Reports of events similar to the “Asbury Outpouring” at Christian universities are coming in, including a 10-hour worship set in San Dimas, California.
What has come to be known as the “Asbury Outpouring” or “Asbury Revival” has had a domino effect on other Christian colleges across the nation, making its way to Southern California.
In case you missed it, the event started as a routine chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, but when groups of students stayed to continue praying and worshiping, the service carried on into the next day.
Word spread via social media, and people began to travel to Asbury to join in on the worship. Visitors came from all over the nation and worldwide, including Indonesia, Brazil and New Zealand. The university estimates over 50,000 visitors came to worship throughout the two weeks, utilizing multiple overflow buildings to provide space for the crowds.
The outpouring began on Feb. 8 and continued until the 20th for visitors and the 23rd for college-aged and high school students after the last service on the National Collegiate Day of Prayer. The university cites capacity limit concerns from local law enforcement as the reason for the end but encouraged all attendees to go out and continue the movement.
TikTok was the means of circulation—videos with the Asbury revival hashtag having a combined 122 million views. There are also thousands of posts on Instagram with the same hashtag.
Also spreading on social media are videos from other Christian universities in Alabama, Ohio, Tennessee and Texas, including Baylor University, where groups of students are also holding day-long worship services.
Most of these universities are neighbors to Kentucky, but it seems that revival has made it all the way to Southern California. Life Pacific University, with just under 500 undergraduate students, in San Dimas, CA held a 10-hour long worship service on Tuesday, Feb. 21.
Junior Danielle Cipriano is on the worship team that led the service that day, and she recounts the story.
Cipriano shared that going into the week, there was tension between students and staff. LPU held a tent revival event Feb. 10 in celebration of its centennial and students reported feelings of Spirit-led worship similar to Asbury. However, there was disagreement over the best way to respond to both this event and the Asbury events.
The worship team met with the school chaplain and talked things out, but the rest of the student body showed up to chapel Tuesday curious to see what would happen with the conflict and in response to Asbury. Cipriano states that the chapel service was the most full it had been in a while.
“What’s happening in Asbury we believe is God moving in a very evident way, in a way we haven’t seen in a very long time and the enemy likes to use moves of God to divide the church and that’s what he thought he was doing,” said Cipriano.
Before the service, Cipriano’s team was told they had total authority to move where the Holy Spirit led, and what was supposed to be an hour-long service turned into ten hours of worship.
“It was such a rich moment where everyone was aware that the Holy Spirit is interrupting our agendas,” Cipriano stated, citing that professors present announced to students that their scheduled classes were canceled.
When asked about how all these events are affecting the campus, Cipriano shared stories of changes in the way friends speak and think as genuine transformation, but she admits that it has been less than a week, so only time will tell.
Personally, Cipriano states that the revival has been challenging her faith, and she claims to have witnessed miracles of healing at another extended worship night last week.
“What I realized is that I had no faith that God could move in my campus in the way that He has been,” she stated. “For me, it was a restoration of actual genuine faith—that’s what revival has been to me.”