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Revival Breaks Out At Asbury College - Students, Faculty And Passersby Entering In
February 11, 2006
February 7, 2006
Students are fervently praying for an outpouring of Holy Spirit some up to 11 hours a day. Christian from around the world are praying for the move of God that has begun at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky.
WILMORE, KY—(Feb. 7, 2006)Monday morning the student body gathered for Chapel at 10 a.m. and the student-led chapel continues. Hundreds of students, faculty and staff, and even members of the surrounding community and Asbury Theological Seminary joined the praise, worship and prayer.
Students are committing their lives to Christ for the first time and scores of others are rededicating themselves to the Lord. Jesus is at the center of it all.
Wilmore freshman Michael Spann spent a total of 11 hours in Hughes Auditorium, praying and worshiping. Spann said that he and several other students have been meeting independently since early last term to pray for the college and for the Holy Spirit to move on the campus.
Asbury House of Prayer started in the original Asbury building on campus where generations of Asbury students have waited on God. Students have gathered and signed up to pray for the college independently. Currently, students have committed to more than 40 hours of prayer each week interceding for the college community
“My brother Travis [Spann, a senior] felt strongly that something great was going to happen and yesterday God’s will just broke out. People were just yearning for God. I can’t even describe it.” Michael Spann said. “I didn’t want to leave until I felt the Lord was in me the way He needed to be.”
College President Dr. Paul Rader and his wife, Dr. Kay Rader, stayed in Hughes until after midnight. When they left, Dr. Rader said hundreds of students were still praying and praising.
“Following the morning chapel the altar was crowded with students seeking the Lord—two and three deep, with people praying in groups around the auditorium,” he described. “Throughout the day there has been a beautiful awareness of the Holiness of God. Many students took off their shoes with a sense of standing on Holy ground. God is answering the passionate and persistent prayers of committed students who have been fasting and praying for weeks for this kind of spiritual breakthrough. We are all rejoicing in it.”
Stu Smith, associate dean for campus ministries and campus chaplain, said that news of the chapel service spread throughout the surrounding areas, high schools and other local colleges. Students called friends and relatives throughout the world to have them pray for Asbury College.
“People were praying all over the world as God was moving here,” Smith said.
Spann said he even heard that people off the streets of Wilmore just heard the music and were drawn to Hughes. “People want to be transformed and that’s what attracted them to Hughes.”
The music didn’t stop. Smith said that when one group of students would tire from leading the worship another would move into their place. Nothing was coerced or planned.
Fitch’s IGA in Wilmore and others in the community sent food and water for the students who couldn’t leave.
Atlanta sophomore Hannah Helfen who spent several hours in Hughes yesterday said she didn’t want to leave either. She says that God spoke to her in a different way. Typically not very outspoken, God told her that it was OK to be open about her faith and tell other people about Him.
Sophomore Ben Greenhoe from Ada, Mich., spent most of the day in Hughes. He said, “When God moves, you have to respond. There’s nothing else you can do when you meet your Creator face to face like we did yesterday. There’s nothing else that could bring that many people together from so many different backgrounds. And the fact that it is still going on now speaks volumes.”
Lisa Harper, director of communications and Transforming (class of 2007) advisor said,
“It was incredible to be in the midst of it all, praying with the students at the altar and witnessing the joy and sweet peace. If that’s not what we’re about here then I don’t know what we’re about.”
More: http://asbury.edu/press/chapelcontinues06
Rumblings of revival begin on college campus
Feb 8, 2006
By Erin Curry Roach
Baptist Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)--A massive movement of prayer on a college campus has led to an extended time of corporate worship that had some students staying in the school’s chapel as long as 11 hours, and a Southern Baptist evangelism leader hopes it could be one of the spots where revival breaks out among a new generation.
At Asbury College, a Christian liberal arts college with more than 1,200 students in Wilmore, Ky., near Lexington, the student body gathered for a regularly scheduled chapel service at 10 a.m. Feb. 6, but some ended up staying for hours, according to a news release by the school.
“Following the morning chapel the altar was crowded with students seeking the Lord -- two and three deep, with people praying in groups around the auditorium,” Asbury President Paul Rader said. “Throughout the day there has been a beautiful awareness of the holiness of God. Many students took off their shoes with a sense of standing on holy ground.
“God is answering the passionate and persistent prayers of committed students who have been fasting and praying for weeks for this kind of spiritual breakthrough. We are all rejoicing in it,” he said.
In hopes that God would have His way in lives across their campus and community, Asbury students have individually committed to interceding for their peers and have collectively signed up for more than 40 hours of prayer for their school each week.
