The big news in the Evangelical world lately has been the Asbury Revival, which is occurring on the campus of Asbury University in the town of Wilmore, Kentucky.

A normal chapel service has turned into an ongoing time of praise, testimony, confession of sin, and deep awareness of the Holy Spirit.  People are being drawn from across the country to visit Asbury and experience this revival themselves.  This is not the first time such a revival has occurred at Asbury; a similar movement of God occurred in the 1970’s.   

Cynics have quickly taken to social media to declare the revival is nothing but a pile of manufactured emotion.  Others question the theological correctness of what is occurring.  Surprisingly, most of these critics are not from outside the faith but are from people who call themselves followers of Jesus.  The Jesus movement excels at “friendly fire.”  We often attack those we disagree with so we can feel more righteous than others.  It is the same attitude of the Pharisees, who were very proud of their humility. 

I only know what I read, and from the sound of things, God has chosen to move in an extraordinary way, at a specific time, in a specific way.  No one is profiting, and no one is getting famous.  One report I read described a well-known Christian singer contacting the university and offering to come and lead worship.  He was politely told he was welcome to come and participate, but the student-led worship team would be leading worship as they had throughout the revival.  I like that spirit. 

I am old enough to remember when most churches held two revivals a year.  For us, one was in late spring, the other in early fall.  Revivals were two weeks long and often had a morning and evening meeting time.  People would be urged to come and hear the visiting “Preacher.”  There were hopes and prayers that people who were far from God would profess their faith, that alcoholics would give up the drink, and that the church would be stirred to action.  Sometimes, those things actually happened.  I remember an alcoholic being saved one evening.  He did stop drinking, started studying his Bible, and became a bi-vocational pastor.  His other job was running a garbage company, and I remember him saying pastoring and being a garbage man wasn’t that different. 

Times changed.  Revivals went from two weeks to one week, then to four days, then to one day “Special Speaker” events.  It seemed like we didn’t have time to show up every night at church for a week to see what God might do; we might miss “All in the Family” on TV.  Maybe we were less comfortable with the unpredictable.  We still wanted God to move, but we humbly requested that he move during the allotted worship hour.  An Assembly of God pastor friend challenged me with this question: “Would you be willing to scrap your worship plan if the Holy Spirit began to move in a service?”  It is the kind of question that you know what the answer should be, but if you are honest, you must admit you fear the possibility of God showing up in the middle of one of your services.  Maybe that’s why Andy Stanley says, “The reason people don’t go to church anymore is because they have been.” 

I think those revivals of old were about making space for God to move.  You carved time out of life to put yourself in an environment so God could speak to you.  I think back to services where God moved, and it wasn’t that the music or the preaching was so great.  God moved because he chose to move and because there was space in hearts to hear him.  This sounds like what is happening at the Asbury Revival. 

Have you created space in your life to hear from God?  Do you really want to hear him?  I think this is the challenge the Asbury Revival brings to all of us.  Is our prayer, “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening?”

To the critics of the Asbury Revival, I want to say, “Stop it.”  Just stop it.  Nowhere in scripture does Jesus say, “Blessed are the nitpickers, for their correctness will draw people to me.”  Instead, read this story in Mark 9: “Teacher,” said John, “we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we told him to stop because he was not one of us.”

 “Do not stop him,” Jesus said. “For no one who does a miracle in my name can in the next moment say anything bad about me, for whoever is not against us is for us. Truly I tell you, anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name because you belong to the Messiah will certainly not lose their reward.”

How about we agree to listen to Jesus and follow him, and seek God in our own walk?  Maybe then, the presence of God will fall on us as well.