Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
Join host Ellen Krause—co-creator of Coffee and Bible Time—as she sits down with authors, pastors, theologians, and everyday believers to explore Scripture, identity, relationships, and how to truly keep Jesus at the center of it all.
Whether you're just starting your faith journey or looking to go deeper, this podcast is a space to learn, be encouraged, and draw closer to Christ.
Coffee and Bible Time Podcast
Awakening the Spirit for Revival w/ Pastor Steve Gaines
Prepare to reignite the spark of your faith as we welcome Pastor Steve Gaines, the esteemed author of "Revival: When God Comes to Church." Do you wonder why some churches seem to lack the vibrant Spirit-filled atmosphere depicted in the Book of Acts? Pastor Gaines takes us on a historical journey through America's revival movements and shares how today's churches can experience a similar transformation by earnestly seeking the Holy Spirit. From debunking common misconceptions about Revelation 3:20 to emphasizing the necessity of inviting Jesus back into our midst, this conversation provides foundational insights for anyone yearning for a revitalized church community.
Uncover the often-overlooked power of prayer as we revisit the story of Pentecost, where extended, heartfelt prayers ignited powerful preaching and mass salvation. Through this episode, you'll understand how a renewed focus on prayer and God's presence can cultivate communities brimming with His love, joy, and peace.
Explore the life-changing principles of the early church, from being a praying and witnessing body to embracing the miraculous and being Spirit-led. Pastor Gaines shares personal anecdotes and historical reflections that illustrate the transformative power of faith, prayer, and community. Learn why small group prayers, worship, and baptism are vital for spiritual renewal and how they contribute to building a unified, Spirit-filled church.
Dr. Steve Gaines Favorites & Recommended Resources:
Book- Revival: When God Comes to Church
Website - bellevue.org
YouTube Channel - @BellevueMemphis
Go-To Bible - The NASB
Go-To Bible - Chronological Study Bible
Favorite App/Website - Logos
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At the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. Our goal is to help you delight in God's Word and thrive in Christian living. Each week we talk to subject matter experts who broaden your biblical understanding, encourage you in hard times and provide life-building tips to enhance your Christian walk. We are so glad you have joined us. Welcome back to the Coffee and Bible Time podcast. This is Ellen, your host, and today we are going to be talking about the church.
Ellen Krause:You know, churches today often don't resemble the vibrant, spirit-filled communities described in the book of Acts. They lack the dynamic presence of God that was so evident in the early church. Well, in this episode we explore how churches can once again become places where God's presence is powerfully felt. Pastor Steve Gaines shares insights from his book Revival: W hen God Comes to Church on how we can achieve this transformation. We will discuss the need to seek the Holy Spirit earnestly and make him our primary focus. Through this discussion we can invite God's presence back into our own churches and experience true revival. Dr Steve Gaines, senior pastor at Bellevue Baptist Church, is known as a man of prayer and a preacher of God's word. Steve has pastored churches in Texas, Tennessee and Alabama. He has served in many denominational leadership roles, including president of the Southern Baptist Convention. Steve and his wife, Donna have four children and 18 grandchildren. Please welcome Pastor Steve.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Thank you so much. I'm so glad to be with you, Ellen.
Ellen Krause:Thank you Wow 18 grandchildren.
Dr. Steve Gaines:What a blessing. We just spent a week with them in Florida last week and we had a blast. It was so much fun.
Ellen Krause:Oh, I bet I can only imagine. Well, I have to say, in preparing for this interview and looking at your book this book is fire I mean I felt so encouraged and even just personally revived after digging into it. So why don't we start with maybe just you describing the state of the church now, so that we have a frame of reference for where you'd like to see it go?
Dr. Steve Gaines:Well, you know my predecessor here, who is a very well-known man who's in heaven now. Dr. Adrian Rogers used to say it takes no size to criticize. So I'm not going to be critical of the church, but I am hoping that the church, and praying that the church of our day, will embrace a true revival of God. The last revival that we've had nationwide was the Jesus movement in the late 60s and the early 70s. In the early 70s I was in high school and I remember when we went out to California and I saw some of the people that were in the Jesus movement even then before I was a Christian and I saw them baptizing people in the ocean and all and it was very fascinating to me. And then recently, obviously, I've seen a movie that talked about all that and it brought back a lot of memories. That's the last time God moved in a wholesale way across America among his people.
