"ANOTHER HOLY OUTBREAK at ASBURY"

by J. Lee Grady

A sense of revival erupted this week on a college campus inKentucky. It could be the sign of a spiritual tsunami headed our way.

Students at Asbury College in Kentucky arrived for their usual10 a.m. chapel on Monday of this week. Some of them are still there today.

Students are worshiping, weeping and praying. Many of them tookoff their shoes in Hughes Auditorium because they felt they werestanding on holy ground. A photo on the nondenominationalChristian college’s Web site shows students with their handsraised in praise as they crowd near the chapel’s altar.

There's nothing else you can do when you meet your Creator faceto face like we did yesterday. -Student Ben Greenhoe“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 faceto face like we did yesterday,” sophomore Ben Greenhoe said on Tuesday.

The president of Asbury, Paul Rader, stayed in the auditoriumwatching the scene until midnight Monday. Folks in the small townof Wilmore, where Asbury is located, heard about the protractedmeeting and wandered in. A local grocer sent water and snacks tothe campus after hearing that the prayer service was going nonstop.

Wednesday night there were several hundred students praying inthe 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 praisechorus students began coming to the long altar at the front of theauditorium. Soon the altar was crowded with students again. Therewas incredible freedom in the Spirit as we sang and prayed andshared testimonies of God’s gracious work in the hearts of students.”

This is not the first time Hughes Auditorium has been the site of arevival outbreak. On Feb. 3, 1970, the Holy Spirit invaded a chapelservice 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 severalforeign countries.Asbury is an interdenominational Christian college with Wesleyanroots.

The 1970 revival broke out when the school’s academic dean, Custer Reynolds, gave his testimony and then asked students toshare theirs. After several students spoke, Reynolds said something “broke.”

“Then [students] started pouring to the altar,” Reynolds told theLexington 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 askedby a reporter to explain what happened at Asbury. Kinlaw struggledto find the words to describe something that seemed holy and otherworldly.

Said Kinlaw: “Well, you may not understand this, but the only wayI know how to account for this is that last Tuesday morning, about20 of 11, the Lord Jesus walked into Hughes Auditorium, and He'sbeen there ever since, and you've got the whole community payingtribute to His presence.”

History books now say that the 1970 Asbury Revival spread to 130colleges, seminaries and Bible schools. Students from the schoolfanned out and shared their testimonies in churches and schoolsall across the nation, and their fervor spread like some kind ofheavenly virus.

A 1970 book about the revival One Divine Moment by Asburyhistory professor Jeff Blake, described the event as a modernPentecost. Other historians have noted that it occurred at thesame time a neo-Pentecostal movement was breathing new lifeinto American churches during the Jesus movement.

And all of this begs the question: Are we on the verge of anotherrevival of the same magnitude?Perhaps this week’s gathering at Hughes Auditorium is some typeof divine thermostat, helping us read the spiritual temperature?

Could the outbreak of revival fervor among these students be thefirst faint sound of a huge wave that is headed our way?

It would be just like God to orchestrate it this way. Genuine revivalhas an uncanny way of sneaking up on us. And when the HolySpirit comes in renewing power, He doesn’t come on our own timejust because we programmed Him to, nor does He visit the placeswe have prearranged.

All I can do is take off my shoes and say: “Do it again, Lord.”

[NOTE: The continual meetings seem to have wound down fornow. See the Asbury College website- http://www.asbury.edu ] J. Lee Grady is editor of Charisma. SOURCE: http://www.charismanow.com/