Thoughts on Asbury

We are in the midst of a week-long revival happening at Asbury University, and it is not the first time for this place of learning. Revivals there began in the early 1900s and the last one occurred in 2006. Today, we are seeing students, faculty, and even folks from all over the country journeying to the campus to see what is going on. What they are finding is, by all accounts, sincere (and spontaneous) singing, confession, and prayers that have been offered up nonstop over the last week. 


What are we to think about this? It’s no secret that I am a Presbyterian, and thus it is expected that I would approach anything that has the slightest hint of emotion with enormous suspicion. Here is my reaction: 

I am happy. See? Presbyterians can emote.  


I am glad to see students singing their hearts out to God, encouraged to see students confessing their sins, and overjoyed to see them praying for each other, for this is what God calls us to do. May the revival never end, if this is what it looks like! I pray that what is happening there spreads to other places and produces lasting change in those who participate in it. I hope that the truth is preached there and such preaching moves out across the country. 


My purpose in writing about it is I want to add something to this now national conversation: this is not the only or even main way that we can see God move. Yes, it is exciting when we see mass, public expressions of worship and should rejoice in that, yet God will continue to move even after the doors of Asbury chapel shut empty. In fact, there can—indeed, should—be revival happening in your heart day by day if you are a Christian. I don’t mean that you should be leaping from one emotional high to the next. I mean something far more lasting and important than that. 


In Romans 12, we are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, a process that happens with God’s Spirit and the Word being daily administered into our souls. The process of transformation occurs over a lifetime with peaks and valleys along the way. Theologians call it sanctification, becoming less like sinner and more like Jesus. One doesn’t need a large room filled with people to experience the transformation of God. All one needs is an open Bible and an open heart. This kind of revival is slow, but it brings about profound change. Christians will experience the lessening and even disappearance of anxiety, anger, sexual sin, and see the building up of contentment, peace, and chastity. This process isn’t fully completed in this life, but we do see the great progress that is made over a lifetime. This is the revival that all Christians should be striving for, indeed, are commanded to pursue. 


Whether or not the Asbury revival is a lasting move of God will only be revealed in time. I’m not interested in trying to call what it is when it has only happened for a week. In the same way, I rejoice if someone says that a sermon of mine was moving to them on Sunday but I don’t immediately try to gauge their sincerity or level of change in that moment. The Lord is praised for all good things whenever we have opportunity, but pastors do well to wait and see how God is going to move. How the Lord will use that sermon in someone’s life may not be apparent for twenty years, but what I do know is that God’s Word always accomplishes something (Isaiah 55:11), so I trust Him with the results. I am not crushed if things don’t happen immediately, because I know that God is not bound to a moment of stirred emotion. The same can be said for this expression at Asbury. If people are changed to follow after Jesus for the rest of their lives after this, then we can say with confidence that it is a move of God. True conversion will always produce fruit, and God has promised to use His Word, prayer, and the sacraments to tend that fruit. 


Are you using those means? Then you can expect revival in your heart, too. 

Image by Avery Fan