Pastors' Blog

What if God repeated himself every forty years? Then this university campus would be poised on the brink of a mighty spiritual revival! Last week Martin Kim, one of our graduate students, passed along a fascinating story by Beatrice Neal entitled “When God Came Down” (published in the Fall, 2004, edition of Adventists Affirm). In this article Neal, a religion professor at Union College at the time, has carefully pieced together an historical examination of the revival that spread across numerous Christian college campuses in 1970. It began at Asbury Methodist College (Wilmore, Kentucky) in February, 1970. A small group of students had been praying for revival on that campus. Unexpectedly at a 10 a.m. chapel service, a spirit of confession and repentance swept over the gathered student body. “A long line of students came forward to pray and give their testimonies. With tears they acknowledged cheating, theft, prejudice, and jealousy. Some went to individuals in the congregation to ask forgiveness and make restitution. Old enmities were melted with the fervent love of God.” The service continued on into the afternoon leaving the cafeteria empty. “Classes were suspended for the rest of the day.” Prayer and Bible study groups sprang up around the college. College students went to the seminary chapel and testified to the seminarians of their experience. Soon “all classes were officially canceled for the rest of the week,” as seminarians joined undergraduates in “getting right with God and seeking His will.”

The revival spread from Asbury to campuses across the nation. And that fall, 1970, Andrews University was a recipient of God’s reviving power. It began at a Campus Ministry retreat at nearby Camp Michiana October 8-11. Three guest preachers were invited—E. L Minchin, “a beloved youth revivalist;” Mike Stevenson, General Conference Youth Leader; and H. M. S. Richards, Jr, Voice of Prophecy speaker. From early morning to late at night around the camp fire students gathered, asking God “‘to open them up, clean them out, and fill them with His Holy Spirit.’” After a communion service and “a prolonged testimony meeting,” the campus chaplain, Gordon Paxton, and the students with the guest preachers discussed how to share the peace they had found and “‘slosh it over the campus.’” ‘

In 1970 Andrews University was experiencing the “student rebellion” and “wide-scale drug use” that had swept across U.S. campuses. The Student Movement reported “polarization among faculty and student groups.” It was that reality that the “afire for God” retreat students returned to that October Sunday. On Tuesday Chaplain Paxton felt impressed to turn the chapel service over to the students from the retreat who “filled the platform and witnessed to what God had done for them. Then they invited others to come forward.” And with that “a spontaneous testimony service” broke out that continued there at chapel through the lunch hour. At 1:30 150 students were still lined up at the microphone to testify! “Many accepted Christ on the spot.” And when chapel finally disbanded, students moved across campus sharing their testimonies. Some called home, asking their parents’ forgiveness. “They sang praise songs in the cafeteria line and stood up and testified during meals.” The following Sabbath “90% of the Pioneer Memorial Church congregation stood” as Mike Stevenson invited them to surrender their lives to God. Normally the Andrews bookstore sold 300 Bibles annually. In five weeks time 1300 Bibles were ordered. “Thousands more were to follow. ‘What’s going on at Andrews?’ the publishers wanted to know.” A few weeks later God used Morris Venden’s Week of Prayer to fan the flames.

But the revival wasn’t contained on this campus. “Succeeding issues of the Student Movement were full of accounts of student evangelism” in churches throughout Michiana, and to campuses at Mt Vernon Academy (Ohio), Oakwood College (Alabama), Atlantic Union College (Massachusetts), and Columbia Union College (Maryland). Neal’s article chronicles the phenomenal spread of Andrews University students’ witness for Christ up and down the eastern seaboard. Soon General Conference president, Robert Pierson, responded to the student revival in an editorial in the Review and Herald: “May the Holy Spirit revive us all—on campus and off campus!”

