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The Why: A Million Soul Campaign (Part 1 of 3)

Mar 5, 2026 | Uncategorized

Project 2026

The Crisis and the Call: Why America Needs Another Great Awakening

By P. Douglas Small
President, PRAYER AT THE HEART

It took a Great Awakening to give birth to America. It will take another to save her.

As the nation approaches its 250th birthday, we find ourselves at a threshold moment. Scripture describes such times as both perilous and pregnant with possibility (2 Timothy 3:1-13; Joel 2:28-29). Ours is an age of light and darkness colliding — bold godliness standing alongside unapologetic ungodliness. Neutrality is no longer an option. Decisiveness is required.

Church membership in America has fallen below 50%. Weekly attendance hovers around 15%. In the 1950s, more than half of Americans were in worship on Sunday. The nation was reminded weekly of its moral anchor, its dependence upon God, and the sacred source of its freedom and prosperity. Today, absolute truth has been replaced by relativism. Conscience is negotiable. Tolerance has given way to hostility. The cultural center has collapsed.

Nearly 69 percent of young people no longer believe in the God of the Bible. Even among clergy, belief in foundational doctrines has weakened. The cultural campaign against faith has been systematic and sustained. Public prayer and Bible reading have been removed from schools. Marriage and gender have been redefined. Sacred life has been diminished. The Imago Dei — the image of God in humanity — has been obscured.

Yet this moment is not without hope.

Throughout biblical history, when faith nearly perished, God intervened. During Israel’s slavery in Egypt, during the prophetic confrontations with Baal under Elijah, and during Judah’s captivity in Babylon — these were the darkest hours. Yet these were also the hours when miracles clustered most densely. God acted not merely for survival, but for His purposes.

America today stands in a similar moment.

Political shifts may restrain certain excesses, but executive orders and legislative reforms cannot produce lasting transformation. Without spiritual awakening, reforms will prove temporary — like King Josiah’s revival, which faded within a generation. What we face is not merely ideological conflict but spiritual battle. As Paul reminds us in Ephesians 6:12, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood.”

The answer is not partisan victory. It is national repentance.

The Million Soul Campaign emerges from this urgency. Its premise is simple: mobilize one million believers to pray strategically and persistently for one million conversions. This is not a marketing strategy. It is a spiritual strategy. Hearts must change before systems can change. Only transformed people can sustain transformed culture.

For perspective, one million conversions would double the current annual rate of salvation in America — yet still represent only a beginning. True awakening historically touches 8–12 percent of a population. For America, that would mean 35 million people experiencing genuine spiritual rebirth. We start with a million because every awakening in history began with a remnant.

This is not alarmism. It is realism shaped by faith.

Our forefathers appealed to heaven in the Declaration of Independence. That desperate prayer birthed a nation. Now we must appeal again. The stakes are generational. Without decisive spiritual renewal, our grandchildren may inherit a nation where freedom of conscience is constricted and biblical faith marginalized.

But history also teaches that when God’s people humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from wickedness, He responds.

This is the “why” behind the Million Soul Campaign.
Not politics.
Not nostalgia.
But revival.

The job that is never started takes longest to finish. The hour is late — but the window is open.

Let us begin.

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“Whenever God determines to do a great work, He first sets His people to pray” (C. Spurgeon). This reliable principle begs the question: “How does God mobilize his people to heartfelt prayer?” Most importantly, how does God move Christian leaders who shepherd His church to unite in fervent, persistent, biblically focused prayer for the fulfillment of His purposes? By two things mainly: 1) distress over the degradation of the church and the surrounding culture and 2) hope that God will pour out His Spirit on his church and fill it with His fulness until it overflows with transformative impact on society. Many believers are distressed at the current state of things. At the same time, there is much reason to hope for God’s divine intervention in response to passionate, biblically guided prayer.

Believers across America now mourn the debility of the church; its vitality is faltering, its impact fading, its mission neglected, and its devotion to God being undercut by love for this world. Right now we are enduring the largest and fastest religious shift in American history. Its scope is greater than every previous spiritual awakening in our history combined, only in the opposite direction. Christians are being confronted by “spiritual forces of evil” (Eph. 6:12) operating from the heavenly realms that boldly infiltrate every aspect of society, even the church. These dark powers aim to 1) frustrate God’s purpose to bless all peoples on earth through Christ with countless benefits, including righteousness, peace, joy, and justice, and 2)
inflict endless varieties of misery on everyone. When spiritual decline and cultural decay prevail, God’s people rise up to seek the Lord in prayer as the fountain of every blessing, asking him to fill the earth with his glory, pour out His Holy Spirit, inspire his church, and deliver people and cultures from innumerable troubles. Now is the time to pray with desperation for spiritual and cultural renewal, for divine intervention, for the fulfillment of God’s purposes for his church and his creation in Northeast Ohio.

Christian leaders, especially pastors, have a heightened responsibility to press into God with prayer for the church. Biblical precedent shows that gathering church leaders together to engage in heartfelt prayer for the welfare of their community often initiates widespread spiritual and social renewal both in church and society (2 Chron. 7:13-14; 15:8-10; 34:29-32). New Testament accounts show that when Christian leaders unite in prayer, often in response to social and/or spiritual crises, spiritual awakening and gospel advance follow (Acts 1:13-14; 2:1-4; 4:23-31; 13:1-3).

Jesus himself instills expectation of an outpouring of God’s Spirit in response to prayer with this promise: “If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:13). Our Father in heaven is especially ready to pour out upon us the blessing we most need and long for, the very Spirit of God who imparts divine life, wisdom, and virtue.

With all this in mind, now is the time for Christian leaders across Northeast Ohio to come together to seek the Lord with biblically grounded, Christ-directed, wholehearted prayer for a God-given spiritual awakening. The trumpet of God is blaring! He is calling us to pray! Join Christian leaders from across our region to humble ourselves, seek the Lord’s face, and be willing to respond through His intervening grace to any changes He calls us to make! (Psalm 110:3)

The Gathering is an extension of the nationwide PATH (Prayer at the Heart) initiative piloted recently in Northeast Ohio. Put The Gathering on your calendar: Sunday, September 24, 6 pm, Calvary Chapel of Cleveland, 709 Brook Park Road, Brooklyn Heights, OH.