Cedarville University experiencing ‘outpouring of the Lord’ in campus revival
A Christian university in Ohio is seeing spontaneous prayer and worship among its student body days after a revival began at Asbury University in Kentucky.
Cedarville University President Thomas White described what was happening as “a special outpouring and sensing of the presence of the Lord,” adding that it “will be left to the historians” to determine if it was truly a revival.
According to White, the outpouring began during Cedarville’s Monday morning chapel service on campus, as students were going through the Old Testament passage of Psalm 86.
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“So, we took a moment to pray and to sing a song,” recounted White. “And during the song, without an altar call or invitation of any kind, we had some students who began to come forward and pray.”
“And so, when I went back up to the stage — the sermon was over at that point — we just began to pray and began to sing. And, before the chapel was over, there was an altar full of students just praying and some were weeping, others were hugging one another.”
White explained that “chapel just continued” after its regular time to end at around 10:45 a.m., with most students staying into the next class period for prayer and worship, with some students returning to the chapel after class.
The typical chapel service at Cedarville University has around 3,000 students, with approximately 1,000 opting to stay for additional prayer and singing, according to White.
“When I left work that day to go home to get dinner at 5:30, we still had a small group of students,” said White. “We came back to the chapel that night to do an eight o’clock prayer meeting.”
“I would guess we had about 1,000 students who showed back up that evening, and we prayed, we sang praise songs to Jesus, we read Scripture, and we were still there after 10 o’clock.”
On Tuesday, during chapel service, White made an altar call with many students coming forward. The campus again held an unplanned evening worship gathering on Tuesday at 8 p.m. that lasted until after 10 p.m., with some students still praying around 11 p.m.
For Wednesday, White said Cedarville students who felt called to do so went out to other schools in the area to evangelize, praying that “the Lord will have a unique outpouring on those campuses.”
The spontaneous worship at Cedarville University started days after a similar revival took place at Asbury University during its chapel service, in which students stayed after the official end of worship to continue in praise and prayer.
Alexandra Presta, a senior at Asbury who is also the executive editor for the campus newspaper, The Collegian, told The Christian Post in an earlier interview she estimated that at one point, as many as 1,000 people were worshiping after the service had officially concluded.
“This is a pure act of the Holy Spirit pouring out love, peace and healing — hearts are being transformed and that should be praised,” Presta said.
“[Chapel speaker] Zach Meerkreebs has acted as a leader throughout the revival and has reminded us periodically that this comes out of radical humility, humbling ourselves before the Lord.”
Regarding any parallels between the two spiritual gatherings, White told CP that he did not “think it has been continuous” like at Asbury, adding that he felt God was “not working here the same way that He is working at Asbury.”
“He works in different places in different ways and that’s great,” he said. “We’re just happy He’s working all across the country.”
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