When I finished Beatrice Neal’s eleven-page report, I had two reactions. The first was fervent praise to God for such a remarkably divine outpouring of the Spirit upon this campus that I love. I am certain that forty years later we still benefit from the afterglow of that mighty revival. My second reaction was a prayer, Habakkuk’s prayer. For could there be a more timely prayer to be praying—even as we now are immersed in our 40 Days of Prayer on this same campus forty years later? I earnestly invite you to join me in praying this prayer every day until God repeats himself in our midst and we, too, are set ablaze for Christ: “I have heard all about you, LORD, and I am filled with awe by the amazing things you have done. In this time of our deep need, begin again to help us, as you did in years gone by. Show us your power to save us” (Habakkuk 3:2 NLT).

Is there another earth in the universe? Last Tuesday at an international conference in France, scientists reported the discovery of a star or sun—HD 10180—one hundred light years or 587 trillion miles away (not exactly our next door neighbor, to be sure). But what was fascinating was their announcement that this sun is orbited by at least seven planets—most of which are 13 to 25 times the mass of our home planet Earth. However, one of those planets is only 1.4 times our size—making it the smallest planet ever spotted outside our own solar system. “The really nice thing about finding systems like this is that it shows that there are many more out there,” observes Alan Boss of the Carnegie Institution for Science (SBTribune 8-25-40). In fact astronomers now believe there is growing evidence that our universe is “full of planets”—and that a number of them could be similar to our own. Very interesting.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it, whether any of those planets are “peopled” by intelligent (OK, OK—but you know what I mean) beings like us? Could it be that if there were a Hubble-like telescope powerful enough to take close-up aerial photographs of one such planet, we would see communities of habitations spread around that terrestrial ball? Could inhabited planets be scattered through hundreds or even millions of galaxies?

The Bible is strangely silent about such a possibility. The Book of Job describes the “sons of God” (“heavenly beings” NRSV) gathering before God in council and at the creation of Earth (Job 1:6; 2:1; 38:7). Would such intelligent beings include more than the angels who inhabit God’s home kingdom? Scripture doesn’t say. But would it be that unusual for the Creator of the universe, depicted in the Bible as a parental God of relentless love, to have created numerous orders of intelligent life throughout his vast domain? Hardly.

What is apparently unique and unusual for God’s earth children is that we are the only planet to join the satanic rebellion against the Throne. Thus we are the only order of intelligent life the two gift-weapons for the duration of the cosmic war that now engulfs this planet: the gift of prayer (our 24/7 ability to be in instantaneous personal communication with God) and the gift of prophecy (God’s periodic communication with his earth children through divinely-selected men or women entrusted with direct messages from him to us). Two vital gifts critical for God’s earth children to master.

Not because he is 587 trillion miles away. But because we can hear the tread of an approaching God “even at the doors” (Matthew 24:33). For that reason we embark on twin journeys this season: a journey into prayer (“40 Days of Prayer”)—and a journey into the gift of prophecy (our new pulpit series, “The Gift”). And in all candor, I am praying earnestly that you’ll join me in both journeys. Never mind the other planets. It’s our home planet God must save. And we must help him. Which is why he needs you right now.

“Freshmen: What’s a wristwatch?” That headline to a report about Beloit College’s annual “mindset list” caught my eye this week. For thirteen years now two officials at this small private school of 1400 students in Wisconsin have compiled a list of reminders for teachers that the incoming freshmen class is from another time and space than its elders. For example, few of the Class of 2014 have ever worn a wristwatch (can you believe that?). And most of them don’t know how to write in cursive (some of us fall miserably short, as well). For them email is too slow (try texting instead), the only phones they’ve known have no cords, and the computers they played on as kids are now museum pieces! Jack Kevorkian, Dan Quayle, Rodney King—who are they? Russian missile strikes in the U.S.? All this class knows is that Russia and the U.S. are partners today in outer space.

This last week Andrews University welcomed the largest freshmen class in its fifty year history to this campus and this congregation. And while they’re all away today on their freshmen retreat, I wanted to take a moment and remind us all what they’ve left behind.

For worship Monday morning our church was filled with these freshmen and their parents. As I mingled with them after the dedication service (in which our university president addressed the young worshipers in a poignant and personal appeal to them), I couldn’t help but notice the teary eyes of mothers and fathers who were preparing to leave their “babies” behind. It’s never an easy step for parents or child. (It certainly wasn’t for me when I left home for boarding school at the age of 14—never really returning again except for vacations along the academic highway to young adulthood.)

