What do you think about the Asbury Revival?

/ February 21, 2023

Have you heard about the Asbury Revival? I am confident you have! It is a story regarding Asbury College students who have been meeting in the college chapel hour after hour for some days to pray, sing, worship, seek God, and hear the Bible read?  Many have arrived from elsewhere to join them and similar meetings are being held in other locations around the country.  Opinions regarding whether or not this is a valid move of God have abounded all over the internet, and especially on social media. “What do you think?” is a question that I have been asked repeatedly.  Here are a few of my thoughts:

  1. I believe in seeking God. 
  • 1 Chronicles 28:9. If you seek him, he will be found of you . . .
  • Deut 4:29. But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul
  • 1 Chronicles 16:11 Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his face continually
  • 1 Chronicles 22:19 Now set you heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God; 
  • 2 Chronicles 7:14. If my people which are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and heal their land. (I know the context and I am aware that the “land” referenced here is not about America).  I cite this reference because the truths contained in this verse are taught throughout the Bible. 
  • 2 Chronicles 15:2 The Lord is with you while ye be while him and if ye seek him he will be found of you, but if ye forsake him, he will forsake you.
  • Ezra 8:22 The hand of our God is upon all them for good that seek him: but his power and his wrath is against all them that forsake him.
  • Psalm 63:1 O God, thou art my God, early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is
  • Psalm 119:2 Blessed are they that keep his testimonies, and that seek him with the whole heart.

Because I believe in seeking God, I am praying that this meeting in Asbury will result in many doing just that!

  1. I have prayed for God to move on college campuses.  

For several years now, I have been followed an organization that encourages its followers to pray for college campuses to experience a genuine moving of God. I may not agree with some people regarding various issues, but if they are professing believers I can certainly pray alongside of them for God to move in this way.  As a result of my praying, I am hopeful that this is the beginning of God answering.

  1. I am thrilled to see photos of hundreds of college age young people who have just continued singing, praying, confessing, and begging God to move in their generation.  Hour after hour.  Day after day!  It absolutely thrills me to see it happening.  Very few now believe that we can have extended meetings and many actually believe that no one would attend them anyway.  This gathering at Asbury seems to fly in the face of such thinking!  At any rate, I am praying for God to hear their cry, forgive their sin, and to lead them to surrender themselves to the Lordship of our Savior Jesus Christ.  And for God to use them to impact our increasingly darkened world!
  1. I would love to see the same thing happen on college campuses everywhere, especially in our “movement.”  I attended Pensacola Christian College and love my alma mater. Would it not be incredible if this happened on campus there? Or at Bob Jones University? Or at West Coast Baptist College where my son is enrolled and my daughter and son-in-law are employed?  I would pray for them and go join them if I could.  I would celebrate all night prayer meetings where students were praying and worshipping and seeking God.  Wouldn’t you?
  1. I would guess that there are more than a few parents who are overwhelmed with joy that their son or daughter is seeking God in this way.  I know so many parents who are concerned for their children. I know that I am burdened for mine.  Worldliness and paganism increasingly abounds. Truth is constantly attacked.  Morality is pummeled hour after hour in our society and anyone who doesn’t join in the pummeling is attacked, ridiculed, and sometimes canceled. Is there hope? Sure there is. I want to see our generation seek God and experience His reviving Presence in their lives and hearts.  I want my children to seek God and experience His reviving Presence in their lives and hearts too.  My guess is that I am not alone in that thinking.  

So what about you?  Are you willing to pray and seek God too?  What are your thoughts regarding these students and the #AsburyRevival? I would love to hear from you in the comment section below.

Thanks for reading.  

Your sincere friend,

Dave Young

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23 thoughts on “What do you think about the Asbury Revival?”

  1. They have women preaching and support homosexuality. Both of these things are violations of scripture. You can’t get good and bad fruit from the same tree

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    • Hello Joyce, Thanks for reading and commenting. I appreciate that. I certainly don’t support women pastoring nor do I support the sin of homosexuality. So I would have a problem with both of those matters. If a lady was simply testifying, however, I would not have a problem with that. I assume you wouldn’t either. At any rate, I did some research and I couldn’t personally find definitive proof of either of the things you mentioned, although I did find the university’s statement regarding homosexuality and it was spot on Biblically. Again, thanks for commenting. I am happy to have heard from you. Your friend, Dave

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      • There are several references to woman being called pastor. I found an article from the college newspaper where students were warned not to bully homosexual students. I don’t support bullying. I also found a pod cast of an adjunct professor discussing the revival. He was listed as a homosexual advocate from the university. Unfortunately, my tech skills are weak so I can’t direct you to exactly what I was reading. Time will tell if this revival is of the Lord.

