The Christian Post's top 10 news stories of 2023 (part 2)
2. Revivals and mass baptisms break out across the US
In February, students at the Christian private school Asbury University in Kentucky had just wrapped up their scheduled chapel service when about 30 students felt inspired to keep worshiping.
From this reported stirring of the Holy Spirit, there began an impromptu worship service that lasted several days and brought in tens of thousands of visitors from across the world.
Alexandra Presta, a senior at Asbury who served as the executive editor for the campus newspaper, The Collegian, talked with The Christian Post shortly after the impromptu worship began.
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“I had left for a few minutes but then felt called to return. Since then, it hasn't stopped. It's been a mix of worship, testimony, prayer, confession, silence,” she said, calling it “a full experience of the Holy Spirit.”
Presta estimated that, within the first couple of days, as many as 1,000 people came to the revival gathering, noting that while “some have come and gone,” others “have slept on the floor and continued to praise God nonstop.”
The Asbury revival was not without its critics, as CP op-ed contributor Samuel Sey wrote a piece in which he claimed that the gathering was not a true revival, due to it having “seemingly little or no Gospel preaching, the female pastors, the disorderly and charismatic chaos.”
“There are plenty of reasons why we should be concerned about some of what’s happening — or not happening — at Asbury. But as I suggested earlier, I became a genuine Christian at a fake revival,” Sey argued.
“God saved me in spite of a mostly heretical series of sermons by a prosperity gospel, female pastor. If God can save a wretch like me in that chaotic environment, I don’t doubt that he can save anyone anywhere.”
Nevertheless, soon after the revival service began at Asbury, other schools both private and public began to have impromptu worship gatherings as well, including Samford University of Birmingham, Alabama.
Bobby Gatlin, a campus pastor at Samford, told CP in February that their nightly prayer and worship meetings began “very organically” when “a Christian ministry class prayed for God to bring a spirit of revival to campus similar to what was happening at Asbury.”
“One by one, God began to create a sense of expectation among individual, disconnected students. On Wednesday night, a student brought a few friends to Reid Chapel to play piano and guitar for a time of personal worship,” Gatlin said.
“As they sang, another student arrived to pray for revival. Soon a few others joined, and God began to move. As our men’s basketball game was ending, text message group messages began to circulate telling students to stop what they were doing and get to Reid Chapel.”
According to Gatlin, hundreds of students made their way to Reid Chapel last Wednesday, with testimonies, Bible reading, worship and prayer lasting until 3 a.m.
Western Kentucky University of Bowling Green saw gatherings, including one where hundreds of students came together on the main lawn of their campus to worship, pray and share testimonies.
“We have seen a ripple effect from Asbury on the WKU campus. Several students from WKU attended services at Asbury,” said Tommy Johnson, a campus minister for WKU’s Baptist Campus Ministry, in an earlier interview with CP.
“After returning from Asbury, several of them gathered for prayer and worship at the chapel on WKU’s campus and invited other students to join that night.”
In addition to the many revival gatherings held at the campuses of schools and churches, there were also several events in which large numbers of people were baptized.
At the end of August, New Life Church of Corpus Christi helped organize a worship event at the Corpus Christi campus of Texas A&M University in which 124 people were baptized.
"From the very beginning of worship, it was clear that something significant was happening because it was just, it was so powerful," said New Life Church Young Adults Pastor Tarik Whitmore, who preached at the event, to CP back in September.
Whitmore also told CP in his earlier interview that the campus gathering included "faces [we've] never seen [in church] before" who were "lifting up the name of Jesus."
"For young people, it's one thing for them to do that in a comfortable, familiar context like the Sunday morning; it's another thing for them to do that at their college outdoors in front of their peers," he added.
Biltmore Church, a multisite megachurch based in North Carolina, baptized 282 people in a single day, with Biltmore Pastor Devin Goins telling CP that he believes “this can only be attributed to God moving in people’s lives.”
“Additionally, our team has worked through numerous personal conversations, and we devoted a large portion of the sermon a few weeks ago to the subject of baptism,” said Goins earlier this year.
“Each person was individually counseled to ensure they understood the Gospel and professed Jesus as the Lord of their life. We hope to always be ready for when God moves so that as many can take their next steps as a disciple of Jesus.”
In July, approximately 4,500 people were baptized at Pirate's Cove Beach in California in an event organized by Pastor Greg Laurie and Harvest Christian Fellowship.
Laurie explained in comments emailed to CP at the time that he attributed the large number of baptisms to "a number of things," among them the success of the recent film "Jesus Revolution."
“The line of people to be baptized was half a mile long and people waited patiently for two hours or more and they did not seem to mind one bit,” Laurie said.
"We have held baptisms at Pirate's Cove, but nothing we have done comes close to this event we just did. It may be the largest baptism in history."
Michael Gryboski contributed to this report.
