The word “revival” has become more common in the Christian community. The aim of Christian revivalism is less about doing all the right things a Christian would do (like attending church services) and focusing more on their one-on-one relationship with God. It’s believed to be a movement that looks to revitalize faith and a connection with God, especially during modern times, which many have called a period of moral decline.
Contagious Love International (who also works hand in hand with Aero Ministries) has made revival a personal mission of theirs and has traveled throughout the United States and other countries to share their message, bring a light of optimism that God is with us all, and heal emotional scars (with claims that many have been physically healed as well). For three nights, November 14-16, Contagious Love and Waldorf’s own Nations Glory Barn collaborated to put on an event at Waldorf Community Center.
Contagious Love was founded by Munday and Jennifer Martin. As Munday explained it, “We got married, and shortly after, we got called to be missionaries in Israel. We traveled into 24 countries.”
“Helping the hurt and broken has been our main goal,” Jennifer added. “Everything we do is to meet the needs of broken hearts and lives. We’ve seen God heal people for the past 20 years.”
Some of the testimonials they have heard include one person who once needed powerful glasses due to bad vision regaining perfect eyes, one person having their ribs healed fully within a short amount of time, and their depression being cured.
Because of this, they’ve really focused on the revivals for the past decade. “We ask the Holy Spirit to come, for God to take over, and bring people into God’s fullness and love,” Munday said. “We want people to encounter the love of God through the presence of God.”
The evening started with prayer, followed by a few testimonials. One testimonial came from Pastor David Williams, who is originally from Florida. He shared that when he was working on a sermon, he had a vision from God of being in a barn. Although he wanted to help with the harvest around the barn, God told him he wasn’t ready yet, that he needed the tools first. According to him, it turned out that, when he arrived at the Nations Glory Barn, their barn was the one he saw in his vision, taking it as a sign that God wanted him to come to Waldorf to share his story.
One of Williams’s messages during one of the events was, “If you’ve been going through a tough time, or you feel like you’re in a situation where you feel like you’re in the fire or surrounded by lions, sometimes, God allows us to go into certain situations to be a benefit for other people. Sometimes, God places us in situations where we don’t want to be. Sometimes, we have to go to places where the fire is turned up a bit. God is going to protect you in those situations.”
Munday Martin also had a fiery sermon involving believing in God even when times get tough. He shared a verse, Matthew 15:21, which went through the faith of a Canaanite woman whose daughter was struggling with demon possession. Although Jesus had initially ignored her cries and pleas, the Canaanite woman’s faith helped her through.
Munday focused especially on verse 27 of this passage: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.” This was the highlight of her faith. His moral was no matter how hard life gets, God is with us and will help us, even if it seems like He is not listening.
In between sermons and testimonies was some gospel-like music. The band would play a two or three-chord vamp in between the songs while the Martins would improvise some lyrics. This was especially up Munday’s alley, as he is a Christian musician himself, aside from working with Jennifer through Contagious Love International. Many of the guests at these events felt a sensation of pure joy and euphoria, with some even waving around flags to release the energy they were feeling.
This editor was startled when, on occasion, a few people began collapsing on the floor and appeared to have fainted. This was treated as sort of a common thing at an event like this, as they took this as the spirit coming over these individuals. Once in a while, when this happened, Jennifer Martin would ask everyone close to these people to surround them and give them strength through prayer while doing her own prayers over them.
Throughout the evening, the Journal was there; they continued music and sharing testimonials. Afterward, all were invited to a baptism ceremony.
It was definitely an interesting event for this Christian to cover. It gave me pause for thought on how I share my faith in God.
