Welcome to the Alisa Childers Podcast where we identify the core beliefs of historic Christianity, discern its counterfeits, and proclaim the gospel with clarity, kindness, and truth.

And I know what you're thinking, why is there a new episode on a Tuesday? That is not the normal day, and it's going to be a very short one.

Well, the reason I'm making this short little audio podcast for you today is because I released a video on YouTube yesterday that I wanted to make sure that my podcast audience gets to hear.

Many of you may be hearing about the revival that's happening at Asbury Seminary. Well, I was speaking about 20 minutes away from there this weekend and decided to go and visit. So I wanted to share some thoughts about what I experienced.

And then to share about three concerns I have when it comes to revival in general. So here's the audio from that YouTube video, and I hope that you enjoy.

On Wednesday, February 8, 2023 students from Asbury Seminary in Kentucky gathered for their chapel service. After a call to confession, one Christian news outlet reports that over a hundred students fell to their knees and bowed at the altar CBN reports that since then, it's turned into a Holy Spirit outpouring that shows no signs of stopping and also stated a revival is taking place.

So this chapel service has continued for several days. Well, today is Monday, February 13th, and that chapel service is still going. So since Wednesday, people have traveled from all over the country to observe and even participate in what's going on at Asbury.

Now, this has also gone viral on social media, and there are many people on one side of things affirming that this is a legitimate move of God. This is revival. They're trying to stir things up in their own churches and they're traveling there. I've even seen posts of people saying, hey, I was kind of skeptical, but I went and experienced it for myself. And I can tell you that this is of God. This is a revival. This is legit. Now, on the other side of things, you have people being very skeptical.

About what's happening. People saying that this is just experience driven emotionalism and we need to be aware and and they're warning against this type of thing. So that's kind of two very different reactions from Christian social media. Well, on Saturday night, I happen to be speaking out of women's conference about 20 minutes from Asbury seminary.

And so the next morning, that would be Sunday morning, I decided to just get my car and go and check it out for myself and see what's going on. And so I want to I want to start by saying that I'm not against revival. I'm for revival. And I'm not against the gifts of the spirit. I'm not against charismatic.

But you know, I always want to test all things. So I just I had an open heart, but I wanted to be discerning. So I walked into the chapel and the way we found it was a student was walking out and she helped us find where to go.

And she had told me that in the mornings, that's a little slower kind of gain steam later in the afternoon. So when I walked in, there was maybe 20 or 30 people scattered throughout the chapel.

People were either sitting quietly or talking to one another. There was a young woman on the stage with a guitar singing songs. And I don't even think she was amplified. She was just up there singing. And most people were not singing along. They were just sort of sitting quietly. And so I found a seat and I sat and just sat there for a little while.

I closed my eyes. I prayed. I said, Lord, give me eyes to see. Give me ears to hear and wisdom to discern truth. Now I'll give you my own subjective feeling. And that is that it felt very sweet. There was nothing weird going on. It was very calm.

It felt very similar to what I experienced at churches across the country every Sunday, who are weighing with expectation for a service to start. So there's nothing unusual about that. I did not encounter any sort of powerful force that some people are describing.

This is my subjective feelings. And this is why it's important. We don't trust our feelings. Right. We have to discern through our feelings. So what I hope that's really it. So after I sat there for a few minutes and prayed and kind of took in what was happening.

I went ahead and went back to the hotel to pick up my family so we could come back to Nashville. So the point of making this video is because here's what I'd like to do is as far as I can judge. I've no reason to think that God isn't working something really beautifully in the hearts of the students at Asbury.

I've had experiences like that, especially when I was younger. I'll be honest with you coming from a bit of a charismatic background. I've seen this type of thing a lot. So I will admit to you my bias that I come to it with a bit of skepticism because I can't tell you how many 24 hour worship services I took part in and 24 hour, you know, quote unquote revivals and things like that, which really were more just experienced driven.

But I have no reason to think that what God is working in these students is not real. So that's not really the point of making this video. The point of making this video is that I do have three concerns with how it's been responded to.

Okay, and the first one is how we define revival. The second one is the social media component and the third one is the vulnerability when something like this happens, the vulnerability of it being co-opted by something else. Okay, so let's just go through these concerns one by one.

I am very concerned number one about how we define revival. If this asbury revival is real, if it's something God is really doing, then there will be long term lasting fruit. And that's not actually something we can judge right now. So I think it's a little bit premature to say revival has broken out because we don't know that yet.

This could be experience driven. It could just be people wanting to come together and sing and pray. And I think that's wonderful that I much rather college students want to gather in their chapel and sing and pray, then go party at a bar. Okay, so I'm not down on that.

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