John Avant, vice president for evangelization at the Southern Baptist North American Mission Board, expressed excitement about what is going on at Asbury, especially in light of similar explosions of enthusiasm among Christians in Missouri and Alaska.
“The last two weeks have been the first fresh movements of God on campuses that I have heard about since the mid-‘90s,” Avant said in remarks to Baptist Press.
Revival broke out at Asbury College in 1970 and again in 1995, and many hope to see such commitment to God resurface so that many more lives can be changed.
News of the extended chapel service spread throughout the surrounding areas, high schools and other local colleges, the school said, and hundreds of students, faculty and staff and members of the community joined in for praise, worship and prayer in the chapel.
When one group of students would tire of leading in worship, another group would move into their place, and a local grocery store sent food and water for those who chose to remain in the service for hours. The school noted that the service was not planned to last so long; it was simply an answer to prayer.
“I didn’t want to leave until I felt the Lord was in me the way He needed to be,” Michael Spann, a freshman at Asbury, said.
The student body at Asbury includes people from 47 states and 11 countries, and the school is currently ranked fourth by U.S. News & World Report among comprehensive colleges in the South.
“When God moves, you have to respond. There’s nothing else you can do when you meet your Creator face to face like we did yesterday,” Ben Greenhoe, a sophomore at Asbury, said. “There’s nothing else that could bring that many people together from so many different backgrounds.”
More: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?ID=22612
Prayer Meeting Continues at Asbury College
Revival
Feb 9, 2006
WILMORE, KY—Monday morning the student body gathered for Chapel at 10 a.m. and the student-led chapel continues. Hundreds of students, faculty and staff, and even members of the surrounding community and Asbury Theological Seminary joined the praise, worship and prayer.
http://www.asbury.edu/images/opr/2006/photos/chapelcontinues 06.jpg.
Students are committing their lives to Christ for the first time and scores of others are rededicating themselves to the Lord. Jesus is at the center of it all.
Wilmore freshman Michael Spann spent a total of 11 hours in Hughes Auditorium, praying and worshiping. Spann said that he and several other students have been meeting independently since early last term to pray for the college and for the Holy Spirit to move on the campus.
Asbury House of Prayer started in the original Asbury building on campus where generations of Asbury students have waited on God. Students have gathered and signed up to pray for the college independently. Currently, students have committed to more than 40 hours of prayer each week interceding for the college community.
“My brother Travis [Spann, a senior] felt strongly that something great was going to happen and yesterday God’s will just broke out. People were just yearning for God. I can’t even describe it.” Michael Spann said. “I didn’t want to leave until I felt the Lord was in me the way He needed to be.”
College President Dr. Paul Rader and his wife, Dr. Kay Rader, stayed in Hughes until after midnight. When they left, Dr. Rader said hundreds of students were still praying and praising.
“Following the morning chapel the altar was crowded with students seeking the Lord—two and three deep, with people praying in groups around the auditorium,” he described. “Throughout the day there has been a beautiful awareness of the Holiness of God. Many students took off their shoes with a sense of standing on Holy ground. God is answering the passionate and persistent prayers of committed students who have been fasting and praying for weeks for this kind of spiritual breakthrough. We are all rejoicing in it.”
Stu Smith, associate dean for campus ministries and campus chaplain, said that news of the chapel service spread throughout the surrounding areas, high schools and other local colleges. Students called friends and relatives throughout the world to have them pray for Asbury College.
“People were praying all over the world as God was moving here,” Smith said.
Spann said he even heard that people off the streets of Wilmore just heard the music and were drawn to Hughes. “People want to be transformed and that’s what attracted them to Hughes.”
The music didn’t stop. Smith said that when one group of students would tire from leading the worship another would move into their place. Nothing was coerced or planned.
Fitch’s IGA in Wilmore and others in the community sent food and water for the students who couldn’t leave.
Atlanta sophomore Hannah Helfen who spent several hours in Hughes yesterday said she didn’t want to leave either. She says that God spoke to her in a different way. Typically not very outspoken, God told her that it was OK to be open about her faith and tell other people about Him.
Sophomore Ben Greenhoe from Ada, Mich., spent most of the day in Hughes. He said, “When God moves, you have to respond. There’s nothing else you can do when you meet your Creator face to face like we did yesterday. There’s nothing else that could bring that many people together from so many different backgrounds. And the fact that it is still going on now speaks volumes.”
Lisa Harper, director of communications and Transforming (class of 2007) advisor said, “It was incredible to be in the midst of it all, praying with the students at the altar and witnessing the joy and sweet peace. If that’s not what we’re about here then I don’t know what we’re about.”
Asbury College Office of Public Relations at (859) 858-3511, ext. 2409, or email us at pr@asbury.edu
More: http://www.asbury.edu/press
God continues to move in our midst....
