In the minds of many church members and pastors, the presence and preaching of an evangelist in their church for a specified period of days translates into revival.
Like you, I know of scores of churches who have one or two evangelists come in each year for revival, and yet, they remain as dead as a corpse. The evangelist cannot bring revival, so don't blame him.
For years I have told my people that if revival could not happen under the preaching of a godly pastor, it probably could not happen under the preaching of a visiting evangelist. During the nine years at my present church, we have not had a "revival meeting." We have had revivals...revivals that did not include the presence of an evangelist.
So, IMHO, the traditional "revival meeting" that features a romping, stomping, sweating, foaming-at-the-mouth evangelist is a relic of the past.
Regarding "bomb droppers," here are a couple of recent stories you might find interesting.
At a recent Bible conference, I heard two sermons from a well-known SBC evangelist. This guy stays booked two years in advance. He is a good communicator and seems to be a godly, older man. During his discourses, he repeatedly dogged contemporary music and praise-type choruses. He also spoke of the ungodliness of not having Sunday night worship in a church. In fact, he stated that churches that cease to have Sunday night worship will eventually die. When he made these statements, there were shouts of acclamation from the audience of 8,000 +. I couldn't help but think about the hundreds of pastors in attendance who, just like me, do not have Sunday night services and who do use contemporary music, and whose churches are growing. I would never invite this particular evangelist to fill my pulpit.
Another example: Last week I found some old audio tapes in a cabinet. Having not listened to them in years, I took them with me on a trip and listened to them in my car. The evangelist was preaching at a church where my son had served on staff a few years ago...a fairly large church....800 in attendance each week. As I listened to the tapes, I marveled at the shallowness of the evangelist's messages...a mile wide and an inch deep. He read a verse of Scripture at the beginning and never referred to it. He brow-beat the people during the invitation, milking them for every ounce of response he could get. The icing on the cake was this....On the closing night of this great "revival," he asked people to go to various microphones in the worship center and openly confess their sins and ask the church's forgiveness. He said, "I'll just start this thing out. I don't mind telling you that my sin is gluttony. I can't stop eating. I battle it constantly." This guy is obese. When I heard him saying this, I thought, "Will the pastor ask him to leave and not come back until he has this sin under control?" Of course not! If he had said, "I have a problem with adultery. I can't keep my eyes and hands off women," would the pastor have asked him to leave? You bet.
Go figure.
Sorry for the long post and somewhat fragmented thoughts, but the topic rung a bell. It may be time for us pastor to start "dropping some bombs" on the bomb droppers.