But the closure to that warm, living-at-home chapter doesn’t have to mean an end to a warm home-like family environment for our university students—because today we’re launching a new caring initiative in the Pioneer Family, focused on the young adults God has sent to us at Andrews. We’re inviting you to join us in signing up as adoptive home-away-from-home families. If you’d be willing to throw open the doors to your heart and your home two to three times a semester to provide a home-cooked meal and some warm fellowship to two or three or four Andrews students, I hope you’ll join Karen and me in signing up as a host family. For more details listen to “Entertaining Angels: More Water in the Soup, an Extra Plate at the Table” here at our website. And don’t worry about the language this new generation speaks—with Jesus you already know the language of the heart. And you don’t even need a wrist watch to speak it.

The sign read, “We’re grounded [sic] 4 stealing & sneaking out—HONK if you agree with grounding.” And there they stood, in the front page picture of the South Bend Tribune this week, with a truly forlorn expression on both their young faces—April, 12, and Patrick Kraniak, 13, grounded by their mother for the above-mentioned offenses for the rest of the summer. Grounded, in this case, meaning sitting at a picnic table in their front yard in Mishawaka, Indiana—with a neon poster board inscribed with their “HONK if you agree with our sentencing” sign. (Both children admitted to the reporter that they had indeed committed the infractions.) No running off to play, no television breaks—just a day-after-day sentence at that front yard table, with maternal permission to go inside the house for bathroom breaks or when it rains. Whazzup with all of this? Child abuse by an angry parent? Their mother, Rita Strang, explains her punishment (which, by the way, her husband is firmly supporting): “‘I have nine kids, my oldest (two) are in prison, and I don’t want to see any of the others go in. Having them in prison has torn up the family and it breaks everybody’s heart.” And so Mother Strang “is determined to keep her other children out of trouble, even if she has to get a little creative” (SBT 6-23-10). Will it work? Stay tuned for an end-of-summer report. Nothing like a little remorse and public shaming to get you to amend your ways, right? For my morning worships I’ve been reading the new paperback edition of that classic on the life of Christ, Desire of Ages, now updated with the NKJV—and I’ve been immensely blessed. But just this week I came to the heart-breaking story of Peter’s vehement three-fold denial that he never knew the abused Prisoner inside. And your heart always tears up, doesn’t it, when you come to that sentence in Luke’s account, “And the Lord turned and looked at Peter” (Luke 22:61 NKJV). “While the degrading oaths were fresh upon Peter's lips, and the shrill crowing of the cock was still ringing in his ears, the Saviour turned from the frowning judges, and looked full upon His poor disciple. At the same time Peter's eyes were drawn to his Master. In that gentle countenance he read deep pity and sorrow, but there was no anger there. The sight of that pale, suffering face, those quivering lips, that look of compassion and forgiveness, pierced his heart like an arrow” (DA 712, 713). No justly-deserved shaming, no public condemnation, nothing but the forgiving grace of the Savior’s unrelenting love and mercy that broke the big fisherman’s heart. “So Peter went out and wept bitterly [“and cried and cried and cried”—The Message]” (v 62). The tears are ours, too, are they not? Today—both here at Pioneer Memorial Church and in Atlanta for the 59th General Conference session of the Seventh-day Adventist Church—grace will be front and center. Here as we celebrate the sacred, joyous communion with the Lord of Calvary. And there as we celebrate the nine-day theme, “Proclaiming God’s Grace.” Because whether here, there or anywhere, the truth the world is dying to hear is the truth of the God who was grounded in our place at Calvary—suffering for our shame, dying for our sins, rising again for our salvation. If only the world could know our Savior—think of the billions who would be freed from their honking guilt and shame. No wonder we must still pray for the outpouring of “the Spirit of grace and supplication” (Zech 12:10) upon both church and world for such a time as this!