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  2. I attended Asbury College in 1999 one year before transferring to Crown. The school has a rich history, specifically regarding revival. Because of this, the faculty, staff, and student body have prayed for revival to return regularly. More specifically, it was part of every opening and closing prayer in chapel, every prayer to begin class, every dorm devotion, and every meal time prayer. For fifty years.

    Not only that, but there was a spirit of my expectancy. You could regularly hear statements like “Maybe THIS will be there year revival returns.”

    I don’t agree with every practice there and I sure don’t know anything about some of the claims that I have heard circulating online. But I know for sure that if a body of believers prays the same thing with a spirit of expectancy for 50 years, then we should not be surprised when God answers.

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  3. I like what Jonathan Edwards said about the critics of the Great Awakening. You have to focus on the main.
    Focusing in on the what’s happening in the heart of the worship is when you’ll find the revival happening. With that being said, there are three individuals that comprise any true spiritual revival.

    1. God
    2. The Worshipper
    3. The Spectator

    #3 is usually the one trying to tell #1 and #2 how to have revival, and will miss it themselves.

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  4. I agree with you Bro. Dave!! It’s not up to me to determine genuineness or not! I pray that lives are changed, walks with God are restored, sins are forsaken, etc.. Concerning revival.. I pray it would make its way to Goodman Road Baptist Church and let it begin with me and my family!! God bless you!

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  5. Both revival and salvation are a matter of people coming to the Lord “just am I am” (with all of our baggage) and allowing God to begin the process of purging what is unholy and equipping us with what is holy. Revival is not limited to those who are already living the Christ-like life. It is for the John Marks who have failed in ministry. It is for the Peters who have publicly denied Christ. And it is for people like me who so often live self-centered lives. Thank God for His reviving work.

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    • Hello Maribeth. Thanks for reading and commenting. I read the post you shared and much of it is good. Some of it is a bit biased and parts are not well documented. I understand, however, that opinions abound regarding this “revival!” My assumption is that if what is happening at Asbury happened in our churches (days filled with people praying and singing and reading Scripture and thousands attending and so forth ) my church would consider it a revival. Know what I mean? Every blessing, Dave

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  7. Isn’t that what revival is all about. Allowing God to change our hearts and minds. To align out thoughts with his thoughts. To allow his word to change us. I don’t know their doctrine standards but God does and if this is really an awaking from God then he will change their hearts and minds. Revival is an awakening of the heart to have God’s heart and mind. And I pray that we in America allow God to revive our hearts and to change us so a lost and dying world sees the true Christ in us.

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  8. I find it interesting that those who are constantly analyzing revivals, for some reason, have no revival of their own for others to analyze! May God have mercy upon the lot of us?

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  9. Thanks Dave for your thoughts. I respect the way you rationally think through various topics and I have enjoyed your analysis on various tough, grey issues (and recently your “Keeping It Young” podcast). Whether what is happening at Asbury is revival or not, I do not know. God knows. All I know is that I see young college aged students singing to God, praising God, and testifying to His miraculous works. If this is simply an awakening in their hearts, a repentance of sins, a recognition of God’s Holiness, a desire for God to do something in their hearts, then we should all rejoice in that. So easy for us to nitpick everything and say this, that or another to dismiss what happened. As for me and my church, we’re praying for a little of the same in our midst. Holy Spirit, breathe fresh life into my heart first, into my own college-aged kids, my church, my community. In all the darkness and bad news around us, we should rejoice in what is happening at Asbury and in many other colleges and churches and simply pray that God will have mercy on us and send revival across the land. God bless you brother, your family, and your ministry. Looking forward to our next meeting (perhaps at another Men’s Prayer Advance).

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  10. I believe that for some, this revival was as real, meaningful and life changing as it could be. Their hearts were ready for it and I believe God moved. I believe, for others, it was a show or a chance to claim “I was there!”.

    I, too, had heard that openly gay students were leading the music and giving testimony and I cannot believe that God would honor that. But most of all, I believe God is sovereign. He can take any situation and make it for our good and His glory. If hearts were changed, He gets the glory.

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