On February 8, in a normal chapel service at Asbury University, Zach Meerkreebs preached from Romans 12:9-21. His message was a challenge to the students regarding divine love. About 20 students came forward to pray and remained after chapel. They remained, and over the next few hours hundreds of others came to join them.
Saturday morning, February 11, 2023 I sat reading the personal accounts of others who were attending the ongoing service at Asbury University. At that time, the service had been going on round the clock for nearly 70 hours. As I read, my heart was drawn. While I had a weekend full of activities planned, I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit. This was too important to miss. After praying with my wife, I quickly packed a bag and asked my son, Samuel, and our assistant pastor, Matthew, to join me. Twenty minutes later, we were headed for Wilmore, KY.
We arrived a little after 1:00pm. As I walked across the lawn in front of the Hughes Memorial building, I began to weep; I felt that I was on holy ground. As I walked in, there was a reverence and a sense of holy awe. Someone was reading Scripture at a microphone in the front. Someone else was softly playing a piano in the background.
I walked directly to the front and knelt to pray at the old wooden altar. God spoke to my heart that day, and for the next nine hours, I had a front row seat (literally) to what God was doing.
I heard the testimonies of young people whose lives had been transformed in the past few days. During one structured testimony time, one Asbury leader asked us to observe the “ABC’s of testimony. “A – It’s all about Jesus. B – Keep it brief. C – Keep it current. No life stories, just tell us what Jesus is doing for you right now. For 45 minutes the testimonies flowed, one right after the other, glorifying God.
One young lady with tears in her eyes shared, “Two years ago I was strung out and now I’m in my first revival!” Another girl shared her story of healing and deliverance, “A year and a half ago I was raped and since then my life has been a wreck. In the past few days, Jesus has brought so much healing to my heart.” There was a mix of young and old, black, white, Hispanic, Korean, and people from near and far. One missionary freshly returned from Africa said, “We’ve been weary from the battle on the mission field, but in just these past few hours, God has filled up our hearts again.”
In the afternoon we were led in a special time of prayer for the church. “I know that many have you have been hurt by the church, but God loves the church. Jesus died for the church. It is His bride.” Collectively, we knelt and repented for our part in the church’s failure and prayerlessness. In a time of prayer for pastors and lay leaders, ten to twelve people I’d never met gathered around and prayed for me as a pastor.
The music throughout the day focused on the person and work of Jesus. It was a mix of songs, and many were familiar to me. “What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!” “Holy, Holy, Holy!” “Worthy is the Lamb.” I found myself drawing closer to Him, focusing on the person of Christ and the work that He completed at Calvary.
As far as I could see, there was no central personality or dynamic figures leading. The leadership was discerning without being controlling. For instance, halfway through the afternoon an African American young man who looked to be about 20 years old was walking back and forth in front waving a flag that said “Jesus is King.” Two Asbury leaders were nearby, and I heard the exchange. “He’s not hurting anything. I think it’s ok. [Let him continue.]”
The altar was in constant use. People came and went, but it wasn’t distracting. The leadership emphasized the need to preserve the atmosphere for prayer. At 4:30, they dismissed for supper, (though hardly anyone left.) “If you have a conversation, please take it outside,” one leader admonished the crowd after a swell of conversation, “We want to preserve this as a sacred space.” The singing continued. Snacks and bottled water outside the sanctuary were available for anyone who was hungry, and at supper time there were boxes of pizza. It was one of the many sensible acts of kindness that I witnessed.
My daughter arrived that evening and told me later. “It wasn’t what I was expecting. It was so normal; it was so peaceful, like God was just coming to sit with us. While the clock said we’d been there for two hours, it hardly felt like we had been there any time at all.”
I witnessed nearly 2,000 people crowd into the auditorium for the evening gathering. There was more singing and prayer. Zach Meerkreebs preached from Joshua 2. “Consecrate yourselves because God is about to do great things among you…” It was a call to holiness and holy living. “In the Old Testament consecration meant something different than it means for us here tonight,” he said, “but some of you need to cut some things off in your life. Some of you need to get rid of some things.”
