felt burdened over the cold spiritual state of his church. It was not only cold, but practically empty.

He determined that the way to bring revival to his church and community was to establish the family altar in every home. He went from home to home, leading people to Christ and establishing family altars. After nearly three years, revival fires were burning in his church, and multitudes of rejoicing believers and seekers of Jesus would crowd the church every Sunday.

In the early 1700s the minister Thomas Boston followed the same procedure in his spiritually cold parish, with the same results!

Steps to Building an Altar

You can begin taking steps now to build—or rebuild—your own family altar. Here are some suggestions:

• Call your family together and discuss the idea of devoting a special time each day or week to gather to meet with the Lord. Explain that this is a time to invite His presence and power into your lives and family—to thank Him for the great things happening and to ask His help in the challenges. Find a time you can all agree upon, and make sure it is set aside for this purpose.
• Tailor your gathering to the ages and personality of your family. Younger kids can’t sit still for long. You may need to pray with them when you put them to bed and have a longer time of prayer after they fall asleep. If you have teenagers, involve them in framing the time to make it interesting and exciting.
• Set the tone. Our family has found that reading a Scripture or chapter from a Christian book helps set the tone and inspires faith. Does anyone in your family play an instrument or have a good singing voice? He or she may be willing to lead a time of worship as you begin. At our house we turn on Pandora and start with our favorite worship music.
• Create a journal where you can record your family’s requests and the date the prayers are answered. We also write down the blessings God has given that week—and some we didn’t even ask for! He is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or imagine (Eph. 3:20).
• Remember, in addition to a special set-aside time, we can pray and worship together anytime and at any place—on our way to school or a soccer game, even on vacation. Be sure to enjoy your time. It’s okay to laugh. In the presence of the Lord, there is joy! (Ps. 16:11).

My friend Teresa and her husband live in Perth, Australia, and one day she heard the Lord speak to her: “Teresa, I want you to build a family altar.”

Teresa had never heard that term before, but she sensed the Lord was asking her to start a regular time of family prayer and worship.

She wasn’t sure how this could happen since her two sons are grown and married with children of their own. But the Lord gave Teresa a plan. He guided her to call her family to a weekly time of prayer and fasting each Tuesday. Everyone would skip breakfast and lunch and gather at Teresa’s home for the evening meal.

After dinner, they would pray together, guided by this simple question, “What do you want God to do for you this week?”

Teresa’s daughter-in-law is a physician. She wanted to see healings and miracles in her practice. Within three weeks, the Lord began to answer. Teresa’s daughter-in-law has seen patients healed of brain tumors. Women who previously could not conceive have given birth. And many young women patients have been delivered from depression and other serious problems.

Before long Teresa’s family couldn’t wait for the next Tuesday’s gathering to see what the Lord had done that week.

Restored Families Bring Revival

As my husband and I speak in churches and conferences about the family altar, we’re seeing an increasing hunger for God’s presence in the home. Hundreds of moms, dads, and entire families are streaming forward after each service, inviting God’s presence afresh into their homes and committing themselves to regular prayer and worship together. Testimonies are pouring in of healed marriages, salvations, and deliverance from drugs and other addictions.

Many have been praying for revival in our churches and nation for years. Could it be that the missing component is the power of the family altar? Could it be that we have neglected to preserve this sacred practice, where we not only pass on the stories of God’s goodness and power to the next generation, but where they can experience it firsthand?

What if pastors across America began to call their families to establish a family altar and pray for revival? What if families regularly invited God’s presence into their homes, and prayed for their schools, workplaces, and churches? What if every time we gathered to pray, we asked the Lord to send another Great Awakening to our land?

I believe we would see families restored, revival fires ablaze, and a great harvest brought into the Kingdom.

CHERYL SACKS is cofounder of BridgeBuilders International, a ministry that mobilizes God’s people in transformational prayer. She is a national speaker and bestselling author of The Prayer Saturated Family: How to Change the Atmosphere in Your Home Through Prayer, available at prayershop.org.