Dr. Steve Gaines:We've had great revivals, about six of them really nationwide revivals, and our country was really birthed in an atmosphere of revival. In the early or mid 1700s people like George Whitefield and others were witnessing all across America and they were preaching obviously without any microphones or anything like that to sometimes 20 and 30,000 people at a time, and they would preach out in fields. And it's just amazing how God used them over that time and it literally bonded the colonies together so that when they were ready for not just spiritual freedom, which is what they got out of the revival, they wanted political and physical freedom away from Great Britain. And when they came together they were unified. So many had been saved and really our nation was birthed in an atmosphere that resulted from revival.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Revival is simply when God's people have fresh life poured into them. It's literally what Jesus was talking about, that the Holy Spirit who comes within you the moment you get saved. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is you being baptized into the body of Christ and then every day, several times a day if you want, just ask God to fill you from within, and it's. Jesus said there's living water in you, that's the Spirit of God, and let that flow from you and that's living water is a personal revival, but when a lot of people start doing that, then there can be a corporate revival, and so I'm just believing that God is going to let his manifest presence he wants his manifest presence in our churches and we need to let the Lord back into the church.
Ellen Krause:And really you said that's why you titled the book as you did, which was when God Comes to Church.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Right, that's exactly what it is. You know, that's very interesting. I heard a pastor who's well known. He's a good guy, but he really made a mistake. I was just listening to him last week and I won't tell you it was, and I'm sure I've made plenty of mistakes myself but he was talking about Revelation 3:20, where Jesus is knocking on the door of the church at Laodicea, and he basically said this pastor did that's Jesus knocking on the door of your heart, trying to get in and I've seen the picture multiple times of Jesus knocking on the door. But that's not Jesus knocking on the door of somebody's heart trying to save them. That's Jesus knocking on the door of his church, trying to get in his own church.
Dr. Steve Gaines:We've locked Jesus out of the church and we're so comfortable with our you know our traditions, we're so comfortable that we know how to do this. We don't need the Lord. Oh, that's a scary place. That's a scary place when we can do church without the Lord. We need God's manifest presence. What if God wants to do something different this week? What if God wants a different approach?
Dr. Steve Gaines:I can remember when I was in Alabama one day, just really been seeking the Lord, been fasting and praying and whatnot, and the Lord just spoke to my heart. Somebody said how do you know it was the Lord. Well, I can tell you this, it wasn't the devil, because what he told me to do was I want you to invite people to come to Christ before you preach. And so I'm like Lord, we don't do that like that here, you know. And he said, well, you do now. And so I said okay.
Dr. Steve Gaines:So I went up and gave the invitation for people to come and be saved, even right before I preached, and we had like seven or eight people come and give their hearts to Christ. And then I preached, I gave the invitation again. More people got saved. Then we went to the second service. The Spirit of God laid on my heart Do it again. I did it again. Make a long story short we had four invitations and two services and we had like 30 people get saved that day at church. And then that night, when we came back for evening church, the place was just jam-packed because they knew that the presence of God had showed up. And I'm telling you, it's the difference between what God can do and what man can do. When God shows up, God will move, he'll save people. He'll deliver people from strongholds. He will heal people physically. He will change marriages and lives and he will change people into the people that he wants them to be. That's revival, when God's working in our midst.
Ellen Krause:And so powerful indeed. You mentioned in the book some of the things that we as man try to do in our churches, talking about programs and personalities and slick marketing and all of these other things, but it really gets down to, like you said, the presence and the power of God being present in your church. I know for me personally. I think back to several experiences that I've had in churches where I was visiting and I walked in for the first time and it was so overwhelmingly the power and presence of the Holy Spirit that you almost couldn't describe it.
