Ep.75 - When there is a Revival at Ashbury University

American Christianity has been captivated by what has been called a revival at Ashbury University, a small Christian college in Kentucky.   Plenty of Christian ministers and commentators have jumped in to help us all determine if this non-stop worship service is an authentic act of the Holy Spirit or a phony work of Satan.  In this episode, we will refrain from adding our voice to the endless amounts of scrutiny being levied and instead have a conversation about worship music as a whole.  The current activity of this Ashbury Revival is primarily singing so we will take a look at a worship song in the book of Psalms and compare it to current trends in modern American worship music.  The goal is not to create a report card for the songs that we sing, but instead to have tools to tune our own hearts for the substance the Bible prioritizes when we sing.  Enjoy!!

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right, and welcome back everyone to another episode of the Christianing podcast. Thank you so much as always for joining in where we take the theology of Sunday to the reality of Monday. Thanks for Tune in and last two episodes were a ton of fun, so if you haven't had a chance to check those out, go to When Christians Can't Get Along Part 1. I introduce what's becoming a very passionate topic of mine, missional diversity, to help us better understand how God, through his spirit, directed the early church to deal with controversial issues in the faith and then had a conversation with the pastor, part two, in Austin, Texas, who is doing things non-traditionally when it comes to some of the controversial stuff that can pop up when it comes to same-sex, LGBTQ, all those kinds of things, has a different approach. in his attempt to serve a community that he cares a lot about. So check those out. I know some people had asked for kind of a follow-up to my conversation with Pastor Zach Lambert at Restore Austin. And I might throw up a processing episode at some point, but really I'm... I didn't want to do a debate with him. And so I'm kind of hesitant now that, you know, you record a conversation and then the person, you know, you end the conversation and then kind of to do an episode where I kind of pick apart the things that that dude said without him having an opportunity to. clarify, speak up. I know it seems a little backhanded, seems a little shady, but still, I know I got a lot of feedback. A lot of people are processing because it's just different when you see tweets on Twitter and you hear why your side is right on those issues or your side is correct on those issues from your own side. It's a whole different thing to actually hear the voice of someone who's who's trying to do it differently. And so I know that it stirred up a lot of good stuff. So that's great. So we'll keep going, but we're going to take a break for that because I wanted to... This is kind of a timely episode as, as far as I know, there's still this revival worship service going on at Ashbury University in Kentucky. Hopefully you've heard about that. It's kind of been a social media phenomenon. So as far as I know, I did read a headline. I haven't been following it too closely that... The university is considering shutting down the nonstop worship service that's been going on, which as a school administration, I kind of get it. At some point, you have to bring your campus back to normal. some sense of normal functionality and stuff. So I don't know, maybe today's last day or something, I did jump on yesterday their live YouTube page and there was still worshiping going on. So anyways, just that whole revival concept and seeing that kind of sparked... another conversation that I've been wanting to have with you guys for a while. So we'll get in that, but first we'll get into the nuts and bolts of what's going on in Ashbury and just kind of my initial reactions. There's plenty being said out there in the Christian world about Ashbury and So I really don't want to add too much to that because as you're going to find out, typically I'm going to take it a different direction, use this as a springboard to talk about something that's meaningful to you in your walk with Christ on a daily basis. But just off the top to get us going. So yeah, there was a basic... If you go to a Christian college, they have chapel services, depending on which college sometimes. anywhere from like two to five times a week. Some colleges, you go to chapel every day. You do it twice a week. Every Christian university kind of has their own requirement for how many chapel services you go to as a student. I went to Biola University, so we had Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and you had X amount that you had to check in before the semester was over, yada, yada, yada. So from what I understand, Ashbury has a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. So if I'm remembering this, if I've got my dates correct, it's not that important. If I don't, it was a Wednesday service that was part of a series that was going on. Very normal, very typical it looked like. I actually watched the sermon that kicked off the whole revival service on YouTube and It was just a couple things off the bat. It was very typical. So kind of my personal filter when I look at something like a revival, I'll walk through some of those things real quick. But I do kind of take note of the fact that in all of our Christian hearts, especially those of us that are Christian ministry leaders that You know, we all desire to see revival in our scope of influence. And I've been to so many churches, ministries, heard conferences where revival is prayed for, and rightly so. And so when it appears to have happened someplace else, we do tend to get insecure about it. So that's the first thing I kind of noticed in myself and what I noticed in the reaction to others is, you know, I think in a perfect way, in a perfect Christian world where there is no sinful flesh involved at all, I think we immediately jump on this thing and celebrate. Because revival somewhere should be rejoiced everywhere in the pure sense. So the fact that the initial response from American Christianity is instantly testing, number one, And outright skepticism, you know, number two, I think is just telling kind of where we're at as a Christian in America, the Christianity in America. So I did kind of check my heart because your initials like, well, I bet that's, you know, just emotionalism or whatever. So I... That's why I kind of stayed away from it. I didn't jump into it because I didn't want to feed any potential insecurity. If the Holy Spirit's doing something cool, I don't want to speak ever against that. So sometimes I'm self-aware, and so I just kind of stay out of things because I might be tempted. If I really look into it, I might be tempted to do a podcast episode about it where I'm super negative. So that isn't what we're going to do here because... As I just kind of did some nominal research, and by nominal, I mean I just listened to the chapel service, and I was overall just encouraged by what I was seeing. And to me, I saw no reason to... to doubt the authenticity of what the Spirit's doing over there. Again, I was really trying not to have a skeptical, testing heart, so I came