The Same Desperate Need for Revival
By Dr. Bob Bakke
As I write, I am just a few weeks removed from 16 astounding days that captivated the small town of Wilmore, KY—as it caught the attention of the world. Wilmore is a half-hour drive from Lexington in the rolling hills of horse country. Asbury University is there, a school of about 1,800 students, founded in 1890.
Starting with a normal chapel service on the morning of February 8, 2023, a group of 19 Asbury students lingered in Hughes Auditorium to dwell with God. It grew into a breathtaking two weeks of student-led worship, soul-searching confession, Christ-centered exhortation, spirit-filled communion, and life-transforming salvations.
It eventually drew upwards of 100,000 people from nearly 300 colleges and universities, including visitors from across the United States and pilgrims from dozens of countries around the world.
Transfixed in un-embellished praise, a godly and tender orderliness adorned the people. “Radical humility, radical purity, and ethnic unity” guided the leaders. Disarmed by God’s grace and the Lord’s unmistakable presence, hundreds of students surrendered to Christ.
The altar was continually full as their tears flowed.
Hungry for God’s Presence
The crowds coming to Wilmore were often so great that the mayor was tempted to declare a state of emergency. People came to Wilmore from everywhere because of a hunger to experience God’s visitation, much like the ancient crowds from Lebanon, Syria, and Judea who walked for days to Galilee because of the news about Jesus.
Street signs were posted on the highways near Wilmore when the town was too full to let more in. Dozens of churches mobilized their people to help with the crowds. Food and water were donated from around greater Lexington.
The lines to get inside Hughes Auditorium were often a half-mile long—often in 30-degree temperatures. Multiple venues were opened. Screens were set up on the lawns. Dozens of portable toilets were set up. Parking and traffic were sometimes impossible. Briefings were held every morning for the army of volunteers who organized logistics.
The media coverage was mind-boggling. Billions of social media views were recorded. “The Outpouring” appeared in national and international news, and this miraculous 16 days culminated with a televised prayer meeting that was seen around the earth. The Collegiate Day of Prayer (CDOP) simulcast, planned for February 23, had been on the drawing board nine months before. But as a producer, I worked with the CDOP leadership team to completely redesign it as the move of God became obvious.
Because of the broadcast, the story of God’s work spread to millions of viewers and listeners who not only participated but also witnessed similar works of God sprout up among them on dozens of other campuses and schools, and hundreds of local churches.
What’s more, it also stirred up an immense audience for the film, The Jesus Revolution—another story about a move of God’s Spirit in the 1970s, which, like The Collegiate Day of Prayer, was scheduled months before to premiere on February 24.
Expectant Prayer in Desperate Times
Having said this, these works of God never happen in a vacuum. We should not mention the Asbury account without understanding Asbury’s backstory.
Asbury 2023 has at least two components that stand out:
1. A present-day religious and cultural context that produces hunger for God, and
2. A culture of prayer that surrounds the school.
Today’s context is plain to almost anyone in America. The last few years have witnessed a catastrophic pandemic that killed more than a million Americans and forced a generation of students into years of devastating isolation and fear.
Meanwhile, a toxic and violent political and cultural environment engulfed them, too. There were riots in our cities. An era of moral and sexual chaos ensued (in and outside the home), leading to the disintegration of two-parent homes. American kids also watched the precipitous decline of practicing Christianity—a religion increasingly dismissed by society. The list of troubles is lengthy, but it is obvious that recent years have been utterly corrosive to the souls of Gen-Zers (our student population).
Then, there is Asbury’s culture of prayer. Asbury is in a small town. Many former faculty, former missionaries, and former students live in Wilmore. There are multiple groups who pray earnestly and regularly for the school. They know what prayer can accomplish.
These prayer groups are motivated by Asbury’s history. It has seen multiple revivals since its founding, including 1905, 1908, 1921, 1950, 1970, 1992, and 2006. So, like the previous occasions, today’s most recent outpouring came after years of expectant prayer—and after months of heightened prayer.
But there was a catalyst, too. When the Collegiate Day of Prayer leadership showed up in Wilmore in 2022 and announced the partnership with the school for a February 2023 broadcast to unite in prayer colleges and universities throughout the U.S., the efforts in prayer around Wilmore shifted to another gear. Some intercessors prophetically believed God for a special work of His Spirit.
Like in years past, their prayers were answered. And the world took notice.
Patterns of the Past
When I think through these things, I cannot help but be reminded of another small town and another mighty work of heaven: Cambuslang, Scotland.
