- For the last four years at her Christian college, Gracie Turner had been keeping a secret: she had lost her faith. She had been blaming God for the struggles she was facing, including cancer ravaging her great-grandmother, family falling apart, and anxiety, depression and a back injury.
- Last Sunday, something changed: Gracie spontaneously blurted an idea to her roommate to go to chapel. When she opened the doors, the same chapel that had never spoken to her before was suddenly alive with more than a thousand people weeping, swaying and singing with their eyes closed. Gracie felt at peace and protected.
- This sparked a movement: tens of thousands poured into that Kentucky chapel to experience what Gracie felt, coming from states like South Carolina and Oklahoma, Canada and Singapore. The pews were packed with people who shared a single conviction: God was visiting a two-stoplight town in Kentucky.
- The revival started with a sermon from Zach Meerkreebs, a volunteer soccer coach: He spoke about experiencing radically poor love, even from the church, and invited people to experience God’s perfect love. His message moved people to stay and pray, and then spread via social media.
- This is not the first time Wilmore has combusted with prayer: Asbury University’s website lists eight prior revivals, with the largest cresting in 1970. Revivals were at their height in eighteenth-century America, and more recently, college campuses have been the center of revivals.
- This revival is happening at a time when Gen Z is the most likely generation yet to say they don’t believe in God: They are also the least religiously affiliated and the least likely to attend church, and their rates of depression and anxiety are soaring. This revival provides hope and freedom to a generation that is feeling heavy and desolate.
Published February 19, 2023
Visit The Free Press to read Olivia Reingold’s original post Why Students in Kentucky Have Been Praying for 250 Hours