Before sharing the Lord’s Supper, another Asbury leader named David gave a message. “This act represents Christ’s sacrifice for our sin. It represents His body broken for you, His blood shed for you… While the world drinks to forget, as Christians, we drink to REMEMBER!” What I experienced from beginning to end focused on Jesus. The room was filled with kids who were crazy in love with Jesus, worshipping the only way they knew how with the music that spoke to their hearts. “I know we have a lot of different backgrounds and worship styles represented here,” James, one of the worship leaders said, “We may be playing some songs that are not on your playlist, but these songs are not about you. They are about Him!”
Being around church all my life, I’ve seen and heard some crazy things. I’ve watched flamboyant personalities flame out. I’ve seen the aftermath of ugly church politics. I’ve seen good people do and say some things that I’ll never understand. I’ve witnessed conflict that did not bring glory to God. People have been hurt. Some of them are in eternity now and bore that brokenness to their grave. I’ve lived long enough to see that “all that glitters is not gold.” I’m more than a little skeptical. I know that not every “move of God” (so-called) is genuine.
What is the mark of a true revival? This is a question that has long intrigued believers, and some of the best minds in Christian history have wrestled with it. Jonathan Edwards wrote a whole book on the topic, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections in Three Parts.[1] More recently Sam Storms has abridged and updated Edwards text in a helpful volume entitled, “Signs of the Spirit.[2] Without any doubt every genuine revival movement of God is connected to the work He accomplished in Jesus. It is part of the “stream” of work that He has been doing throughout history.[3] It is connected to what He has already done. That stream is deep and wide. It has been flowing long before we discovered it (or were discovered by it).
True revival is rooted in the Great Tradition—that truth that has been accepted “by all, at all times, and in all places.”[4] It is rooted in those essentials from which we all draw our unity. It is as old as the Apostles’ Creed, a river that finds its origin at Pentecost—perfect love filling each heart, a rock-solid conviction that Jesus is the risen Christ, sacrificed for His own, raised from the dead, and exalted into eternal glory. Our fellowship as Christians is in the cross. We live because He lives! It is that power of the resurrected Christ that units our hearts in agape love.
Long before the “forks” in our church family tree, there was a root, there was a unity, and there was a revival. Peter, fisherman Peter, stands up proclaiming boldly the Eternal Word, “Jesus, whom you crucified is become LORD and CHRIST!” Three thousand people are saved in a single day, and the fire that is lit in in that upper room spread to the entire known world. “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6). It was all God. It was spontaneous and unplanned. It was beautiful. It was disruptive.
What we are seeing at Asbury and now in other places is connected to what God has done before. He is calling His people to holy living and to perfect love. “Let love be without hypocrisy…” that was the truth from Romans 12:9 that compelled twenty students to stay and to pray. It was a simple message without pretense. It was not “powerful pulpiteering”; it was God’s Eternal truth being grasped and reclaimed by His people. The magnetism of that drew me to Wilmore. It was God’s love that I felt as I sat in that chapel for nearly nine hours with brothers and sisters from who knows how many different backgrounds. It is a magnetism that continues drawing together people from many traditions, bringing them back to their roots, reminding us all that what unites us is greater than what divides us. This is not some ecumenical “check your beliefs at the door” gathering; we’re not pretending that we don’t have differences. But we are all connecting to the same Spirit—the Holy Spirit.
Radical revival is a return to the root. It is a recovery of the heart of God, and a fulfillment of Jesus’ prayer for His people “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me” (John 17:21).
May God cause this fire to spread.
[1] Jonathan Edwards, A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections in Three Parts, ed. John E. Smith (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1959).
[2] Jonathan Edwards, Signs of the Spirit: An Interpretation of Jonathan Edwards’s “Religious Affections,” ed. Sam Storms (Wheaton, Ill: Crossway, 2007).
[3] Richard J. Foster, Streams of Living Water: Celebrating the Great Traditions of Christian Faith (New York: HarperOne, 1998).
[4] Don Davis, Sacred Roots: A Primer on Retrieving the Great Tradition (Wichita, KS: The Urban Ministry Institute, 2010).
The Gathering at Victory Acres 