[Please join me in praying for the Church on Sundays this year.]
“Behind the Scenes of Revival” by Mark Swayze (Feb. 16, 2023)
Confession: I went to Wilmore.
I didn’t feel I needed to go (see earlier post) but some close friends at the University/Seedbed asked me to help. When they called, I knew God was inviting me.
Help with what?
For 9 straight days at 2 hour increments, college students have led worship at Hughes Auditorium in Wilmore, KY.
That’s been about 100 worship teams this far. And they don’t seem to be ending anytime soon.
The team organizing all of this needed help. So Brenna and I went to serve.
Hear me. The 1970 Revival was centered on student testimony. 2023 is centered on worship. Ministry to Jesus through song.
(Though a student in 1970 said music was just as prevalent)
Here is what I found behind the scenes:
A 24 year old woman who is a military sergeant.
She has organized all of this with a small team of college students and her “servant of a husband.” Their iPhone text group is named the “Worship Stewards.”
They are a force.
They operate out of a storage closet called “the Messy of Messies” because of course, it’s messy and cluttered.
Brenna and I felt like we were called to triage, helping physical bodies keep up with spiritual power.
Our first morning, we were invited to join the team. We arrived to their early morning meeting and experienced what seemed to be a military operation.
Everyone is physically exhausted but spiritually on absolute fire. They ask Jesus for wisdom in every decision. No decision for worship is human strategy or planning. They pray, ask Jesus and then discern together.
They speak in turn by raising hands and submitting to one another as they make decisions. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. All five of them were united when a decision was made.
This 24 year old woman is brilliant, humble and wise past her years (Like decades.) Love you M.
Furthermore, they have a process for collecting worship teams.
Ready for it?
The Holy Spirit highlights people in the room. The “Worship Stewards” then ask those students to lead in a worship band.
You will love this next part:
This newly formed worship band gets prayed for in the outside hall and then goes to the consecration room.
Yep. Consecration room.
This is where Spirit-filled hidden “prayer warriors” pray over this newly formed team. This goes on for 30 min or more.
(This consecration room is for any person who will step on the platform, speakers included.)
Then the worship team comes back down the stairs, acclimates to the room and finally, after an hour of preparation behind the scenes, switches out with the team on stage that’s been leading.
The “Worship Stewards” do not want any team to lead worship that has not been prepared in this way. No platform given until ready. This “ready” can take more than an hour.
As I said, this has happened to 100 college worship teams thus far.
So who are these college worship leaders at the Asbury Outpouring? Who sits on the “Worship Steward” team?
You will never know.
They are a nameless and faceless generation.
They are rebelling against the celebrity culture infiltrating the church.
They choose to remain hidden with no live stream, visible lyrics, moving lights or big screens.
Their motto is: “Radical humility, ethnic unity.”
They hope to steward well one thing: a simple offering of song represented by every ethnicity.
But what I have learned most about them:
They are supernaturally hungry for God.
This comes naturally from an outpouring of God’s Spirit. The gift of faith and a growing hunger with every taste of God’s goodness. And, my guess, this outpouring will truly wreck them for life. (In the best way)
They wonder why the older generations have gatherings where ministry time is for members when they want to be a church that ‘ministers to Jesus.’
This is not a judgment but an observation from them.
Can I be honest after very little sleep?
I’m wrecked, also.
Church, there is a hidden generation of Gen Z leaders rising up before your eyes.
We must quickly wake up to the fact that an emerging generation hungers desperately for the supernatural and rebels against any form of religious entertainment.
What will this mean for what’s next?
No idea. I can barely comprehend what I’ve experienced.
But this Asbury Revival (outpouring) sort of changes everything for us.
This emerging generation expects something now: They expect heaven on earth to be the norm.
God of Heaven and Earth,
May your Church today be filled with worshippers in Spirit and in Truth, children who are hungry to know, love, and serve you. May the outpourings of revival you are giving fulfill the plan and promise you have for them. May your Church let go of anything and everything that hinders your Spirit, your Word, and your Truth. We ask in the strong name of Jesus Christ our Savior, Amen.