Showing Up at Asbury University: What to Expect

By Michael C. Mack  

What is happening at Asbury University? Is it revival? An awakening? An outpouring of the Spirit?  

I wanted to see for myself, so on Wednesday I drove to Wilmore, Ky., home of Asbury University. Wilmore is normally a sleepy little town; it is surrounded by horse farms and agriculture. But as I drove down North Lexington Avenue toward campus, it was anything but sleepy; I came upon a traffic jam and wondered where I would park. A pedestrian kindly pointed me to a church lot up the street. Being unfamiliar with the campus, I wasn’t sure where to go, but I soon saw a large crowd of people on the lawn in front of Hughes Auditorium where, seven days earlier, a routine student chapel service metamorphosed into something that’s anything but routine or ordinary.  

Tuesday evening, after reading many reports about the ongoing prayer and worship service at Asbury, and after reading Terrence Turman’s account of his visit there, I thought about going myself. On Wednesday morning, during my normal time of Bible study and prayer, I sensed the nudge to go . . . so I got in my car and drove an hour and a half from just outside Louisville to Wilmore. I had no idea what I’d see and hear there, or what to expect.  

I went to Wilmore to see what others have been describing, but, more than that, to experience what God was doing, and, more than that, to be in a place where God’s presence and power and purposes were being displayed. I walked up the sidewalk with hundreds of others; my hands were empty and open to whatever God might do (or perhaps not do). Would God show up as had been described by others, and what would that look like? How would his presence be different from what I usually experience as I worship corporately and personally? What might God do in my heart? Would he give me answers I need? Healing I need? Direction I need? A hundred other questions flooded my mind. 

But first, where was I going on campus? The crowds in front of Hughes Auditorium and the long lines trying to get inside discouraged me momentarily. But just then I ran into Dave Stone, who quickly summarized the situation: a two-to-three-hour wait to get into Hughes, where the prayer meeting started and was continuing. Across the street from there, however, was the seminary chapel, and a specific service for them was starting soon; there might be room there. I crossed the street and found a seat in the packed chapel. A speaker was using a cycling illustration to help describe what was happening on campus. Being an avid cyclist myself, I felt like I was in the right place.  

The speaker talked about how for years students and faculty at Asbury have prayed secretively for what was now occurring on campus. She and others reaffirmed that none of this was planned, manufactured, or pushed. Now the Asbury faculty and staff were simply trying to steward well what God was doing. She said, “Holy love characterizes what is happening here.”  

When the seminary chapel service ended, the service from across the street in Hughes Auditorium was livestreamed in our venue, but as far as I could tell, location didn’t matter. The same Spirit present across the street was moving in the seminary chapel as well. We worshipped in the seminary chapel venue along with our fellow Christ followers across the street; we prayed collectively, in small groups, and as individuals—sometimes all at the same time. God’s Word was read from the stage and sometimes shouted joyfully from those in the crowd in the chapel. Many left their pews at various times to go to the front for prayer, confession, and repentance. While this may all sound somewhat disorderly, there was a sweet, unforced rhythm to it all.  

Leaders from the school were present in both venues and spoke from the stage on occasion. As a journalist, I couldn’t discern any one person or group leading it all. As a Christ follower, I knew Someone was leading it. As a believer in the power of the Holy Spirit, I sensed a timetable and orderliness that was his. I think chaordic—that is, in this sense, a combination of seemingly human chaos and God’s order—describes it well.  

There was nothing spectacular or dazzling about any of the speaking, the music, or the singing. On the surface, it all seemed quite ordinary. No celebrity Christians (except for those perhaps intermingled in the crowd); no professional musicians, just students serving God; no renowned speakers or leaders. I saw only two people who were trying to draw attention to themselves—a couple men with microphones by the street who had their own agendas and objectives. The crowd quietly and peacefully passed by them.  

I heard people use many words to describe the events on the Asbury campus: simple, gentle, genuine, kind, clean, patient, and expectant.  

I especially like the last word: expectant. While I didn’t know what to expect, I was expectant for God to move. While I saw only ordinary people and actions, I sensed something extraordinary happening. And even if, as some may argue, the Holy Spirit wasn’t moving powerfully to revive a campus, a city, and a nation, I personally experienced him working in me and the people next to me—those who God used to minister to me and those I had the opportunity to pray for.  

