Christine Caine: Churches have replaced prayer with smoke machines, coolness
Bible teacher Christine Caine condemned the modern Church for placing its focus on being “cool” instead of holiness and warned that unless the Body of Christ returns to a focus on “righteousness, joy, and peace,” revival will never happen.
Caine, bestselling author and founder of The A21 Campaign, on Wednesday participated in a 2020 Q&A: A Virtual Townhall event focused on the topics of prayer and revival alongside Pastor Jon Tyson and author Corey Russell.
Opening the session, the Australian speaker and author lamented that because the Church has gotten “so scared of emotionalism,” prayer has gone to the “basement with the grandmothers.”
Get Our Latest News for FREE
“That's where we've put it, and I’m on a campaign to pull prayer out of the basement and put it on the pulpit and put it front and center,” she declared.
“We got a bit embarrassed because in our coolness, in between our skinny jeans and tattoos, beautiful light section and camera, we thought, ‘prayer is not cool, prayer is embarrassing. A smoke machine will do the job.’ And what we've discovered is smoke machines haven't saved anyone. Look at the mess that the world's in.”
“Instead of being in the world, not of it, we became of it and we're no longer in it. And so the challenge is then you've got no power, and power comes through intercessory prayer,” she said.
Caine urged churches to take “prayer out of the basement” and put it “front and center,” adding: “Show a lost and dying world and a religious world, ‘I don't care if you don't think I'm cool. I am utterly dependent on God.’”
The problem with the modern Church is that it isn’t “desperate” enough to return to prayer, Caine said.
“Look at 2020,” she stressed. “Politics hasn't saved us, the medical profession hasn't saved us, science hasn't saved us. ... I love all of those things, but we need some old school desperation.”
“Desperation will get you travailing in a way that you never even existed. I think we need to get desperate again."
The Church is so busy “centering people” instead of the Holy Spirit that it can’t focus on prayer and repentance. Whenever the Lord moves, it’s “prefaced by prayer and repentance,” which only comes out of desperation, the evangelist explained.
“Cancel culture is trying to cancel the Church,” she said. “You don’t cancel the Church or guilt the Church or shame the Church into repentance. The Holy Spirit convicts us. What we need to do is recenter the Holy Ghost so He could do what only He can do, which is bring conviction.”
“It’s God's kindness that leads us to repentance,” Caine emphasized. “Once we get to that place of repentance, we will see. I believe signs, wonders, miracles, and revival will break out, but it's got to happen that way.”
Prayer is like a “muscle” that needs to be continually used to grow stronger, the evangelist contended. Yet, many Christians simply don’t pray.
“We got a whole generation that knows how to market themselves, but they’re not marked,” she said. “If you are not marked by God in the prayer closet, you are never going to see God open doors. ... God opens doors that no man can shut, and you’ll get that in the prayer room with the Holy Ghost.”
When asked what is “hindering” an outpouring of the Holy Spirit right now, Caine said many Christian leaders are “so obsessed” with “getting likes and getting clicks” that they no longer want to become Christ.
“We’ve forgotten things like sanctification, we suddenly de-value things that are central to the Christian faith like holiness, sanctification, being filled with the Holy Spirit,” she said. “Christ-likeness is what I need to be pursuing more than how many are liking whatever I post.”
“I need to be leading people to Jesus Christ. That is what I am here on this planet to do. I need to fall in love with Him. If you are not with Him, you cannot fall in love with Him.”
Christian leaders “need to get over being slick career-builders” and remember they are called to “drop our nets, follow Him, die daily, take up our cross, and crucify our flesh,” she declared.
If the Church wants to see revival, it’s got to display “righteousness, joy and peace,” Caine said.
“If we want to see revival, we’ve got to care about righteousness; we’ve got to care about joy; we’ve got to care about peace,” she said. “Jesus actually cares about personal righteousness and holiness. ... If we want to see revival break forth, it's got to matter to us, like it matters to God.”