Ellen Krause:That's exactly right, and when I was reading about, you talk about that similar type experience, like if you kind of let go and let God go, he can do all these things that we're trying so hard to do ourselves.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Right, we're trying to produce things and God is saying you know, I'm not really into a production, I want a presentation and I want my presence to be what church is all about. Now, I believe there's nothing wrong with, you know, having singing and having an order of service. No, there's nothing wrong with that innately. But when you start depending on that, that's where it's not good. And I believe that the pastor, the senior pastor, is the worship leader and I'm all for the musicians and everything else. But there are times when the Lord will lay it on your heart to say look, we need to just stop for a minute and we need to pray for sick people. So if you're sick and you would like for us to anoint you with oil, like it says in James 5, and pray for you to be healed, and we're going to do that, so we're just going to stop right now. We're going to stop in the music or whatever the worship time, the singing, whatever you want to call it, and we're going to pray for people to be healed. And it's amazing how people will just come and say, yes, and we believe that God uses doctors, that's fine, but the one who heals is Jehovah, Rapha, the Lord, our healer, and so God can do anything. God can heal. I mean, I've got stage four cancer as I sit here. But the bottom line is I believe with all of my heart and I'm not just saying this, it's not hope against hope, it's what I deeply believe in my soul that God's going to heal me. And I just say it like it's already done because in God's eyes it is. And so I just believe with all my heart that the Lord is healing me, that he's removing all the cancer from my body. I'm not saying that because I deserve it. I'm saying that because I believe in my Abba Father. He loves me, he wants me to be healed and he is going to do that. You know, sometimes we get frustrated because it doesn't happen like that. We like instant stuff, you know, we like instant oatmeal and everything else. But God a lot of times lets us, lets his work ruminate in our hearts and just allows his word to soak deep within us and he brings us through not quickly sometimes, but he brings us through nevertheless. And Jesus said get in the boat. Before they went through the storm. He said we're going to the other side. He promised we're going to the other side, and so I believe with all my heart, God's given me a promise, several promises, many promises, and it's been amazing how he affirms that and how he just constantly is giving confirmation about that. So I'm excited about it.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I'm praying for other people to be healed and we have seen multiple people healed since we've been praying for them over the last two or three years. Every Sunday we offer that. We offer people being anointed with all symbolic of the Holy Spirit and we pray for them to be healed. So you know, we give people a chance to be saved. More people get saved in a church that preaches the gospel and gives them a chance to be saved than in a church that doesn't preach the gospel and doesn't give them a chance to be saved.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And I believe more people get healed in a church where people are praying for people to be healed than in a church that doesn't. So, whatever you want to do with that, I believe with all my heart God wants to show up and he wants us to move and we need to resemble the church in the book of Acts. If we just go around, you know so many people oh my soul, they're just copying church after church after church, but every church out there is a copy of the original. But I want to copy the original. I like to tell people that a copy of a copy is not as good a copy as a copy of the original.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And the original is the church in the book of Acts. That's what we need to look like.
Ellen Krause:And that's exactly what I wanted to talk about next. Why do you feel the church has moved so far away from looking like the church that we read about in Acts, and how can the church today embrace the Acts like Christianity again?
Dr. Steve Gaines:Well, I believe that it's because we're looking horizontally instead of vertically. I think that we're constantly just looking around trying to find somebody that's got a new emphasis that we might not have, and we study other churches instead of studying the book of Acts and the church in the book of Acts, studying the gospels, studying Jesus, studying the epistles, studying what Paul wrote about, and you know, I just believe that again, we've missed it and that God wants us to come back to a biblical idea about what church is about. You know what's interesting? We've got all these buildings and Bellevue has a huge building. We're replacing air conditioners. That's fine, I don't mind, Buildings aren't bad but they didn't have a building.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And yet they reached in one day, on the day of Pentecost, they prayed for 10 days, Peter preached for less than an hour and 3,000 people got saved. Now you think about what I just said. You know, we pray for 10 minutes and we preach for 10 days and a handful of people get saved. I just believe there's power when we pray. I don't understand prayer, but I am sold on prayer.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I believe that God's house is to be primarily not just a house of preaching but house of prayer. And here's what I think happens when we talk to God. The Bible says that those prophets in Acts, chapter 13, were ministering to God as they prayed and fasted. Now think about that. So when I pray, when you pray, Ellen, you minister to God. Think about that. And when you minister to God, God ministers to you with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Now I've got something. Now I can minister to other people. See that? That's the third part. And then we've got something. Then people get saved, then people get healed, then people grow in grace, then people see strongholds destroyed out of their lives. But what we do is we avoid, we we skip that. We want to go straight to ministering to people without first ministering to God and then him ministering to us. That's where we're missing it, and I believe with all my heart.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I'm not just saying that. I mean, I'm 66 years old and I've been pastoring for over 40 years and I've been on church staff for over 45 years, and I'm not saying I know everything, but I tell you what I've seen people try to use every trick they can to make the church grow. We don't need tricks, we need the Lord, we need his presence. And when people come in, when they're leaving, they don't need to be talking. Man, that was a good sermon. Man that was good music Boy, didn't the lights? Weren't the lights bright today, and all that? No, they need to be talking, not about us. They need to be saying surely the presence of the Lord is in that place when they're walking away, they need to be talking about.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Jesus was in their midst, the spirit of God was in their midst. You know, Jesus said where two or three have gathered together, there, I am in their midst. I know that the context of that is church discipline, but there is a deep rooted principle there when we gather in his name, God shows up and again he's knocking on the door of the church, trying to get into his own church, trying to get into his own church. We have locked him out and said we're good, Jesus, we've got this. Well, we don't have this. I'm telling you. There are so many churches that are as dead as a hammer and they need to wake up. They need the presence of God.
