College Kids, Country Folks, Venison, and … Revival?

 

College Kids, Country Folks, Venison, and … Revival?

Published in Marietta Daily Journal (GA) April 22, 2023

            This past weekend my wife and I returned to Mississippi for a family reunion. Of the seventeen children in my family, ten are still living. Seven of those are sisters, five of whom could not get to the reunion because of either bad health or distance. That means that only five of “us kids” were there but we five were blessed to be in company with boocoodles of nieces and nephews.

            Truth is I was as excited about another matter as I was about seeing my family members. I was determined to go far out into the country on Sunday morning, even further out from where we grew up, to attend the ongoing revival occurring at now-not-so-little Salem Baptist Church near Lake, Mississippi. But first, what’s going on at Salem has a context. A big part of that context is Wilmore, Kentucky and Georgia.

            As the world knows by now, for sixteen days in Wilmore at Asbury University an around- the- clock prayer meeting and songfest occurred. On February 8 around 20 students lingered after a chapel service at Asbury and continued praying and singing. As some of the students trickled back to their dorms and classrooms and told their roommates and classmates about the extended service, more students headed to Hughes Auditorium. There was no highlighted speaker, there had been no announcement of a prayer meeting, and there was actually no designated leadership for the praying and singing. There were no physical healing miracles, no dark room with beaming lights, no sense of a production, and very little noise except  spontaneous praying, singing, and quiet communicating among the Asbury students. Within seven days 50,000 students from around the country had joined them. Asbury professors and university staff members ventured in as well to participate in the worship.

            Departing worshippers would describe the happening as “a strange peace,” and “the presence of God.”

            Among evangelical denominations, the word “revival,” which is not mentioned in the Bible, is often used to refer to renewal, to an outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit, and in the case of non-Christians, to their coming to Christ in repentance and faith. There were no efforts by Asbury University to publicize this revival. Tucker Carlson and other news outlets were asked not to come when they contacted Asbury, and Carlson respectfully honored Asbury’s wishes though he covered the story. Groups with American flags were asked to leave their flags in their cars since “the service is about Christ, not America.”

            For the last few years spiritual revivals have been occurring in rural Georgia as well, though different from Asbury. In Millen, Cassville, and in Little Chicago, an area in Columbus, hundreds have publically professed their Christian faith. In Omega, a town with under 2000 people, some 400 men gathered at Bethel Baptist Church in February for a Beast Feast (deer, elk, etc.) After a testimony by outdoor television show host Chuck McAlister, 41 men publicly announced their newfound faith in Christ. In Blackshear, Georgia in January at a venison supper (what is it about meat?) 19 men announced their recent faith and 28 re-dedicated their lives to serving Christ.  

            Not all such happenings at colleges or churches have been Baptist. Lee University in Tennessee where an Asbury-like revival has occurred is associated with the Church of God. In Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, and throughout the Midwest nondenominational churches and Wesleyan Methodist churches are also reporting growth via new believers recently converted. The myth of the dying church may be just that.   

            As for Salem Baptist in Mississippi, it also is experiencing a visitation of joy, peace, and revival. The pastor of 29 years, Rev. Larry Duncan, is a family friend. No church could be more rural, yet more than 400 worshippers from a 30-mile radius are packing the pews every Sunday. Baptisms are occurring regularly, meaning that people are publicly professing their faith in Christ.

            No doubt this rural spiritual awakening has its detractors. I can only attest that at Salem the joy is real, the Bible is preached, the pastor/preacher is the humblest of men, and the church is positively impacting a large rural area.

            What my wife, our grown children and I observed and experienced at Salem is what can fill the emptiness of college students and cure the fatherlessness-caused crime that besets our cities and is reaching rural areas as well. In an age of crime, fear, and broken families, transcendence is the need of the hour. So claimed the prophets, the Apostles, Martin Luther, the Wesley brothers, many a Catholic bishop, Billy Graham, and others.  And so claims Pastor Larry Duncan.  

             To God be the glory!