Note to David Bodine at nRn - From Stu Smith
Please do continue to pray. God continues to move in our midst. Students continue to be in our chapel praying and seeking God throughout the day and then several hundred end up in the chapel during the early to late evening hours. God has come and scores of people have been saved while others have found spiritual and emotional healing from the Lord. Thank you for your interest and your prayers.
Blessings!
Stu
Rev. Stuart A. Smith
Campus Chaplain
Asbury College
1 Macklem Drive
Wilmore, KY 40390-1198
859-858-3511, x 2350
stuart.smith@asbury.edu
http://asbury.edu/press/chapeldaytwo06
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Another Holy Outbreak At Asbury
A sense of revival erupted this week on a college campus in Kentucky. It could be the sign of a spiritual tsunami headed our way.
J. Lee Grady - Charisma
Students at Asbury College in Kentucky arrived for their usual 10 a.m. chapel on Monday of this week. Some of them are still there today.
Students are worshiping, weeping and praying. Many of them took off their shoes in Hughes Auditorium because they felt they were standing on holy ground. A photo on the nondenominational Christian college’s Web site shows students with their hands raised in praise as they crowd near the chapel’s altar.
“God’s will just broke out,” said one student, Michael Spann. “People were just yearning for God. I can’t even describe it. I didn’t want to leave until I felt the Lord was in me the way He wanted to be.”
“There’s nothing else you can do when you meet your Creator face to face like we did yesterday,” sophomore Ben Greenhoe said on Tuesday.
The president of Asbury, Paul Rader, stayed in the auditorium watching the scene until midnight Monday. Folks in the small town of Wilmore, where Asbury is located, heard about the protracted meeting and wandered in. A local grocer sent water and snacks to the campus after hearing that the prayer service was going nonstop.
Wednesday night there were several hundred students praying in the chapel. Some stayed until 4 a.m.
On Thursday Rader led the morning chapel and felt what he called “an awesome sense of expectation.” He said: “From the first praise chorus students began coming to the long altar at the front of the auditorium. Soon the altar was crowded with students again. There was incredible freedom in the Spirit as we sang and prayed and shared testimonies of God’s gracious work in the hearts of students.”
This is not the first time Hughes Auditorium has been the site of a revival outbreak. On Feb. 3, 1970, the Holy Spirit invaded a chapel service that was supposed to last 50 minutes. It lasted 185 hours, running 24 hours a day, and then continued intermittently for weeks. It eventually spread throughout the United States and to several foreign countries.
Asbury is an interdenominational Christian college with Wesleyan roots. The 1970 revival broke out when the school’s academic dean, Custer Reynolds, gave his testimony and then asked students to share theirs. After several students spoke, Reynolds said something “broke.”
“Then [students] started pouring to the altar,” Reynolds told the Lexington Herald Leader.
The newspaper noted: “Asbury, like many evangelical organizations, held annual, scheduled ‘revivals’ with guest ministers and services booked in advance. This, however, was not the same. No one had planned it. No one was leading it.”
Asbury’s president at that time, Dennis Kinlaw, was later asked by a reporter to explain what happened at Asbury. Kinlaw struggled to find the words to describe something that seemed holy and otherworldly.
Said Kinlaw: “Well, you may not understand this, but the only way I know how to account for this is that last Tuesday morning, about 20 of 11, the Lord Jesus walked into Hughes Auditorium, and He's been there ever since, and you've got the whole community paying tribute to His presence.”
History books now say that the 1970 Asbury Revival spread to 130 colleges, seminaries and Bible schools. Students from the school fanned out and shared their testimonies in churches and schools all across the nation, and their fervor spread like some kind of heavenly virus.
A 1970 book about the revival One Divine Moment by Asbury history professor Jeff Blake, described the event as a modern Pentecost. Other historians have noted that it occurred at the same time a neo-Pentecostal movement was breathing new life into American churches during the Jesus movement.
And all of this begs the question: Are we on the verge of another revival of the same magnitude?
Perhaps this week’s gathering at Hughes Auditorium is some type of divine thermostat, helping us read the spiritual temperature? Could the outbreak of revival fervor among these students be the first faint sound of a huge wave that is headed our way?
It would be just like God to orchestrate it this way. Genuine revival has an uncanny way of sneaking up on us. And when the Holy Spirit comes in renewing power, He doesn’t come on our own time just because we programmed Him to, nor does He visit the places we have prearranged.
All I can do is take off my shoes and say: “Do it again, Lord.”
J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma. You can access news about chapel services at Asbury by going to the college’s Web site, www.asbury.edu.