Ellen Krause:It's almost something that you can't even believe would be true, that God isn't present in the churches, and I think that the way you talk about it in the book, I mean it really is a wake-up call to realize all the things that you're talking about could be impacting the very church that you're attending and to be assessing that line here, but I think we've got too many christians focused on politics.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I'm talking about. You know who's the president, who's the mayor, who's this, who's that? I think we should be great citizens, but before we're citizens of America, if we want to be better citizens of America, we need to be great citizens of heaven and we need to be citizens in the kingdom of God and seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. The republicans if they could save us, it would have already happened. If the Democrats could save us, it would have already happened. I want to say this to you I believe all Christians white, black, Latino, Asian, all Christians need to come together and say you know what? We're not going to depend on politics to fix and make America great again. Is that our goal? No, we are to make the name of Jesus great again. We're to focus on Jesus. And Jesus said if I be lifted up he was talking about the cross I get it, but he said I will draw all men to myself.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I think there's a deeper principle there. If we'll lift up Jesus and we'll quit putting down our fellow man, you know, because he didn't vote the way we think he ought to vote there is no human being that can give us revival, there's no human being that can save the United States of America or China or Russia or any other place. We need the presence of almighty God and there is only one God and there's only one mediator between God and men the man, Christ Jesus. Paul said that to Timothy in one of his epistles, and so I just believe we need to go after God, and the Holy Spirit comes, and there's no denying when he shows up. It's one of those things like you just say oh boy, the Lord's here. There's no way this joy, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control, there's no way the fruit of the Spirit could be this rampant and this pervasive unless the Lord, god Almighty, was in our midst.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And I just believe that's what we're missing in our churches, because when people walk away, if they talk about anything, they say well, you know it sure was a nice service, song was good, singing was good, sermon was good, but did they talk about the Lord? Did they ever say the Lord was good? And so I believe that we need to get back to that, and I believe that a lot of churches are. It will start with individuals and then it'll go to churches and then I pray that it will go to all of our churches across America and we could have a great revival.
Ellen Krause:Absolutely, absolutely. You know you said that a renewed scriptural understanding of what it means to draw close to God is so important.
Dr. Steve Gaines:There's several things that I think you know the early church did well. They were a praying church. Like I've already said, they believed what Jesus said my house should be called a house of prayer. Jesus, by the way, was quoting Isaiah when he said that he said my house should be called a house of prayer. And he said but you have made it a den of thieves. Talk about how they had just made it all about money, this, that and other. So I believe that we need to be a praying people. I believe we need to be a witnessing church.
