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Two weeks after Newsboys released the first half of Worldwide Revival, lead singer, Michael Tait, explains where the name came from.
"As a kid, my dad was a preacher, much like Billy Graham without the fame, but God knows the heart. He drove a cab and I often say, 'If you got in my dad's cab, there was a good chance you were going to be saved.' My dad loved people, he loved the Gospel, he was saved out of a crazy lifestyle. He was radically changed, as they would say in the 60s and 70s," Tait says in an interview.
"I watched my dad go door to door, knocking on people's doors to tell them about God and Jesus. Old fashioned way, we give a Gospel track out saying, 'Do you know Jesus?' Or we'd give them a card on how they could come to church," he said.
Seeing how his dad would show God's love to the people he would come in contact with had a lasting impression on Michael to this day. "I would watch him preach at tent revivals and then a friend of mine said to me about revival. He said, 'Tait, what would Jesus Christ's ministry look like if He never talked to strangers?' I thought that would be a problem."
Tait says that his father took Matthew 28 literally where it says The Great Commission, "He went to all the streets and spread the Gospel because he wanted to see rivaval. We say worldwide revival because we want to see the whole world affected by what God does through His people, whether it's us, the next band, the next preacher, or the next missionary. We want to see change."
"As believers, we have this faith in our God that is not dead, we believe it and live it. Revival is going to start. It will start in the hearts of believers. In our homes and neighbourhoods, it will spread out, that's what we pray for."