Revival 2023

Visiting Asbury

Annette and I drove to Asbury University last Saturday, about 5 hours from our house. The last few miles of the trip were through beautiful countryside and Kentucky’s famous horse farms. As we crested the last hill before the small town of Wilmore, we caught sight of the university chapel with thousands of people in line and on the lawn. We turned and stared at each other, unprepared for what we had just seen.

We stayed in town until about 3:00 PM on Sunday. As we were leaving Sunday afternoon, we saw cars lined up for miles on the two-lane road that led to the university. The crowd size had doubled since we had arrived 24 hours earlier.

This photo from currentpub.com shows the amazing growth of the revival in just 10 days.

How did it start?

Wednesday, February 8 began as a normal day at Asbury University in Wilmore, a town of 6,000 people in central Kentucky. The students went to the mandatory chapel service where they sat through an unremarkable, forgettable sermon. At the end of the service the speaker asked students to come to the stage if they wanted to pray for a deeper knowledge of Christ. About 12 or 14 students came forward.

They talked, read scripture, and prayed. Someone found a guitar and they started singing worship songs. They didn’t want to leave because they were finding what they were looking for – a fuller experience of Jesus. So they stayed … and stayed … and stayed. Word of the gathering trickled out through social media and more students joined.

They became so enraptured with God’s presence that they stayed all night. During the following days the impromptu gathering continued nonstop, night and day. More people joined, even from neighboring communities. Word spread. A week later, people started arriving from neighboring states. After yet another week – the weekend that Annette and I went – people started coming from other countries. By then the gathering had spread throughout the campus to smaller chapels, throughout the city to local churches, and even to Christian colleges in neighboring states. It had taken one week for the revival to grow from 12 people to hundreds of people, and one more week to increase to tens of thousands of people.

Here's a view of the front of the main chapel. Many people were watching and listening to the indoor proceedings on huge screens that were set up outside. There was praying and singing everywhere. Hundreds of people were in line waiting to get inside the chapel.

There was plenty of free food for everyone –
pizza, burgers, and all kinds of food were donated by local businesses.

What was it like?

When we arrived on Saturday we were able to get into the main chapel, which was a special privilege because we were prayer volunteers through my brother Bud. It was the first worship service that I attended where the leader asked people to leave so that those who were waiting outside could come in!

We spent most of our time Saturday in an auxiliary chapel a couple hundred yards away from the main chapel. I sat in the worship service for seven hours, from about 4:00 PM until 11:00 PM on Saturday, taking a break only to attend Bud’s one-hour class on prayer. The worship was simple, quiet, and unadorned – piano, guitar, and sometimes acapella – simple hymns and worship songs. All the worship leaders were Asbury students. Before going on stage, they spent between 30 and 60 minutes in a “consecration room” where they prayed, repented, and asked for God’s filling.

Between songs, students gave testimonies about God’s work in their lives – testimonies which were met with exuberant applause from the audience. When I finally left campus for the day at 11:00 PM the line outside had grown – there were hundreds and hundreds of people waiting to get into the main chapel, and the gymnasium and auxiliary chapels were still full.

Hughes Chapel seats about 1500. Here’s a photo that Annette took from the balcony –
standing room only, with hundreds of people still waiting to get in.

McKenna Chapel is much smaller than Hughes Chapel but there was no line to get in,
and the experience here was just as great as in Hughes.

What made it different?

I wondered, “Why don’t we experience this type of worship in our home church? Isn’t the Holy Spirit just as present there as He is at Asbury?” Certainly! The difference is that at Asbury, almost everyone was there with one simple, overriding goal: to seek God.

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6). Yes, we were filled. This was another common theme at the revival – spiritual hunger and thirst. People were hungry for the bread of life and thirsty for the water of the Spirit. They were not hungry for ritual, or routine, or preaching, or teaching, or socializing, or moralizing … they were simply desperate for Jesus. That’s why they came and that’s what they found.

At church, people don’t seek God. The preacher goes to church to deliver a message. The Bible class teacher goes to teach a lesson. The piano player goes because she’s on the piano schedule. The members go because they like to sing, or they want to see their friends, or they want to learn about the Bible.

Those are all good, but they’re not the same thing as seeking God. At Asbury, thousands of people met with the sole intention of seeking God. There was no schedule; there was no hurry; there were no time limits; there was just worship – for hours and hours, and days and days.

Another common theme that I heard, and experienced for myself, is that when you are truly worshiping in the Spirit, you don’t realize how much time has elapsed. As I sat and worshiped, I couldn’t get up from my seat. I was hungry but I skipped dinner. I had to go to the bathroom but I didn’t go because I didn’t want to miss anything. Don’t worry – I did finally get up and go to the bathroom – the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak :)

We pray for revival in our churches – we sing about revival – but we don’t really do anything about it. James said that if you bestow a blessing on your brother or sister but don’t do anything about it, your faith is dead (James 2:16).

But the students at Asbury not only prayed for revival – they did something about it. They sat in the chapel, continued to pray, and worshiped God until He came. Night fell and they stayed. The sun rose the next morning and they stayed. They didn’t say, “I’ll invest X hours in worship and waiting for God – but after that I’ve gotta get to class!”

When we put time constraints on the Holy Spirit, we limit Him. But when we are willing to abandon our routine, miss sleep, miss class, miss work, skip meals, and maybe even skip the bathroom, then He will visit us in His time and in His way. It’s unreasonable and impractical, but it’s the way of the Spirit.

Here’s a photo of volunteer headquarters. The revival expanded from 20 people to tens of thousands of people within a couple of weeks. Starting from nothing, the logistics at Asbury University developed at an amazing speed in response to the growth of the revival. Logistics included food services, janitorial and sanitation services, crowd control, information technology, security, prayer support, auxiliary chapel locations, scheduling, …

So what?

You might ask, “Is there any substance to the Asbury revival, or is it just an emotional event? Isn’t God present everywhere?” Yes He is. But I was more aware of His presence at Asbury because I was in the midst of people who were single-mindedly seeking Him. It wasn’t a feeling – it was the knowledge that everyone around me was focused like a laser beam on God. It wasn’t (primarily) emotional – it was faith that God would keep His promise in Jeremiah 29:13: “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.” It was worship, prayer, and repentance with no regard for time or schedule.

You might ask me, “Will the revival make a long-term difference in your life? Will you be a better person because of what you experienced there?” But I don’t really care about that. It is important – wisdom and the fruit of the Spirit are indications of the His presence. But my goal is not to be a better person – my goal is to know God. My goal is not to become more valuable to society or to the church – my goal is to understand how valuable I already am to God.

“This is eternal life – to know the only true God, and Jesus Christ” (John 17:3).