Dr. Steve Gaines:The Bible says that they were sharing the gospel with lost people. You know, if you don't talk to other people about Jesus, you have to really wonder do you really know Jesus? If the Lord is in your heart, he's going to come out of your mouth, and so I just believe that the Lord wants us to verbally share the gospel, which is good news. We've got the greatest news in the world Tell lost people about the Lord and just tell them your testimony, just say, hey, you know I'm Steve Gaines, can I just share with you the most important thing in my life? And most of the time people say, well, sure, go ahead. And I'll just say, well, you know, when I was this, and you just start sharing your testimony, tell them what it was like before you got saved, tell them how you got saved, tell them what life's been like after you got saved and I think that witnessing is a huge thing. And then I think they were a miraculous church. They were seeing God move in so many ways. People were being healed. I've got a letter on my desk right now that a lady wrote and she had dementia. I mean, she had been diagnosed with dementia. We anointed her with oil, prayed for her to be healed. The next day she went to the doctor and all the dementia was gone. What do you explain? You say what happened? The Lord healed her. That's what happened. He is the same. Jesus is the same Jesus today, yesterday, today and forever.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And I believe that we need to get back to that and I believe we ought to pray for miracles, and the greatest miracle, obviously, is somebody getting saved. But then there are other miracles, God could put marriages back together and then being a spirit-led church. You know, not just figuring out. You know people talk about what's your five-year plan? What are you talking about? You know, I like what the Bible talks about, that all the people in the Old Testament, as they were in the wilderness, they were following what? The cloud. They were following the cloud. They didn't have a five-year plan. What are you talking about? We don't know five minutes into the future, much less five days, much less five weeks. I mean, if you'd have told me five years ago that I was going to have cancer, I said you've lost your mind. I'm healthy, I'm working out and all this stuff. I try to eat right and whatnot. But you know, the bottom line is, I know that I'm going to be healed in my heart. You say how do you know? I've got a witness of the Holy Spirit in my heart. But I believe we ought to pray for miracles, and the greatest miracle is somebody being saved. But people can be healed, people can be set free, marriages can be restored. God can replenish and restore. God can do things that we can never even imagine. They were a miraculous church and they were a growing church and they were spirit led and they were just seeing so many people get saved. And I tell you, there's nothing like seeing somebody get saved.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I can remember when I got saved I was 18 years old. I was playing football at a division two college and I got in the fellowship of Christian athletes and I got saved and I stopped cussing. I stopped, you know, doing things that I shouldn't do, and I'm not going to talk about all that, but it was instantaneous and I can remember getting my ankle tape going out to spring practice. I talked to the little trainer guy there and I said you know what, don't on me, I've not said a cuss word all day long. He looked at me like, do what? I said yeah. I said I've lost a whole lot of my vocabulary because Jesus saved me, you know.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And so I just believe that God, when he changes somebody, they're a new creation. Old things pass away, new things come and it gives you a platform to share the gospel with lost people. And so I'm excited about life. I've never been more excited I'm not just trying to say this in your presence I've never been more excited about life, about ministry, about anything else. I've got a raspy voice because I take immunotherapy.
Dr. Steve Gaines:But you know what? I can still preach the gospel, even with a raspy voice. I can still talk to people like you. I can talk to lost people. I can get out there and share and I can write books and I can do whatever I can to try to get people the word that God is still alive, he's still on his throne and he still wants to change people's hearts. He'll save lost people. He'll touch Christians, he'll fill us with the Holy Spirit. He'll take all the churches that will come to him and just open the door and say Jesus, we're not going to be like Laodicea. We're not going to lock you out of your church. You come in. It's your church. You bought it with your blood, you paid for it on Calvary. And Lord, just come in, take control. Here's the keys. Lord, you do whatever you want and I'm telling you when you do that great things happen and God is glorified, mm-hmm.
Ellen Krause:And that's why I want everyone to read, read your book and just soak this in, because it's it's so powerful, it's so you know. Back to the basics, I want to say, because, like you said, it's back to the original, the early church, and following that model In your book, you, you following that model in your book, you, you, you say that, um, you believe churches need to cultivate an environment where the holy spirit is given space to move freely.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Right, well, I just believe what I was saying earlier. Um, we need to, we don't need to rush God. I think sometimes people say, okay, we've got an hour to do the service. Well, I think you've already messed up, I think you've already put a limit on God. I think maybe God doesn't want to fit into 20 minutes of music, 30 minutes of singing and 10 minutes of announcements and whatever else. You know, I think with all my heart we need to have between services at least a couple of hours, and I'm not saying the service should last that long, but at least give it an hour 20 minutes, an hour 30 minutes, something like that, so that during the worship time, I mean, I do think it's okay to begin with prayer, obviously, and then with corporate prayer, people praying together.
Dr. Steve Gaines:That's what we do. We get people in small groups just pray together and they all come together and they pray, and then we start with worship, because Jesus inhabits the praises of his people, and so we do that, and then we'll baptize people. We'll rejoice over that and we go nuts when people get baptized here. We say yeah, you know. We say you know and make them know that they're welcome, and then I'll get up and preach the word of God, but then at the end we don't rush it. We don't rush, we're not going to get out of here. No, we're going to have an invitation and I say, if you'd like to come and give your heart to Christ, we'll be here, we'll be glad. We've got people down front, we've got pastors, we've got counselors, we've got all kinds of people down here, men and women. You come.
