Asbury revival sparks prayer, reflection at Christian universities.
‘Y’all, pay attention to what God is doing,’ a student worship leader tells his Generation Z counterparts.
‘Nothing good happens after midnight. Except for this.”
So proclaims the Facebook page for Midnight Worship, a weekly gathering hosted by the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas.
More than 1,000 miles from Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky. — where a seemingly routine chapel assembly turned into a 16-day revival last month — Abilene Christian University students sing and pray into the wee hours each Friday night.
PHOTO BY MADDIE ROGERS
Students praise God during Midnight Worship, hosted by the Highland Church of Christ in Abilene, Texas.
“We just worship and pray, which has been really cool to be a part of,” said Clark Sullivan, a 21-year-old Bible major who leads Midnight Worship.
“Y’all, pay attention to what God is doing,” he urged fellow students as the Asbury revival drew an estimated 50,000 people to that small Christian university from Feb. 8-24.
At 8:30 p.m. on Sundays, spiritually minded students at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., come together to sing for two hours at the Downtown Church of Christ.
They lifted their voices to heaven a little longer as the Asbury revival attracted millions of views on social media and made its way to the front page of the New York Times and other major news outlets.
“After word about Asbury got around, they just started singing as long as people were willing to be there,” said Emma Jones, a 21-year-old Harding junior double-majoring in psychology and theological studies. “And people were there at Downtown singing, I think, until basically curfew, which is midnight.”
PHOTO BY ROBIN CORNETET, KENTUCKY TODAY
Students worship during the 16-day revival at Asbury University in Wilmore, Ky.
Differences in theology
With roots in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition, Asbury University emphasizes seeking God through repentance and sanctification — and looking for transformative movements of the Holy Spirit.
“Their history carries with it expectations of revival, seeking revival and a history of revivals,” said John Mark Hicks, a Bible professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tenn., noting that similar revivals have occurred periodically on the Asbury campus since its 1890 founding.
Churches of Christ don’t tend to share the same expectation for outward expressions of spiritual manifestations, said Hicks, a Restoration Movement scholar.
“Rather, we typically followed Alexander Campbell in a more cognitive approach of preaching and teaching,” Hicks said, referring to a 19th century leader of the movement. Christian Chronicle.
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