World Renewal International

I can never remember not wanting to be in ministry. I am sure as a child if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have told you that I wanted to be an evangelist. I know to some degree I got that from dad. Dad loved doing evangelistic work. He loved preaching revival services. These were situations where he was asked to be a guest speaker/preacher in churches that he did not normally attend. He would preach in a church from Sunday morning, evening then each night of the week, usually ending the second Sunday night. He was successful in stirring the passion of Christians to be more intentional about influencing their friends and family to become followers of Christ.
My ministry started in 1970 when as a freshmen at Asbury College, Wilmore, Kentucky; I witnessed and experienced, along with the others on that campus, a great revival that moved thousands to receive Christ. Many others, like me, made life changing commitments to God during those seven days and seven nights of spontaneous and continuous revival services. I along with many others experienced a presence of Christ that would be the rudder of direction in our lives. At our class reunions “the revival” is still what most claims as the most important ingredient of their college career.

In the weeks that followed the revival, I was also on a witness team from the college and seminary to South Meridian Church of God, Anderson, Indiana, near my home. God used our team to spark revival fires that not only swept that church, but also the Anderson University campus and the city. Some say as many as 5000-7000 made commitments to Christ during the 50 days of nightly services that out grew the South Meridian Church and moved into the civic auditorium. [The above picture is from the Anderson Hearld Bullitin 2/2010 on the anniversary of the Anderson Revival]
It was a fantastic period to live in. What followed in the weeks and months, and for me years, was amazing. Most of the places I gave a descriptive testimony of what happen to our campus, along with my own story, revival in a similar form or pattern, would take place. This was not just my experience, but almost all students; faculty or college staff was used in a similar way to spread the revival. It was highly contagious!
The conversions were genuine. Over the past 40 years I have met and talked to so many lives that were changed in those days. It was wonderful, and lasting. Many of us who were witnesses, at least in the first few months and years after the Asbury revival have had it shape our lives vocationally.

Down through the years as I have stood on stages and platforms throughout this country and world, and because of those revival experiences, I have felt I understood some of what God wanted to do in existing churches and Christian’s lives. I have seen what can happen when the presence of God comes just like those Mt. Sinai experiences in the Old Testament, or the Holy of Holies, and the book of Acts movements of the Spirit. I have seen God melt hard hearts in seconds during times of His felt presence during these revivals. It became, for others, and me, a measuring instrument, an awareness of what can be done by God in just moments! It became a powerful memory, a hope, even as the tide of revival seemed to dissipate over time. I can honestly say we see a similar number of people respond at the end of such services, but the commitments seem less convicting and lasting. It is also seemingly more in response to the way God uses men and women in ministry than the overwhelming presence of God that changes lives so quickly.

You prayed with me after one of those services at Russiaville Friends 40 years ago.

Still walking with Jesus.

Dave

Reading stories like this and the next post always make me feel God's ways are wondrous to think that my own parents and my wife's parents were directly touched by the same revival on the same small campus in northern Kentucky years before either of us we're conceived. Just leaves me awed.

It really is something isn't it? Love you buddy.

Thanks for telling me Dave, blessings on you!