The Asbury Experience

Everyone in the Christian community seems to be talking about Asbury. A small Christian college in the sleepy little town of Wilmore, Kentucky.  With a student body of less than 2k, over 50k folks from all over the world have been taking in the experience of revival over the last two weeks. Overwhelmed by the crowds, today is the last full day the campus will be supporting the event and Fox News, among others is taking in the scene.

Is Asbury “Real”

What is the definition of “real”?

I just received a message from a reader saying “There’s a stirring. Praying a love for God’s Word follows too! I think it will.” 

God is involved in our lives every second of every day. Typically, we have faith less than the size of a mustard seed. We don’t recognize His presence or call on His protection or wisdom as we drift from one earthly issue to the next throughout our day. 

The word “real” is defined by Webster as, “having objective independent existence”.

The Asbury experience is real to most of those attending, just as it is real when we are stopped from our busy schedules by an abrupt miracle from God. Or, when we recognize He intercedes on our behalf, provides wisdom in a decision we made, or reminds us of a verse that gives us comfort. 

My reader above wonders about a “stirring”. Websters calls it “the beginning of motion or activity”. For Christians, a stirring refers, of course, to a sign that God is moving in a broad way across a large group of people. No time frame or group size is defined in a stirring of God. However, the hope and prayer is that, in this case, it extends beyond a small college town.

Asbury and the Church

In truth, the Asbury experience is/was nothing more than an extended church service. Not one filled with the “frozen chosen” as is often the case, but filled with the Holy Spirit’s outward expression of His involvement in our lives. An exciting time of worship, unity, and fellowship… concepts sadly in short supply in many of our churches today.

Asbury is/was what church should be like every Sunday. The reason it lasted so long, the reason people were flying in from across the world, is that most in attendance longed for their Sunday mornings to be so spiritual. They longed for a movement of God… a stirring.

What Will Asbury’s Impact Be

Great revivals and crusades have come and gone. However, in each case, there were those who were destined for Hell that repented, were saved, and were redirected toward Heaven. There were spiritual lives revived that likely impacted generations to come. 

We don’t know what God has in mind from the Asbury experience. However, there is no question that lives were changed for eternity and generationally. 

The Last Days

As I watch the news (way too much), and report on it every night, I can’t take my mind off the End Times. It is an obsession and likely not a healthy one. God makes it clear we are not to know the day or the hour of Christ’s return. Even Jesus, the man, was not given the exact details. 

I look at Russia and China coming together, nuclear saber rattling, AI and ChatGPT, EMP’s, climate change, the earthquake in Turkey, escalating war in Ukraine, divisiveness at home, and the deterioration of American influence abroad, all through the lens of…. What is God doing and when will He be finished?

When a rare, positive story like Asbury comes along, again with my obsession, I just can’t get past the thought that God is closing things down, and we, as Christians, need to be about His work with more intensity than at any other point in history.