Dr. Steve Gaines:And then we also, if you've never been scripturally baptized by immersion in the triune name of God, not for salvation but because you are saved, to show that you are saved. So we say come. And we say, when you get baptized, you show that Jesus, you believe Jesus died for you, that he was buried, that he rose from the dead. You also show that you've died your old way of life, you're buried and hidden in Christ, with God, and now you're going to walk in newness of life. And so we have people come and set up a time for baptism and we say, if you'd like to start the process of joining the church, we'd love to have you. We only have one meeting that they have to go to if they try to join the church. But we just voted in over 300 new members this last Sunday. We're grateful for that. I'm not trying to boast, I'm not trying to say and that's been over a couple, three months or whatever.
Dr. Steve Gaines:But the bottom line is this we just want to see people get saved, get filled with the Holy Spirit, start growing in grace, learn how to read their Bibles, learn how to hear the voice of God, fellowship with other people, get into a group, whether it's a Sunday school group, discipleship group, women's group, men's group, whatever it is. Get in a group, because we need iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another, and we need that discipleship process. So we get people and we're just constantly making those connections. We're constantly seeing, you know, and we're a large church in some ways, you know numerically and whatnot. So we see people move away from our church but we pray that when they leave our church that they're going to be a missionary in another church and be good seed for growth in that church as well. So we want everybody that preaches the gospel to grow.
Dr. Steve Gaines:We don't believe God's a Baptist and I don't believe he's an assembly of God or whatever else. He is just the God and father of our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. And we need to come together and really unify as much as we can and try to see the church of God look like the church in the book of Acts.
Ellen Krause:And I truly, truly hope that we are leading toward this revival that you are hoping for.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Amen.
Ellen Krause:What would you say as we start to wrap things up here? What would be the most important thing that you really want readers to take away from your book?
Dr. Steve Gaines:think that the greatest definition in the Bible of revival is the glory of God fills the house of God. And you see that in Old Testament scripture particularly, but you also see it in the book of Acts, chapter four, that when they had prayed, the place where they had gathered together was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness. They had been told they'd been arrested, you know, they'd been thrown in jail, don't preach the gospel anymore. And they were saying a fat chance on that.
Dr. Steve Gaines:We cannot stop speaking, not, we will not. We cannot stop speaking about what we've seen and heard. And so they went to Jesus and they prayed and he filled them afresh with the Holy Spirit. This is Acts chapter four, not just Acts chapter two, but Acts chapter four. And all through the book of Acts the people of God were being filled afresh with the Holy Spirit. And I would just encourage people you know there's a lot of Baptists that are afraid of the Holy Spirit man you don't need to be afraid of the Holy Spirit.
Dr. Steve Gaines:The Holy Spirit is God living, the one that lives in you. He exalts Christ, he obeys the Father, he works with the Father. They're all one. I get that, but he does the Father's will, and so I just want people to know that the Holy Spirit is real and that his presence is what you need to seek in your church. You don't have to be afraid of Jesus. You don't have to be afraid of something weird happening. Now, you know, if you have something that's not biblical, then lovingly go confront the person and say, hey, God bless you, but you can't do that here, you know. Or if you know that the preacher's preaching and somebody starts yelling out, or something like that. I heard that happen one time. I was in a service when I was in college and the pastor was so wise he said ma'am, stop. He said the Holy Spirit's speaking through me right now, and he never interrupts himself. I love that, and so she lovingly left. But anyway, but I'm just saying I just want to be in a.
Dr. Steve Gaines:You know, I'd rather have that I'd rather have sometimes a little wildfire than no fire at all. I want the fire of God in my bones, like Jeremiah had, and I want the fire of God in our churches and if we'll have that, people will come and watch the people of God burn with the fire of God, walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and they'll see people getting saved and delivered and set free and growing in grace.
Ellen Krause:Absolutely, absolutely, and the great thing about it is that it's not some insurmountable thing that we hope we can get right. We can pray, like you said, and ask for a refilling of the Holy Spirit continually. It's yours for the asking Well, pastor Steve Gaines, where can people go to connect with you and find out more information about your book?
Dr. Steve Gaines:You can go to our website at bellvue. org and you can hear all of my sermons. You can also hear my sermons in different places, but that would be probably the best place to go. Bellvue is B-E-L-L-E-V-U-E dot O-R-G. I got off of social media and I don't want to get into that, but I got fed up with that, so I was on Facebook and all these other things. I don't do that anymore, but Bellevueorg would be the best place for people to look at my sermons. I'm sure you can watch them on YouTube as well, and I listen to sermons all the time on YouTube and listen to people that I dearly love, and so they can find us there.