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"I WAS AT the ASBURY REVIVAL"
By Tom 'The Hawk'
It is rather difficult for me to express to each of you in words what occurred on my visit to Asbury College this past Friday but I will try. The words that come to mind are overwhelmed, unpretentious, amazing, awesome, unnerving, and simplistic, yet powerful.
Thursday night I had a group of people over at the house worshipping the Lord. The intention was for several of us to go to Asbury the following evening.
I live about three hours north of the college and so we would leave after I got home from work.I called my wife and told her to pack us an overnight bag in case we needed to stay the night.
It's funny how we are sometimes reluctant to go somewhere outside of our area, thinking things like, "Why do we have to go to _____ to see or experience God or His working?" or "If God is doing that there He'll do that here too." Funny how we'll travel hundreds and thousands of miles and even cross the oceans to see an event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics and yet have a difficult time going three hours down the road to see if God is there. Makes you wonder about where our priorities lie.
Asbury is just south of Lexington, KY, and as we approached Lexington the snow began to come. Fortunately we were only a few minutes away.
We arrived at the college and I thought that the building where this was happening would be obvious. I figured there would be a bunch of people around it and the cars would be parked all around there. Boy, was I wrong! Instead it looked like a normal Friday night on a college campus - not much activity at all. I didn't know if that was normal or simply due to the snowfall.
We drove around for a while trying to locate the building where this was taking place and finally went down a driveway that looped in front of a number of buildings. Andy spotted the building we were looking for but there was no place to park on the loop, so we parked the car out on the street.
As I entered the hall I was totally overwhelmed by the presence of God. I don't really know how else to explain it. It was totally unexpected and I was absolutely overcome in my spirit. I remember putting my hand to my heart and Andy asking me, "What?" I simply replied, "I'm overwhelmed."
I couldn't believe it! It was unlike anything I had expected!
As I stood there I looked at the huge words over the front of the hall, which read, "HOLINESS UNTO THE LORD". Truly this was a holy place. There were only about two dozen people there. There was a stillness in the air and such a wonder, "How can this be?" It was real and yet very unnerving. The living God is here!
Andy told me he was going to go up front to pray. I told him to go ahead. I felt somewhat frozen to where I was. I then noticed a couple of people praying down front, a couple of us standing, and the majority of the people just sitting there. I fell to my knees and began to pray.
After some time one of the men down front read a scripture about blind Bartemaeus. A couple of people got up and sang some songs of praise and worship to the Lord. I decided to go ahead and sit down in one of the chairs that I was praying behind. When I did I realized why most of the people were sitting.
As I sat there I began to feel His love come over me. It was so overwhelming that all I could do was to weep and weep and thank Him over and over again. We were all just basking in His love.
The singing stopped and I would go from sitting to reading to praying to sitting to praying to reading and so on. All the while people are coming and going. Another couple comes in and sits down across the aisle from me. They are both overcome by the Lord and begin the weep.
Another lady got up and began to play the piano. She didn't sing - just played music. I don't know why but as she played it was as if the Lord was drawing nearer and nearer to us. It was so intense for me that I remember asking Him to stop because it was simply too much for me to bear. He then said to me that this was just a drop in the bucket compared to His Fullness and that if He came in His Fullness it would be more than anyone could bear!
I don't know or really understand the whys and how of all of this. I just know that I had an experience, no, an encounter with God. His love for us is so powerful and so overwhelming that it is hard for me to adequately describe. All I know is that He has such a great love for all of us. I now know that there is nothing, nothing, nothing, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING that can separate us from His love. If we could all only realize how great a love He has for us and receive that just once in our lives we would never forsake Him or flee from His presence. Draw us Lord by your great unending and unchangeable love.
After some time, I went to Andy and told him we needed to go. He asked me why and I said that if we didn't go I don't know if I'd ever leave. God's presence was so powerful and yet so unnerving. How could this be and yet it was.
I don't know if this is revival or not but I am revived as a result.
We left the hall, but that's not the end of the story. When we got into the car we looked at the clock and realized we had been in there for three hours. It seemed like just a short time and yet we had spent hours with our Lord. It was as if time had stopped and we felt like two very fortunate men to have enjoyed these moments with our Lord.
As we drove home I was overcome once more by His presence. I began to weep again and speak of His great love for us. Andy too had encountered God and had a renewed fervor to pray for our city and for His love to be poured out upon our community.
I don't know what all of this means or where all of this will lead but there is something about prayer that definitely moves the hand of God. Saints of the living God cry out to Him night and day and He will hear the cries of His people. He does not turn a deaf ear to the prayers of His people but is faithful and true to answer each and every one according to His will and by His great love.
Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amen!
Location: Wilmore, KY, United States
Website: http://asbury.edu/press/chapeldaytwo06
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