The Asbury Revival has been trending on social media and religious newspapers for a couple of weeks. I mentioned it Saturday only to say that I had no comment but maybe later. That story has been well covered, it has the nation’s collective attention, every armchair theologian has weighed in. The response to the Asbury Revival has become its own story. Everyone with internet seems to either be a critic or a supporter of what is being done and how. Jimmy Humphrey wrote a post and made that the subject of his weekly podcast and I finally did reply to his comment. Without looking back that went something like this:

I am an SBC pastor. We don’t speak in tongues but I would not go into someone else’s church and tell them they are worshipping wrong. If someone asked about ordaining women as pastors, I would answer that we don’t do that in our denomination. That’s what I have authority to speak to. Likewise if a Seventh Day Adventist came into our church on Sunday and condemned our worship for being on the wrong day, I would not recognize his/her authority in that matter. In short, stay in your lane.

On Tuesday my pastor friend in Kentucky Ken Bolin posted a short video by Mark Driscoll. I will admit to not watching the whole thing but his response was pretty much to stay hands off and I thought his application of Acts 5 was brilliant. As the early Christian church was spreading and experiencing a revival of sorts, Jewish leaders met to decide what to do about it. A wise and discerning Pharisee named Gamaliel urged caution. “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God! So they took his advice.” (Acts 5:38-39) That’s sort of the Jewish leader equivalent of stay in your lane.

Finally, I would recommend an article published this week in Kentucky Today. Chris McIntyre put together a team of interviewers and spoke to about 40 Asbury students about the events of the past two weeks. They categorized the responses into four basic groups, in essence listing four things Asbury students want you to know. I’m going to list the four things because so few people will click through to anything but please hit this link and give the full article a look. These are main ideas with good supporting details:

1. Students want to honor God and see Him glorified.
2. Students are conflicted about the developments on campus.
3. Students are hurt by the skeptical responses that have questioned their motives.
4. Students believe that this is not extraordinary, but view these events as a desired norm.

The Asbury Revival captures the nation’s attention. Thousands have been drawn to a small private Christian school campus of about 1700 students. Their lives have been disrupted as Asbury is their home during the school year. The non-stop 24 hour worship service has ran for over two weeks and has also disrupted, well, the school. The public services have already been moved off campus and the student-led worship is set to end today. Revival may indeed continue and other schools have already shown signs of the movement spreading. But the non-stop round the clock worship that spontaneously began at Asbury 2 1/2 weeks ago is coming to an end. Let’s pray for revival, not just on college campuses or in Kentucky but across the board. Time will tell if the Asbury Revival is the beginning of something big.