Kentucky – Asbury University’s unplanned nonstop prayer meeting over the past week, continues to draw people even as the school’s administration announced a new, limited schedule for prayer services in hopes of restoring order to the campus in this tiny Central Kentucky town.
The viral movement has attracted an estimated 50,000 Christian worshippers, garnered millions of views on social media and is fueling talks of a nationwide religious revival.
The Feb. 8 morning worship at Asbury University included a sermon by the Rev. Zach Meerkreebs, a campus minister, on “Becoming Love in Action.” After the message, students gathered to pray.
The University announced that Thursday, February 23, will mark the end of this historic multi-week gathering at Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary with the National Collegiate Day of Prayer broadcast hosted on our campus.
Videos of tearful worshippers singing hymns and offering personal testimonies have gone viral on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, racking up millions of views and inspiring carloads of visitors to descend on Wilmore, population 6,000, to share in what some are calling a movement — and the spiritual explosion hasn’t stopped at the city line.
Schools including Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee; Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio; Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Oklahoma; and the University of the Cumberlands in Williamsburg, Kentucky, are among campuses reporting extended prayer-and-worship sessions attributed to interest in the Asbury event.
“We haven’t seen anything like this in a long time in the United States,” said Hal Poe, a professor of religion at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee. But, he says, the tiny Kentucky school at the heart of the event has a unique history when it comes to American revivals.
“This is unprecedented for our university,” said Mark Whitworth, Asbury’s vice president for intercollegiate athletics and university communications. “It is obvious that God’s hand is on this; we’ve seen that in just how he’s met our needs spiritually and even logistically” he added, pointing to the state police and deputies from sheriff’s departments from neighboring counties who came to assist the overwhelmed Wilmore police force.
The largest number of visitors Wilmore has hosted in recent memory are the 20,000 who attended the annual Ichthus music festival in the summer of 2004, according to an article on the Asbury Seminary website.
Monday was the last day that revival services in Hughes were open to the public. Tuesday and Wednesday, only those age 25 and younger are allowed in Hughes for services at 7:30 p.m. The public may watch services from other simulcast venues or from a livestream on Asbury’s website. Services in Hughes will end on Thursday, which is National Collegiate Day of Prayer, with a service at 8 p.m. for anyone 25 and younger. Updates to the schedule and other information is available here.
The student body of 1,639 has swelled with “tens of thousands” of visitors to the prayer-and-worship gatherings, Mr. Whitworth said, most of whom “stay for a day or two, or an afternoon or an evening, that kind of thing.”
He said, “This is well beyond the student body. And it has probably been since [last] Thursday. … We’ve had students from over two dozen schools come [here] physically and participate in the worship. The other thing is that we see adults and families, we see all ages, all ethnicities and nationalities.
A wide spectrum of people have come from the United States and “literally across the world,” Mr. Whitworth said.
William M. Wilson, president of Oral Roberts University, said the revival is helping fill a spiritual void among members of Generation Z.
“These young people are feeling in their life this spiritual vacuum, somewhat of an emptiness in the society they’re in and a real need for hope,” Mr. Wilson said. “The mental health crisis in this generation is significant. The uncertainty of the times, the feeling of lostness, in a world of 8 billion people, who are they, in the midst of it, the desire for purpose. I think all of these are driving a generation to look beyond themselves for the answer.”
-WT/RN