The Remedy for What Ails Us
While I was digging into my manuscript revisions over the past two weeks, I also was watching what was taking place at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky. As many of you likely know, the chapel service held on February 8th was just a normal service with worship songs, a speaker, and prayer. Normal until it concluded.
As the students filed out of the building, a few stayed behind to pray. Confession of sin commenced. Repentance took place. And songs of praise emanated from the building. Students passing by heard what they didn’t expect at that hour and entered to check things out. Word began to spread that something unique was happening. More and more students joined in. Soon, faculty and staff were arriving to try to figure out what was going on. And, as the saying goes, the rest is history.
A revival or, as the university referred to it, an outpouring of God’s Spirit, took place. It was not scheduled; there was no pre-publicity; no well-known speakers or bands were lined up. It just happened amidst an ordinary day and, by the chapel speaker’s own admission, a very ordinary chapel message. What many concluded, including the school’s president, is that it was a work of God.
As I observed the students via videos and livestream, and heard countless testimonies, what stood out was the simpleness of it all. Sure, there were many logistical challenges given that tens of thousands were showing up day after day to a campus of just 1400 students and to a community of just over 6000 people, but thanks to the school’s leaders, it remained a simple gathering of people who were hungry for the Lord. No famous speakers or bands were drawing them. No state-of-the-art building was enhancing their worship. There weren’t even lyrics projected onto screens. People still came. They stood in freezing temperatures for hours just to get in and sit on wooden pews. If only people were that hungry to come to our churches!
The sad truth, however, is that they’re not. Even though churches for decades have strived to provide what they thought would attract people—semi-professional worship bands, state-of-the art auditoriums with very comfortable seats, gifted preachers, coffee bars, bookstores, and big-budget programs. Granted, some of these churches—megachurches—have been successful attracting large numbers, but to what effect? Is there humility? Is there confession and repentance? Is there life transformation?
We live in an ailing society. Our social media is ailing. Our politics are ailing. Our mental health is ailing. We are a very sick society and our human attempts to heal it are an abject failure. The remedy for what ails us is simply the Lord. As the pastor of our former church often said, “The answer is always Jesus.”
I know many may say this is far too simplistic, even naïve given the complexity of so many of the problems people face. Please hear me that I am not saying there aren’t needs for doctors, counselors, social justice, etc. to help us along the course of our lives. Life is complex, but I stand on the promise that with God all things are possible (Matthew 19:26). And he also said this:
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor. Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Luke 4:18-21
So many people in our culture are held captive by anxiety and depression, by anger and bitterness, by hopelessness, by confusion. Life, in reality, is empty for so many. They are hungry for something bigger and more meaningful. But sadly what the Church has so often tried to give them is what will feel good, what will give them a respite from their struggles, and mimic the offerings of the culture to sate the same hunger.
The remedy is not found in some Christian imitation of the culture, but rather is found in the reality of Jesus Christ and his power to transform lives. This is what has been taking place at Asbury. Students crying out to God for help, confessing their sins and repenting of them. This is what moves God, not fancy and loud worship sets or dynamic preaching (Amos 5:21-24).
If we want to see our churches grow and impact our communities, perhaps the best place to start is to pause our preaching, unplug our instruments, and come before the Lord in the way that the Lord described to Solomon:
When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
II Chronicles 7:13-14
The question is, are we truly desperate enough to do so? The students of Asbury were and we saw what happened.
© Jim Musser 2023 All Scripture references are from the New International Version, 2011.
