Shepherding A Revival and Saddleback Ousted

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Shepherding A Revival and Saddleback Ousted
Tuesday 28th February 2023

Shepherding A Revival

POV. It’s 20 days now since an unusual outpouring of the Holy Spirit (referred to as the Asbury Revival) broke out in a small private Christian University of 1700 students in Wilmore, Kentucky – a small rural town of about 6000 residents. Since then over 50,000 people have descended on the town to visit Asbury University resulting in overflow rooms being set up all over the town including the lawn outside Hughes Auditorium where temperatures rarely get over 4 degrees Celsius at this time of the year.

What impresses me greatly is how the President, Dr Kevin Brown, faculty, staff and students have ‘shepherded’ this move of God. I love the fact that they are keeping it as ‘pure’ as possible. No high profile worship leaders or pastors have been asked to speak or lead or minister. As Dr Brown said, “we are trying to keep this as organic as possible”. Further they are giving priority to the U25 age group because that is where it started and that is where there is such a need.

From everything I have read it seems to me that the leadership at Asbury have found the delicate balance of mature spiritual oversight and the risk of over control spot on. They seem very sensitive to not wanting to stifle the work of the Holy Spirit yet keep a sense of orderliness and safety for those attending both in and outside the building. I think this is about as close to a master class you’ll see anywhere.

Here are three ‘sources’ that I have found particularly helpful:-

1. Christianity Todays Article titled, ‘No Celebrities Except Jesus’: How Asbury Protected the Revival
2. Dr Brown’s announcement to the Asbury community that the meeting schedule would be changing and why. 11 mins.
3. A superb 12 min video where Don Carson and Tim Keller discuss, ‘When we experienced Revival

Saddleback Church Ousted from SBC

POV. Last week the Southern Baptist Convention Executive Committee kicked Saddleback out from its fold………yes it did…….Saddleback if you please. Actually the precise words used were, “Saddleback was no longer in friendly co-operation. I am tempted to go on quite a riff right now but that’s not going to make an iota of difference. I’ll let Rick Warren or the new Senior Pastor, Andy Wood do that. What I am incredulous about is that 46,000 churches in the SBC appear to agree with this rule. The SBC is the largest denomination in North America by a long shot with 16 million members and 46,000 churches. Let’s say there are some 60-65,000 pastors in those 46,000 churches. Surely, it is reasonable that most pastors must agree with this rule otherwise the it would have been changed a long time ago. That my friends is to hard to believe.

And just in case you are unsure the 240 Baptist Churches in NZ do allow women as Pastors. In fact they encourage it even though there are still some hurdles to overcome.

Before I go I want to offer you a song that I think we need right now. Lauren Daigle’s beautiful, ‘Hold On To Me’. Our world is feeling very fragile right now and it would be easy forget that God is near at hand. He is holding on to us. I hope this song blesses you?

Hold on to me when it's too dark to see You (I'll hold on)
When I am sure I have reached the end
Hold on to me when I forget I need You (I'll hold on)
When I let go, hold me again.