WILMORE, K.Y. (BRN) – Nationally, today (Feb. 23), is recognized as Collegiate Day of Prayer, where Christians across the United States unite for a multi-generational day of prayer for revival and awakening on college campuses in America.
Every year in honor of Collegiate Day of Prayer, churches are invited to adopt a specific campus to pray over and pray for. This year being the first year in the history of Collegiate Day of Prayer that every campus had been adopted in prayer before the appointed day.
However, this year, there is one campus in particular that has reversed that role and, instead, has adopted Christians from near and far to worship, pray and experience the Holy Spirit at work in the hearts of college students.
On. Feb. 8, Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, held its regularly scheduled chapel service at 10 a.m., a norm for Asbury students, faculty and staff. Things quickly took a turn for the atypical when the service proceeded after its usual end time and continued well into the next week and the week after that, and is continuing to this day – this very hour, in fact.
Some call it “revival,” others coin the term “awakening,” but regardless of what you call it, it is evident to all who have witnessed what is happening at Asbury that it is a very real work of God.
In an official statement from Asbury University’s President, Dr. Kevin Brown, he says, “I have been asked if Asbury is ‘stopping’ this outpouring of God’s Spirit and the stirring of human hearts. I have responded by pointing out that we cannot stop something we did not start.”
Although the immense outpouring of worship, prayer and confession started at Asbury, it has stretched to the nation. Since the start of the service, students from 150 different colleges have flocked to Wilmore to partake and witness this movement of the Holy Spirit.
Other colleges have experienced their own form of outpouring occurring, such as Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio, and even a few Southern Baptist affiliated universities, including Samford University in Birmingham, Alabama, and Fruitland Baptist Bible College in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
In addition to students from other universities, Christians from all over the country have hopped in their cars and traveled to Kentucky to experience God’s presence on Asbury’s campus. Including a few from Pennsylvania.
Divinely rerouted
Barb Daigle, a member at The Bridge Fellowship in Reading, Pennsylvania, had plans to be on the beach with a friend in North Carolina, but a few days before her trip she felt God nudging her to go to Asbury.
“I’m like, what? If you’re really serious God, you’re gonna have to have [my friend] call me and say, ‘No, no, no, don’t come this weekend,'” said Daigle.
Sure enough, Daigle got a call from her friend asking her not to come that weekend. So, she rerouted her trip, heading to Kentucky, instead of North Carolina. She arrived in Wilmore, Kentucky, on Feb. 16, nearly a week after the outpouring had started.
Likewise, Pastor Dan Nold, senior pastor at Calvary Church Harvest Fields in Boalsburg, Pa., found himself traveling to Kentucky on his way home from a leadership retreat in Dallas, Texas.
“I rerouted a trip back from Dallas from a leadership development deal that I was at, so I got in [to Kentucky] last Friday (Feb. 17).”
Nold first arrived in Louisville, Kentucky, where he would be staying around 7 p.m. He checked into his hotel and then hit the road again, arriving at Asbury University just before 10 p.m.
“When I got there, it was about 31 degrees – so it wasn’t super warm – but they had a big screen set up in front of Hughes Auditorium, in front of the chapel. And when I got there, the line for getting into Hughes Auditorium, [which] I didn’t think there would be much of a line, went blocks and blocks down,” explained Nold.
For about two hours, Nold, along with nearly 200 others, stood outside the auditorium on the front lawn and worshiped, joining those on the inside through the screen.
Eventually, Nold made his way to the line, which was just as long as it was when he arrived. After 15-20 minutes, the line started to move and just after midnight he stepped inside the chapel.
No screens, just worship
With its official seating capacity just shy of 1,500, Hughes Auditorium has maxed out its capacity by roughly 2,000 people for the past three weeks.
“They said 1,700 people could fit in [and] they were giving preference to students. So, there was a lot of students sort of standing on the stage behind the worship leaders,”’ shared Daigle. She continued to explain that the first 10 rows were blocked off for students and they were full as well.