Some are asking whether this is “revival” or something else. The leaders at Asbury are trying not to put a name to it, at least not yet, so neither will I. To me, that would be like trying to capture the wind in a chain-link fence. It’s quite silly—and foolish—to even try.  

In my opinion, we don’t need to define it or even fully understand it (although, as always, we should ask God to give us his discernment). We don’t need to be critical of it. Whenever God moves, detractors, disparagers, and doubters will show up too. Just ask Moses, Nehemiah, the prophets, and Jesus along with his representatives in the early church. Pharisees will show up to say you’re not doing it right. Critics will criticize. Judges will judge. Nitpickers will nitpick. The enemy will show up to steal, kill, and destroy, even as Jesus is giving life to the full.  

We don’t need to compare this to past revivals, at least not yet. Each movement of the Spirit is unique and compatible with its own generation and time in Christian history. What’s happening at Asbury is new wine from God, sent through this present generation—Gen Z—and it requires new wineskins. Let’s not do this generation—and the Spirit—a disservice by trying to fit this into our definitions and historic frameworks. Instead, those of us who are older are called to pray fervently for this generation, and perhaps humble ourselves to allow them to lead us in this simple, genuine move of God in our time.  

One person who spoke briefly at Asbury said, “Jesus loves this. He loves humility. He loves unity.” I saw both of those biblical values while I was there. God is moving in such a way that I heard no one, with the two exceptions I mentioned earlier, drawing attention to themselves. The focus is on Jesus. And there is a sweet, beautiful unity happening on campus as men and women from different Christian denominations and tribes and from different ethnicities and nations have come together as one body to worship God. The focus is not on our differences. The focus is on Jesus.  

What Richard Blackaby said seems true: “In revival, God takes center stage and draws his people to himself in brokenness and repentance.”  

A speaker recognized that students from at least 20 other college campuses had joined with Asbury students on the Wilmore campus, and they had heard of six other colleges where all-day prayer meetings were happening. As another person said, “The love of God is being poured out through the Holy Spirit.”  

I’ve been asked by several people, “Should I go?” There are considerations to keep in mind: Many people are still streaming to Wilmore. There may be traffic jams. It may be hard to find a parking place. It may be crowded. There will be lines. You may not get to be in the “main” room with the students, where this all started. Since the song choices are not planned in advance, you won’t have words on screens or hymn books, and you may not know all the words to all the songs (but you can catch on!). You won’t be in control of what’s happening around you. Bigger crowds could bring out people not seeking peace, unity, and humility before God. More people may cause this to become a spectacle.  

But I’m not saying not to go. One thing that was clear to me in my trip to Asbury is that God is sovereign. All this is his idea and it’s all about him. I believe he is orchestrating this, and if he can feed thousands with just a few pieces of barley bread and fish, he can surely deal with any list of considerations you or I could come up with.  

I encourage you to go with your hands and heart open, surrendering your expectations to God, allowing him to do whatever he wants to do in and through you. Like me, you may leave Wilmore without all of life’s questions answered, but I pray that, like me, you will leave with a sense of God’s transformative peace amid life’s uncertainties. 

Here’s something else to remember. God’s Spirit cannot be confined to a college campus. This place is where God chose to work and move at the moment. Yet God’s presence and power are available wherever you are. This is his work, not ours, but he plants his seeds in the fertile ground of prayerful, humble, repentant hearts.  

I’m concerned that well-meaning Christian leaders may try to replicate what’s happening at Asbury. We all want to see people come to Christ; we want to see lives transformed, marriages reconciled, people healed, and more . . . but we can’t force God’s hand; we can’t do any of this in our own power, we can’t do it only according to our own schedules, and we certainly can’t manufacture or contrive a movement of the Holy Spirit. Instead, we must come before God in repentance, and then prayerfully, patiently wait on God’s perfect timing.  

Let’s start by slowing down, being still, seeking God as our priority, surrendering everything to him, and submitting ourselves to prayer and fasting, to confessing and repenting of our sins.  

Be watchful. Stay ready. We never know when God will show up and work in ways we don’t expect and maybe do not even understand.  

Michael C. Mack serves as editor of Christian Standard.