Photos by Jeanna Duerscherl | The Roanoke Times

Evangelist Steve Board says goodbye to parishioners at Lighthouse Family Ministries after a Sunday morning service. Board, a former retail manager, became a full-time evangelist six years ago and has led numerous revivals since then.

Ann Haga raises her hand while singing during the annual revival held at Lighthouse Family Ministries in Riner.

Evangelist Steve Board prays Sunday for Sandy Lovern, a childhood friend, during a revival at Lighthouse Family Ministries in Riner. Eighty people came out for a week of preaching, singing and immersion in the Holy Spirit.

RINER -- "Our Lord is coming back to Earth again," the congregation sang Sunday morning.

An electric guitar led the melody, while a drummer kept the tempo on a full trap set.

The faithful stood, raising their hands and singing, whether from hymnals or memory: "All the Earth is groaning, crying for that day of sweet release, for our Jesus to come back to Earth again."

"I want to be ready, don't you?" music director Sandy Lovern asked the assembly. "I don't want to be stuck here during the time of tribulation. We think it's bad now."

So began the annual revival at Lighthouse Family Ministries on Union Valley Road, where about 80 people gathered to renew their faith with a week of preaching, singing and immersion in the Holy Spirit.

While many churches and evangelists eschew the sweltering tents of yesteryear for air-conditioned sanctuaries, revivals are still a staple of summer across Southwest Virginia. And few evangelists' names can be found on more revival fliers than that of Christiansburg native Steve Board.

A former retail manager turned Church of God minister based in Beckley, W.Va., Board often preaches in churches and at camp meetings throughout the New River Valley.

"Most of us know him, don't we? We grew up with him," Lighthouse pastor Buford Linkous said as he introduced Board.

It's been six years since Board said he "stepped out by faith" and took up his calling to full-time evangelism.

"I've been busy ever since," he said.

The 59-year-old preacher said he is booked to 2010.

"We need revival today," he said in an interview.

And he thinks he's seeing it. Board says he has witnessed more than 300 people come forward to be saved at revivals this year.

"I have seen drug dealers walking off the street, and they are saved before the service is over. I've seen cancers fall off people's faces. That sounds fanatic, but I've seen it," he said.

Some scholars agree that a new age of religious fervor may be gripping the nation, according Roanoke College religion professor Gerald McDermott.

Some call it America's fifth "Great Awakening," and McDermott says he sees evidence of it in his students.

"So many college students are looking for so much more than a business degree," he said. They want a career, but they "want meaning and purpose, too."

American revivalism is said to have begun with the first "Great Awakening" in New England during the 1730s. It spread quickly through the colonies and may have fostered the American Revolution, McDermott said.

According to the professor, today's Appalachian revivals are spiritual heirs of two major historical revivals -- the Cane Ridge Revival in Bourbon County, Ky., and the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles.

In 1801, 20,000 people gathered at the Cane Ridge Meeting House in Kentucky, where the preaching and singing went on for weeks. Worshippers seized by the Spirit developed "the jerks," according to accounts of the time.

The influence of Cane Ridge "was bigger than our Super Bowl," McDermott said. And it is thought to have fueled the abolitionist movement and the American Civil War.

In 1906, black and white Christians were nurturing the Pentecostal movement at the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles. There Gaston Cashwell, a white preacher from Dunn, N.C., caught the spirit of Azusa Street and brought it back home.

"Revival broke out in Dunn," and spread throughout the mountain south, McDermott said.

Today the Pentecostal movement claims 600 million adherents and various denominations, including Church of God and Assemblies of God.

Theologically, Pentecostalism teaches the inerrancy of Scripture, the absolute divinity of Jesus Christ and a bodily resurrection for the faithful. Worship is characterized by faith healing and religious ecstasy that can include speaking in tongues.

Because of Cashwell, many revivals across Appalachia are still led by Pentecostal evangelists, McDermott said.

But for followers, the annual revival experience is simply a place to gain strength for the struggles of daily life.

On Sunday, Board called Lovern away from leading the choir and to the altar.

"If you love Sandy, I want you to get to your feet," Board told the congregation.

They rose and stretched out their hands in prayer.

Doctors recently found a mass in Lovern's left lung. A biopsy is scheduled, she said.

A member of Lighthouse since her childhood, the 60-year-old choir director bowed her head and raised her arms as Board laid hands on her and prayed.

"Father, would you honor her faithfulness? Touch her, Lord. Heal her in the name of God."

The annual revival "keeps me encouraged, keeps me praying," Lovern said later. "When you think you don't have nobody else, you have God."

Revival at Lighthouse Family Ministries continues through Friday with nightly services at 7 p.m.