The Asbury revival

It all started on an ordinary Wednesday evening chapel service on 8 February, at a tiny Christian college in Kentucky called Asbury University. After the chapel service ended, a small number of students decided to carry on praying and worshipping, and didn’t stop all night. Gradually more and more began to join them in an endless stream of singing and praying, preaching and communing, sensing something of the Holy Spirit present in the auditorium. The round the clock worship continued for more than two weeks, drawing in tens of thousands of curious and excited visitors from across the country and around the world. It went viral online, with videos of the revival spreading fast on platforms such as TikTok, as well as grabbing the mainstream media’s curiosity too.

Today we’ll hear from a handful of Christians who managed to get into the now famous Hughes Auditorium at Asbury University to taste and see for themselves what was happening. But we’ll also try to think about what these kind of revivals mean for the church – do they leave lasting fruit? Is it just hype and emotionalism? And what might set Asbury apart from similar outpourings of recent decades?