By Noelle Neader, Jacob Taylor and Faith Holley
Spilling over into its third night, Samford University students continue to gather to worship and pray, day and night, rain or shine — and students are the ones leading the effort. Reports also indicate three students have given their lives to Christ and others are working through issues in their lives, both publicly and privately.
“We had a student visit Asbury (University) and experience what was happening there,” said campus pastor Bobby Gatlin. “At the same time, there was a student who had been playing music and worship in Reid Chapel, just singing by himself for several days on end in the evenings.”
Praying for the Holy Spirit to move
On Wednesday (Feb. 15), a group of students began praying for the Holy Spirit to move on Samford’s campus. Once the Wednesday night worship experience started, it kept growing.
Even many of the Bulldog fans across campus at the Pete Hanna Center — who helped the men’s basketball team secure a come-from-behind win over UNC Greensboro — found themselves in Reid Chapel after the game. Hundreds of students were gathered by 10 p.m. and many stayed until 3 a.m. the following morning.
The next day, after afternoon classes were cancelled due to severe weather alerts, students gathered again in Reid Chapel around 1 p.m., with some students not leaving until 1 a.m. the next morning.
Faculty and staff — at times joined by their children — also continue to filter in and out of the chapel.
‘Life changing’
Madeleine Crow, a junior studying Christian ministry, said she was in awe of what is happening. “Walking in (Wednesday night) and genuinely seeing people I am walking everyday life with, step up and let the Spirit speak through them was life changing … to see people with beautiful God-given gifts singing out, speaking up and allowing the Holy Spirit to orchestrate that night. I’ve never seen the campus more unified in all my three years so far at Samford.”
Crow, along with her Wednesday morning New Testament class, prayed for “not only this campus and for the Spirit to move, but for the Lord to awaken the campus.”
‘Magnetic’
Jacey Robinson, a senior majoring in communication studies, described her experience in Reid Chapel as “gravitating and magnetic.”
“It’s hard to explain,” she said. “You just felt the Spirit and its power and it was kind of surreal. … It felt like it was burning from within me, that passion and that fire.”
Gaining attention
The experience at Samford is drawing on-campus and off-campus interest like at least four other university campuses reporting consecutive days of a revival atmosphere.
“A lot of people have said that this is what heaven looks like,” said Samford student Bryson Mullins as he left an afternoon time of worship. “In a generation where many older people have said that we are lost, I think this is a perfect representation that our generation is still here, still praying and still worshipping and we’re more fired up than ever to display our Christian faith.”
Maddy Rosenau, a graduate student studying social work, added, “The world is quick to say that this generation of young people is too far gone, but what I saw … in Reid Chapel at midnight in the middle of storm warnings on a Thursday night says just the opposite.”
‘Hope this revival will spread’
Tyshawn Gardner, an associate professor in Samford’s department of biblical and religious studies, visited Reid Chapel Friday afternoon (Feb. 17) and joined more than 100 students who gathered to pray and worship.
“What we’re seeing is students who are leading the nation, and I do hope that this revival will spread to cities, colleges and universities across the country,” he added. “I think what we’re seeing is a sincere, powerful movement of God. I think our students have discerned that God is up to something, and they want to be a part of it.”
Gatlin agreed.
“It’s not just a certain type of student, not the super-spiritual students only, not all the religion majors. It’s student-athletes, students in Greek life and students from all parts of campus,” he said. “They mostly don’t know each other, it’s individuals and groups of people who come together. People going, ‘I don’t even know who all these people are, but God is moving.’
“To me, the precursor was that God’s been moving in people’s hearts,” Gatlin said.
‘God is doing a new thing’
In an email to students Friday morning, Samford University President Beck Taylor wrote, “I’m convinced that God is doing a new thing here, and all we’re asked to do is to remain faithful to God’s calling.
“As we allow the Spirit to move among us, let’s resist the temptation to label what’s happening, or to put it into some kind of a neat box,” he wrote.
The current revival movement began Feb. 8 at Asbury University, a Christian university in Kentucky, and spread to other Christian college campuses including Lee University in Tennessee, Campbellsville University in Kentucky, Cedarville University in Ohio and now Samford.
The latest reports out of Asbury say people are waiting in line for more than an hour to enter the chapel. For more on the Asbury revival, check out this article from The Baptist Paper.
To hear more from Taylor about what’s happening at Samford, watch this 10-minute TAB Media Special Report video interview.
Editor’s Note — Noelle Neader, Jacob Taylor and Faith Holley are student journalists at Samford University and wrote this article as a special assignment for The Alabama Baptist. Samford student Cayman Carpenter provided the accompanying photos.
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