The rural city of Cambuslang was about five miles southeast of Glasgow. And like Wilmore, KY, Cambuslang was surrounded by beautiful rolling hills, fertile land, and extensive woodlands. By the early eighteenth century, the city’s population stood at about 1,000 people—or about 200 families.
In 1731, Rev. William M’Culloch (1691–1771), was ordained pastor of the small Cambuslang Parish. His church was in serious decline. M’Culloch was stirred by history, too. M’Culloch studied accounts of revival from the Scottish Kirk, and also came upon the account from the American colonies describing a marvelous work of God along the Connecticut River Valley in New England: A Faithful Narrative of the Surprising Work of God in the Conversion of Many Hundred Souls in Northampton, by Jonathan Edwards.
M’Culloch was deeply moved by the reports and read excerpts to his congregation, without effect.
Then, in January 1741, devastation came. A furious hurricane roared across the British Isles. Extensive damage was done to shipping and property.
There came, too, what seemed to be two terrible omens. Glasgow’s most important Cathedral was heavily damaged, and its steeple demolished. And on January 13, immediately following the storm, a total eclipse of the sun. To make matters worse, the devastation never allowed people to recover during the warmer months of 1741 to prepare for the following winter.
By the winter of 1742, Scotland was dreadful. There was famine and a pandemic. “Bands of haggard and emaciated women and pale, skeleton-like children” were seen “creeping slowly among the trees, stripping the branches of the beech of their tender leaves, returning to pick them day by day.” Tragically, “Little children searched among the miller’s husks, hoping for some stray grains of corn, gnawing the stems of vegetables from the dunghill.”1 Hungry mobs attacked food wagons. Scots Magazine recorded that rioting broke out and that troops had fired on the mobs. Beggars filled the streets of Edinburgh. An estimated 2,000 people perished of hunger, cold, and disease.
In the midst of their problems, a catalyst arrived in town named George Whitefield, one of the most gifted preachers in history. Whitefield made an indelible impression. M’Culloch witnessed a remarkable hunger for God within his parish. Afterward, Robert Bowman, a weaver, went door to door with a petition requesting M’Culloch begin a weekly mid-week teaching time, and half the total households in the parish signed the petition. Excited beyond words, M’Culloch organized the 90 families into prayer societies.
Once the praying was underway, the church was soon packed. A second and a third service was added. Hundreds of people came to Christ and the mid-week lectures and the prayer societies were packed. Many meetings lasted throughout the night. Soon, daily services were held and M’Culloch needed help with the crowds. He was overwhelmed. He appealed to the other ministers of the region and they came.
By July the awakening was growing enormously. As the startling turn of events in Cambuslang spread into other towns and villages, Whitefield was summoned to return. Whitefield arrived the week of July 11–17, 1742.
United and Sustained Prayer
As Whitefield returned, the region was buzzing with fervent, expectant prayer. The people of God were earnestly and hopefully praying “in concert” for the revival of the church and general spiritual awakening. On July 11, Whitefield preached on the Braes at Cambuslang, and the enormity of the crowd was breathtaking, an estimated 30,000!
As Whitefield preached, multitudes came under deep conviction. They wept over their sins, and some fell to the ground. M’Culloch reported that “Mr. Whitefield’s sermons were attended with much power . . . very great but decent weeping and mourning.”
One leader wrote: “Some who attended, declared they would not for a world have been absent from this solemnity. Others cried, ‘Now let thy servants depart in peace, if it were the will of God, to die where they were attending God in his ordinances, without ever returning to the world.’”2
In short order, the revival spread all over the Scottish lowlands, and within a year, the news of the revival had spread throughout the world.
The hand-in-glove relationship between spiritual awakening and united prayer did not go unnoticed by the religious leaders of Scotland. If such an awakening as they experienced could happen as a result of a single season of united praying, they could only imagine what a sustained movement of prayer might mean for the ministry of the gospel throughout the earth.
Lord, Do It Again!
So, there it is. Two small towns. Two similar stories. One shared outcome and a dream that God’s glory would ultimately fill the earth.
Let’s believe God for more.
1Scots Magazine, October 1740, p. 537ff.
2The Christian History (Boston, N.E. Printed by Kneeland & Green) 1743, for Thomas Prince, p. 313.
BOB BAKKE serves on the executive leadership team of OneCry as director of media and film. He is one of the founders of The Global Day of Prayer, a producer of the Collegiate Day of Prayer, and author of The Power of Extraordinary Prayer.
