Hallelujah You make ALL things new

Two weeks ago I traveled over 20 hours to Wilmore, Kentucky which is the home of Asbury Seminary. Asbury Seminary has a rich spiritual tradition which includes a documented revival in the 1970's(go google Asbury College Revival). I began to read how a routine chapel service turned into an incredible revival service because students began to share their testimonies and brokenness. This chapel service resulted in over a week's worth of solid 24/7 worship and confession. Reporters from various local news channels would enter the sanctuary and would be so overwhelmed by the Holy Spirit that they would soon fall from the floor. Classes were cancelled(how awesome is that), lives were changed. I continued to read. I read how a group of students who were a part of the revival at Asbury went and shared all that the Lord was doing to a small Moravian church. Sure enough, revial broke out at the Moravian church, and they experienced a revival with 24/7 worship for over 50 consecutive nights. There are many stories similar to this one where students in 1970 simply went out and shared how God moved at Asbury. The result was time and time again God stirring the hearts of His people in city after city and nation after nation. God continues to this day to use the revival at Asbury in 1970 as present day tool of encouragement towards God's tranformation.

Another revival story which I myself have experienced. In the town of Ruston, Louisiana, I remember when our youth group was touched by the Holy Spirit like never before. About 20 of 100 students involved in our youth group had just returned from One Way Church Camp in Happy, Texas(the town without a frown!). These 20 students, myself included, had felt something so real during the previous week. We were ready to bring the true real world, constant communion with his Holy Spirit, back to the other 80 students who were just having a normal summer. We had a service that Sunday night where students gave testimonies and passionately worshiped together. But, the most powerful moment was at the end of the service. Jennifer, the assistant youth minister, stood up and proclaimed, " The God at One Way camp, and the God who is here tonight in our midst are both the same. In the same way you see how your friends have encountered Jesus this past week, Jesus is longing to encounter you tonight." The altars were full, lives were changed, our youth group was forever changed.

These are the kinds of stories that get my heart pumping. It is the kind of stories that encourage me to begin to dream God size dreams. What do these stories have to do with the campus of Texas Tech? I have spent 5 years on the campus of Texas Tech, and this last semester was truly special. God sent workers into the harvest like faithful servants have been praying these last few years. God raised up an army that boldly spoke the good news to the depot district, to the Sub, in apartment complexs, or wherever his Spirit led. I saw God radically transform believers and unbelievers alike. God brought unity to the body of christ. I can continue, we can continue to go on and on about all the work God has done. Some of us have experienced God's movement ourselves. Some of us have simply seen and heard how God has done miracles on the campus. Regardless, we KNOW God is active and moving. We are a part of a movement that is bigger than ourselves. Well, the semester is over, and the majority of the students of Texas Tech and the body of believers have left the city of Lubbock to return home for the summer. As a person who works in a college ministry, it is an easy tendency to already look forward to the middle of August when everyone returns. I think about how we can keep the perverbial revival ball rolling so everyone will be excited about what God is still doing at Texas Tech. I realized that in many ways I was keeping God's revival boxed up in the city of Lubbock at the campus of Texas Tech. The story of the Asbury revival began with people sharing how God was moving in different cities. The futility of my thinking in how inconvienent the timing of God's movement was right before summer became apparent. What an advantage of being a college student on the campus of Texas Tech. God literally sent hundreds of believers into the mission field from the city of Lubbock the day that school ended. You have a charge to share with your friends, families, and strangers a God who you radically experienced in Lubbock, Texas this past semester. You have a charge to experience and share this same God to the cities of Dallas, Wellington, Abilene, Sugarland, Pine Cove. God is longing to pour himself out in miraculous ways in your cities. God is longing to move in Dallas like He is in Lubbock. Are you longing for God to move in your city or are you longing to return to Lubbock? Whether you are in Lubbock, Louisiana or Luchenbach, God is longing to unconditionally pour out his love on you and the people around you. Will you be faithful to His call? His purpose? His Heart?

The God you experienced at Midnight Worship, Underground, Paradigm, is the same God that is present in your life. In the same way God has transformed your life this semester, continue to allow God to transform all of you.