“They were very careful that it was, because the whole thing started by students…was mainly led by students,” said Daigle.
Initially, the multi-week outpouring at Asbury University started when one male student got up and started confessing, which was then followed by more students repenting, confessing, praying and worshiping.
“The college was really trying to honor what was happening with the students, and so they were really doing everything they could to protect. Like they gave priorities – if any students showed up, whether they were from Asbury or otherwise, from what I know they were escorted into the building,” said Daigle.
Surrounded by a sea of students and a mirage of voices, both Daigle and Nold were struck by the genuineness of worship during their separate experiences.
“Just watching everybody worship was cool and, you know, just kind of spontaneously all around the room people [were] stopping and gathering around somebody and praying, and the altar was just about always full with people up there being prayed for,” said Nold.
He continued: “And a lot of people talk about this, but it was definitely part of it, this sense of peace in God’s presence. It gave birth to more hope, I wasn’t feeling hopeless at all, but just gave birth to more hope to see the next generation just packing the place out.”
Coming off of a time of fellowship with other pastors and ministry leaders, Nold couldn’t help but compare the worship that he experienced during his leadership development conference and what he was witnessing at Asbury University.
“I love the leadership deal that I was at. I love this group and I always gain from them, but the contrast was really stark,” said Nold.
He described the worship at the leadership gathering as “smoke and lights, cameras and LED backgrounds.” It was worship Nold gained from, but it was not the same as the worship happening at Asbury.
“At Asbury, the worship was technically not qualitatively great, you know, there were no song lists, there were no words on a screen – there were no screens,” said Nold.
“You know, it’s just a couple of students up there leading worship and just kind of going from one thing to the other. And sometimes it would be four or five lines of a song that they knew just kind of over and over again, and yet that experience of the worship was amazing and full and good.”
Nold further described his worship experience at Asbury, saying, “I felt like the whole time I was there that if I wasn’t singing, I was just on the verge of tears. Not bad tears, just kind of more tears of hope and an expectancy.”
Hope for the next generation
As someone who came to faith in Christ during the Jesus Revolution in the 1970s, Daigle has a deep appreciation for seeing the next generation commit to Christ.
“I actually became a Christian at an all-city YoungLife meeting in Pittsburgh on Good Friday. I was going to turn 16 two days later, so almost my 16th birthday,” shared Daigle.
“It’s such a long time ago, memory wise, but yeah, God spoke to my heart [and] it was, you know, it was songs like this [and] people were genuinely worshiping God.”
Daigle later found out that there were two girls in her high school class who were praying for her to become a Christian. After she committed to Christ, Daigle and some of her fellow classmates started a Bible study and prayed for their high school.
Now, more than 50 years after her high school graduation, Daigle is still involved in a Bible study with her classmates.
“I really believe that what God started within our class 50 years ago, He has continued to this day. The three of us are starting a Bible study with 17 people from our class, and we’re hoping that more people come to Christ, even at our age, but it all started from us when we were kids,” said Daigle.
The last outpouring that occurred at Asbury University was in February of 1970, which swept the campus and then the nation, impacting lives for years to come.
In 2023, God is doing something similar and reminding us of His promise to work through the generations that follow.
Today, on National Collegiate Day of Prayer, the Asbury outpouring will conclude with a live stream of students praying and observing Collegiate Day of Prayer, a broadcast that was scheduled months in advance and moments before the first confession that sparked the 2023 Asbury Outpouring.
As stated by Asbury University’s president, “I find it fitting that what started with college students on our campus is ending with college students joined in prayer and worship across the country.”
Starting tomorrow, Feb. 24, no further public outpouring services will be held at Asbury, but, surely, what God has started on the campus He will bring to completion, and what hearts He has changed He will use for His glory.
“I really believe that a lot of the Christian ministries across the world today were formed on the backs of those young people who came to Christ so young,” commented Daigle. “I am definitely of the opinion that God will use young people in mighty ways to change this world.”
Learn more about National Collegiate Day of Prayer or watch the live stream from Asbury University here.
