I'm going to do something different today and write about a non-financial topic (except for parents of Asbury students, for whom it's a semi-financial topic). So if you're here strictly for the financial stuff, you can skip this article.
However, if you're one of the many Christians that has been captivated by the story of the revival that broke out at Asbury University two weeks ago, you might find this interesting.
Close to home, closer to my heart
As many of you know, Sound Mind Investing is based in Louisville, Ky. That's roughly 90 minutes from tiny little Wilmore, Ky., where Asbury is. We would have heard about this pretty fast given how close we are geographically.
But it turns out we started hearing about it almost right away, given my insider status as an Asbury Dad. I've got one son there right now, currently a sophomore, with another accepted and planning to join him in the fall.
So I was excited when I got a text on Feb. 9 at 9:38 a.m. saying:
There's a revival going on campus yesterday and today and it's pretty incredible to watch. God is moving in amazing ways
That said, if I'm completely honest, I'm also a semi-jaded Gen X'er who grew up going to camp meetings and Full Gospel Businessmen's conventions in the 1970s, was an ORU student in the 1990s, and so on. I've seen some...stuff! Not that I'm a skeptic — not at all. I just don't immediately assume anything in particular when I hear the term "revival" — are we talking about extra services that were scheduled six months ago when speakers were booked? Nothing wrong with that, just trying to clarify our terms.
Turns out, this was no scheduled/manufactured revival. That quickly became evident as more text reports came in over the next 24 hours:
all day and all night prayer and worship since chapel Wednesday AM
Jesus' presence is tangible here and it's spreading to other campuses around here! Praise God!
I've been in prayer and worship for 12 of the past 39 hours!
Talk about music to a college parent's ears!
A generation crying out for hope
You don't need me to detail the problems and challenges facing young people today. Today's parents (and grandparents) have watched in recent years as cultural rot and emotional stress have somehow changed what it is to be a kid these days (and by "kid," I mean that in the old-man sense of anyone roughly under age 25). The omnipresent internet connections, social media pressures that never stop, and most recently, the COVID policies surrounding schools and kids...it's been a mess. How are they holding it together? Answer: barely, at best. At worst, they're not.
So it is sweet indeed to watch God grab hold of a college campus like this and stir it. And then watch that hunger start to jump from one campus to another and another. Which is what we started hearing about by the following Monday:
Praise Jesus! We have word that revival has started in Cedarville and another campus in Ohio in a similar way that it started at Asbury, where after chapel people have just stayed to pray and worship
And of course, it wouldn't be a youth revival without the socials! Last Friday, I got this one:
#AsburyRevival has over 24 million views on tiktok and instagram as of yesterday
It's just mind boggling to me
Me too, kid. Me too.
Time to check this out first-hand
I still hadn't made it out to Asbury until yesterday. Which apparently put me in the minority, as thousands of people had been flocking to campus over the prior week. While social media was, by this time, buzzing with videos and reports — and even Tucker Carlson was covering it (though Asbury asked Fox not to come to report on it!), I still wanted to see and experience it myself. Us Gen X'ers are hungry too.
So it was that my younger son and I, along with two of my adult nieces, trekked over to Asbury yesterday morning. It's hard to convey just how tiny Wilmore is or how large these crowds have been (you can find lots of video clips on Twitter and everywhere else #AsburyRevival). We got there at 9 a.m...and were told immediately by many who had been there on Saturday how amazing it was that we were so close after the prior day's crowd had literally shut down the town. The police had stopped letting people into town at a certain point! Town's full!
We didn't get into the chapel until 4 p.m.
The revival itself isn't the only remarkable thing happening at Asbury. The logistics of a 6,000 person town accommodating several thousand extra people per day on a campus of 1,600 students is pretty overwhelming, especially when it happens virtually overnight with zero advance planning. I can't say enough good things about the faculty and staff, the students, the town — it was pretty incredible how well everything was functioning. Big kudos to the Salvation Army for their help, and I understand Samaritan's Purse had dispatched some people to help out as well.
