This year’s Fall Revival featured Pastor Matt LeRoy of Love Chapel Hill in North Carolina.
Throughout the week of Sept. 9-13, he preached in three chapels and four evening services, exploring
Biblical passages, inviting the campus into prayer and seeking to encourage the students, faculty and
staff of Asbury to come together in pursuit of an abiding life.
Beyond a simple sermon series on the well-known John 15:1-5, these chapels challenged
campus to look at this passage anew as we deepen our relationship with Christ and invest in intimacy
with the True Vine. The journey through the book of Acts in the evening sessions gave tangible examples
of truly abiding lives, reminding listeners that not only is abiding a component of being a fruitful branch,
but it is the end goal. As much as we want to seek to gain the favor of others or start a successful
ministry to demonstrate an active and genuine faith, LeRoy said that “producing good fruit is a
byproduct of an abiding faith.”
Today, we are one week from the end of Fall Revival, and I can’t help but wonder if we are a
changed people. Did the week of intense spiritual fervor on campus shape our experience in this last
week? Is our relationship with God continuing the process of slowly growing, following the spark ignited
by the worship and words during the time we set apart last week? Did the trip to the altar on any one of
those days impact the way you have thought about and lived in the world?
I absolutely pray that these differences are evident, even if in small ways. I certainly hope that
the work God began in my own life and the lives around me did not vanish as soon as WHAM ended
Friday night. I truly believe in a faithful God, who, as Philippians 1:6 tells us, “began a good work in you
[and]
will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
But as LeRoy indicated during the week, being a branch of the Vine does involve participation on
our part. We must be ready and willing to join God in what he is doing, to respond to the convictions on
our own hearts. We must be brave people who are willing to be vulnerable enough to engage in honest
confession with God and with others. If we do not respond to the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives, the
week of Fall Revival becomes obsolete. Emotional highs can only last for so long. Spiritual seeds can be
trampled at the first sign of difficulty if they are not carefully and consistently watered.
Fall Revival carried with it experiences and moments that we can carry with us for the rest of our
lives, which can shape and mold us as we become more like our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ if we let
them. We could also forget these moments, dismiss them as a purely emotional reaction to impassioned
speaking and worship, and resume our lives, unmarked and unchanged by the reality of God’s presence.
Ultimately, that is our choice. But Fall Revival 2019 was not a week to be taken lightly, and it is my
prayer that we would choose to continue the atmosphere of authentic praise and Spirit-led living that
invaded campus during those five days.