Ellen Krause:Awesome, okay, well, we will make sure we put a link in our show notes so that everyone listening can find that easily. Before we go, I want to ask you some of our favorite Bible study tool questions. I'm sure you have a plethora of Bibles, but what Bible is your go-to Bible and what translation is it?
Dr. Steve Gaines:You know I started reading back when I got saved in 1976. So 48 years ago I started reading the New American Standard Bible and I've read that and preached out of that for almost 50 years. There are times that I will preach out of the New Living Translation as well. I've read the Bible through multiple times, dozens of times, but I really like the New American Standard. It's more literal than a lot of the others. You know I've preached before some out of the English standard version, the ESV. I like all of those.
Dr. Steve Gaines:You know the original is Greek and Hebrew. I had one year of Hebrew, three years of Greek and I can read a little bit of the Greek. I never. The Hebrew is just too hard. You go right to left. We've got so many tools Like. I use Logos in study too and I use that every time I have a sermon and I look at the various translations. The NIV I've read it many times. I've read the New American Standard many times. I've read the King James several times. I've read the New Living Translation several times and there are a few times that I'll just preach out the New Living Translation, but mostly I preach out the New American Standard.
Ellen Krause:Okay, excellent. Do you have any favorite journaling supplies or anything that you like to use to enhance your Bible study experience?
Dr. Steve Gaines:Well, what I do with my Bible study. I would encourage people and I've fallen in love with the Chronological Study Bible and this is a great, great book. It is the New Living Translation, and the people that wrote the commentaries on this are very good friends of mine. When I got saved in 1976, I met Stan May and he and his wife Iva are the ones that put the notes in this. This is fantastic and you start not with Genesis, you start actually in the oldest book of the Bible, which is Job, and then you work chronologically through it and I love it. My wife has done this for years. This is how she's taught Bible. It's got all the different eras of the that means, the segments of time in the Bible history, and I would just encourage people to pick up this Bible Chronological Study Bible, one Year Bible, the New Living Translation. It's put out by Tyndale and I would encourage anybody to get this.
Ellen Krause:This is a wealth of information.
Dr. Steve Gaines:So then I've got this book called Revival: W hen God Comes to Church.
Ellen Krause:Oh yes, that's a great resource too. All right, we will include links for those as well. That's a great recommendation. I've read the Chronological Bible through, but I did not know about that study Bible version. That sounds great.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Just enough notes to really help you, not to overwhelm you.
Ellen Krause:Yes, okay, lastly, what is your favorite app or website? I'm guessing it's Logos, since you mentioned that.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I use it every week for all my sermons. I preach my own sermons, you know. I tell everybody. You know my sermons may not be the best, but they're mine. I don't plagiarize, I don't do anything like that. So when I, if you hear me preach, it's a sermon that God gave me. But I use to get those sermons together I use the Logos software and it's just fantastic. I don't know how you can get any better. It gives you so many cross-references, which I love. It gives you commentary all the commentary that you'll need, and it really is, to me, the supreme tool to study the Bible.
Ellen Krause:Yes, I completely agree. We use it as well. It's phenomenal. I will make sure we put a link to that as well, if you are interested in finding them.
Dr. Steve Gaines:I don't owe them any money, I just want to. I'm just telling you that's where. I found a lot of help.
Ellen Krause:Yeah, phenomenal source. All right, Pastor Steve, thank you so much for being here today. Like I said, your book is just absolute fire. I'm so excited. I've already told three people about it. It's just we need this so desperately in our churches today, and so thank you for fighting the good fight.
Dr. Steve Gaines:Thank you. Would you care if I just prayed real quick for revival? Lord. Thank you so much for this day. Thank you for Ellen, dear God. Bless her, bless this podcast, bless this ministry. And Father, I pray for your people, called by your name, that we will humble ourselves through fasting and prayer. It will seek your face, turn from our wicked ways. You will hear from heaven, forgive our sin and heal our land. Dear God, please send revival, like you did in the 1960s and the 1970s, way back in the 1700s, lord, after World War II, before the Civil War. Lord, on and on we could go. You've moved and, god, we pray that you'll do it again. All for your glory. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
Ellen Krause:Amen. Thank you so much. Thank you have a blessed day. Okay, very good. And for our listeners, I just want to encourage you to get a copy of Revival: W hen God Comes to Church. We'll have the link in our show notes. Thank you so much. We appreciate you listening. We would love it if you could leave a review. Have a blessed day.
