Skip to main content

Kirk Cameron's "Revive Us" DVD a Clarion Call for National Renewal

Share This article

In what was labeled a national family meeting, Kirk Cameron’s one-night movie theater event from last fall, Revive Us, has just been released on DVD.

Featuring commentary on the future of our nation from national faith leaders like Dr. Ben Carson, Frances Chan, Eric Metaxas and others, the video also includes a time of praise and worship. Above all, it serves as a challenge for viewers to lead the way in these troubled times.

I recently spoke with Cameron about how to re-capture the passion and freedom we once had as a nation, what viewers can expect to see on the DVD, and his plans for a Revive Us sequel later this year.

Your one-night movie event in theaters nationwide from last October was nothing short of a huge success.  Were you satisfied with the outcome?

I was blown away by people’s response, and I think it’s because they were feeling the same kind of anxiety that I felt. There has never been a time where people had sensed that the internal smoke alarm was going off, the sense that our country and our future was hanging in the balance and that the Church needed to wake up, think, pray, and act. When I heard what Ben Carson had to say, when I heard what Francis Chan and Eric Metaxas shared, I was blown away with everyone else in realizing that the stuff we know in our heart is true, which is that the only solution for a nation that is on life support, like Dr. Ben Carson said, is you must reinvigorate the heart of the nation. And the only way to do that is by getting back to true religion. That’s what our founders call it, that’s what the Scriptures call it … true religion.  Genuine faith in God that is put into action. It got me so fired up and it seems like everyone felt the same way. We just turned the theaters into public worship centers, and people were standing, raising their hands, singing worship songs in the movie theaters, holding prayer meetings in the lobbies and telling their grandkids and their grandparents to go see the encore.

What is needed for our country to find the passion and freedom we once had?

Jesus didn’t go to the cross and sacrifice his life, and rise from the grave to lose this battle of bringing Heaven to earth. If we have the Spirit of Christ within us then all we need to do is believe what He told us, and pastors need to start preaching the whole counsel of the Word of God, not three Twitter stories and a poem, but preaching the Word of God.  Every father and every mother needs to get serious about teaching their children to love God with every ounce of their being, and to love their neighbors like themselves. It sounds so basic. It’s the basic thing, but those are the two greatest commandments, love God and love your neighbor. But I think many Christians don’t believe the words of Christ. “Let not your heart be troubled. I have overcome the world. Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world. Go and disciple all the nations, and I will be with you until the end of the age.” How do you see defeat in that kind of a strategy? But I think a lot of Christians feel defeated. They look and they say, oh my gosh, look what’s happening over here, look what’s happening over there, look what’s happening inside my family, look at my kids, look at their friends. We’re just hunkering down waiting for the end, looking for an escape. How do I hit the eject button and get to Heaven before this whole thing implodes? And that’s the problem. We have to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. Jesus is winning, not losing; the Kingdom is growing, not shrinking; and much of the Church needs to be reminded to believe that, and then let’s preach the Word of God.

The Revive Us home video has just released. What can people expect to find on the DVD that may not have been in the film?

We were not originally planning on making a DVD, because originally Revive Us was intended to be a live event. This is something to experience together in the theaters. But there were so many people who could not make it to a theater.  People in rural areas could not find a theater to drive to that was less than five hours away, so they were begging us: where is the DVD? Why can’t we see this? Because of that we created the DVD. It gives people an opportunity to be leaders in their community, and turn their living room into a center for revival in their home with their family, with their friends and their community. So in essence, you get to be the host in your living room and transform your house into a center for revival in your neighborhood.  You can share these truths from some of the top thinkers in our nation – Frances Chan, Ben Carson, Eric Metaxas, James MacDonald, Jennifer Rothschild  -- all within your sphere of influence.

What was your greatest takeaway from that event?  What is one key thing that you learned through it?

When the family of God gets together and the Spirit is moving and filling our sails because of the rightness of our cause, we’re unstoppable, and that is what we need to keep in mind as we move forward today and say, let’s open the eyes of our friends and our families, spread the word, share the message, remind people of where we came from, of who we are, of whose we are; because when we come together and we hear these truths, they resonate in our bones and it motivates us to action; and we can, with the help of God, turn our country around so that the future is bright for our children, and the Gospel flourishes.

Finally, I hear there are plans for a follow-up to Revive Us. Can you share any information about that?

Chris, you’re literally the first person that I have told this to.  Yes, we are launching Revive Us 2 in the fall.  It’s going to build on everything that we laid down foundationally in the first Revive Us. It will be another national family meeting, and the theme is going to be about finding unity in a divided world. We’ll have a couple people that will be familiar from Revive Us, but mostly new people. I can tell you that Frances Chan and Ben Carson will be back, but also Ravi Zacharias and perhaps Vice President Mike Pence.

Watch the trailer for Revive Us DVD:

Share This article

About The Author

Chris
Carpenter

Chris Carpenter is the program director for CBN.com, the official website of the Christian Broadcasting Network. He also serves as executive producer for myCBN Weekend, an Internet exclusive webcast show seen on CBN.com. In addition to his regular duties, Chris writes extensively for the website. Over the years, he has interviewed many notable entertainers, athletes, and politicians including Oscar winners Matthew McConaughy and Reese Witherspoon, evangelist Franklin Graham, author Max Lucado, Super Bowl winning coach Tony Dungy and former presidential hopefuls Sen. Rick Santorum and Gov. Mike