But back to the main event. By this point, Asbury had four additional locations running simulcasts of the main chapel, plus a few large screens out on the lawn where people were waiting in line. Thousands of people out there, just waiting patiently. We quickly started bonding with the people immediately around us, which, including my nieces, was comprised of people from California, Minnesota, Maryland, Ohio, and Pennsylvania — my youngest son and I being the only Kentucky locals. We waited seven hours and I typically hate lines, but it didn't feel that long at all.
Perhaps the most striking thing about this whole revival has been the absence of anything human driving it. The chapel that kicked it off was apparently unremarkable, other than the fact that a small number of students stuck around after to pray. Soon, the student worship leaders started playing again. A handful of students who had gone to their next classes felt they had unfinished business back at the altar, and asked their professors if they could go back. Word started to leak out over campus that something was happening over at Hughes (the chapel). More students started returning...and never left. 24/7 prayer and worship followed.
And to their credit, the Asbury leaders stuck with that simple formula. Very little speaking/preaching. What I saw was a lot of worship, leading into times of organic prayer, some brief testimonies, and so on. I love that the Asbury leaders have seemed to grasp from the outset that this has really been about these kids and their generation. From the earliest moments, the Asbury students were crying out to the Lord for other students, other campuses, that God would move in their generation.
Much of the "structure" that has been put in place as this blew up and pilgrims started flocking in has been around preserving that — there's a separate line and reserved seating areas for those under age 25, while the Asbury students have their own entry and several rows of seating. Asbury politely declined the offers of some high-profile speakers and worship bands to come in, preferring to keep it simple. I keep coming back to the word "organic" because what I saw felt so simple and spirit-directed.
The Lord hasn't given up on our kids and grandkids
It's hard for me to write dispassionately about this — not that I'd really want to anyway. But as a Dad of an Asbury student (soon to be two), I'm so profoundly grateful to have this happening right now, right there. So it's probably no surprise that my eyes would leak pretty much every time the worship would begin again, and I found the whole experience pretty amazing. But more important than my feelings, the testimonies of what the Lord has been doing in these young lives are where the real hope is. Suicidal, anxious, grieving young people set free. Reports of people being healed — physically and emotionally.
Perhaps most encouraging to me, Asbury continues to get reports of exciting things happening at other campuses. During my brief time in the chapel yesterday, they mentioned they had just gotten word of a significant number of University of Michigan students deciding to follow Christ, while other schools have been reporting various forms of revival on their local campuses. The Holy Spirit appears to be using the hunger at Asbury to stir hunger at other campuses too. Let it be, Lord!
It seems clear to me that the Lord is doing a work in the hearts of these students, as well as the many thousands of visitors who have been flocking in. I encourage anyone reading this to pray for these students and their leaders. It's no easy thing to steward a sudden, unexpected outpouring like this. I've been extremely impressed and pleased with the decisions Asbury has made to this point. They've got some tough ones ahead, as they try to shift the physical location away from the tiny campus, where the influx of crowds has made the regular operation of the campus pretty much impossible. Let's pray for them to have wisdom and be directed clearly by the Lord, that His purposes will be accomplished. And ultimately that this work of the Spirit would grow and spread far and wide!
One of the great things about our modern society is word (about anything) can travel fast. It's wild to see this fire spread across the younger generation, largely because they can literally pop right in on their phone and see it themselves. On the other hand, one of the worst things about our modern society is that basically the moment anything of import happens, there is an immediate crowd of voices talking it up/down and all around from every angle. It's hard to cut through all that and know what to think.
Hopefully, this report will be an encouragement to you. God is still working. He hasn't given up on our kids and grandkids. There are still many who are responsive to His touch. They're hungry. This Asbury Dad is praying they stay hungry, that they're forever marked by these encounters with His presence, and that this move of the Spirit spreads far and wide.
