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It is most significant that whenever spiritual awakenings have occurred throughout the Christian centuries, they have always been accompanied by a restoration of koinonia, of the confession of faults, and the bearing of one another’s burdens. During the Wesleyan awakening in eighteenth-century England, the great evangelist George Whitefield wrote to his converts:

“My brethren, let us plainly and freely tell one another what God has done for our souls. To this end, you would do well, as others have done, to form yourselves into little companies of four or five each, and meet once a week to tell each other what is in your hearts; that you may then also pray for and comfort each other as need shall require. None but those who have experienced it can tell the unspeakable advantages of such a union and communion of souls. None, I think, that truly loves his own soul and his brethren as himself, will be shy of opening his heart, in order to have their advice, reproof, admonition and prayers, as occasions require. A sincere person will esteem it one of the greatest blessings.”671