in with an open mind. But in that sermon that I watched, it was number one, typical. So that's encouraging to me in the sense that so many attempts at revival are human agencies trying to manipulate the situation and trying to create a man-made revival and you can do that um through you know worship music and emotionalism and all that stuff so um i get why we can be skeptical but this was like student-led worship you can tell they have kind of a routine of different student-led worship leaders and And then the speaker, I didn't look into him. I even forgot his name. But he seemed to be on some level of a professor or a teacher at the college. So an in-house kind of wasn't this, you know, kind of traveling person. tent revival thing. It was local. And his message was very much to the students of Ashbury. And there's times where he specifically called out the seniors. You could tell what was on his heart was what was staring right in front of him. It wasn't some like, hey, let's see if we can get Ashbury University on the Christian map and do some really cool revival thing. No, it was none of that. It was very... humble it was very typical and then interesting the passage that was that they were in the middle of was Romans 12 and that was the passage that was on my heart when I first heard about this thing because that's whenever I hear of like revival of and then the the first You know, the first evidence of the revival is worship music, worship singing. I always go straight to Romans 1, where it says, I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. That's where I always go to start any conversation about worship. Singing is a discipline of Christian liturgy. It always has been. since the founding of Israel. And so it's a beautiful thing. But worship, the concept of worship is different. It's different. It is presenting our bodies, our whole lives, everything we are as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. So obviously there's tons of commentators and are speaking on this that the the true test of of the ashbury revival will be the test of time where do these initial moves in that in the stirring of of a group of people to just want to be singing praise and worship and experiencing the holy spirit does that result in this Romans 12, 1, presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice. So there is a test of time that only we'll see that the great awakenings of our nation's past had that test of time. And then there's this non-church, there's actual lifestyle element, not just a church service element. There's a lifestyle element of just any number of a million people Christ-honoring actions that just kind of explode onto the scene. And that's what a true revival will bring. So I'm not here to analyze any of that. This thing's been going on for a couple weeks, so the test of time hasn't really stood up yet. But all you can do is kind of take a look at what's going on. And the fact that they were going through a series... of expositional preaching through Romans 12 that, I don't know, of all the chapters of the Bible that would stir up a revival of the Spirit. That's one of those chapters that will do it. And I just listened to this guy. He just preached and... walked off the stage, and then kind of the YouTube feed cuts out. But you do hear a pretty loud, for the size of the crowd, a pretty loud applause response to what was shared. So there was an initial, like, that this crowd was reacting to the Word of God. And this guy preached it. I mean, I have a couple, like, I'm pretty particular when it comes to to teach in the word, things that I really want to hear that maybe I didn't necessarily hear. But the bottom line, this guy's message was pretty dead on as it was later in the chapter of Romans 12, where love without hypocrisy, and it goes through all the true marks of Christianity. And his point was, you can't love this way until you're filled with love in that way. And that was kind of his main point that he was just praying and speaking over the students was, Don't think that you can do these things, these marks of Christianity, until you've truly been filled and experienced the love of God. And that was kind of what the whole point of it was in his prayer was that I want you to experience the love of God and make that kind of the priority of your spiritual walk. And so that's... very solid um very solid teaching and so again but simple and so all that to say that um you know i've i've got no reason to believe that this thing's not not the real deal the word is what appears to be responded to um but a lot of commentators have been listened to um have pointed out that they're typical when there is a real revival, there is counterfeit elements that follow along as people try to use the work of God to enhance a work of man or to create a work of man. They bring the glory of God in order to glorify man. And so that always happens, and that sounds... That rings to be true as I read scriptures and learn about Christian history and the church history. So anyways, there could be some just negative stuff that ultimately comes out of it as I saw something on social media where there's a line people trying to get in this worship service like wrapped around the entire campus it was it was pretty crazy there's news crews there was so obviously chaos um can befall something like that but from from what i understand the university has been trying to keep it just in-house they've only allowed um their typical university preachers teachers and worship leaders to To to lead they're not bringing in celebrities and trying to do any of that. So all that to say the actual Revival I've been I've been encouraged by just just a little bit that I've looked into it but what this sparked and what I want to transition to as we get into our word of the day is what's kind of been burning in my heart is is Our worship music as an American Christian faith. When I heard that Ashbury was this non-stop worship service, any skepticism that I had was attached to the way American Christians tend to worship God and the worship music that we engage in. and things of that nature. So I did, I listened a little bit to the live feed. And, you know, again, I didn't want to listen to, because I can be over skeptical, over analytical. So I just, I listened to one song. They were singing the Chris Tomlin, Good, Good Father, which I think is a wonderful song. It's blessed me when I've sang it. It's a core truth that I try to teach young people about God is that He is a good father for so many people that have daddy issues and things. I don't say that tongue-in-cheek. I say that real. That's a big hurdle that people often have to get over before they can truly understand the heart of God. So anyways, that's the only song I listen to. But I am around worship services a lot, especially in the youth. I've been... The majority of my ministry experience has been with youth and I've seen hundreds of different approaches to getting our young people excited about worshiping God. And there is, there's a lot of, and I'm going to try not to be specifically critical because I can be misunderstood. And then some good people that are trying to write some good God honoring songs are could be thrown under the bus. And that's not the intention here at all. But there is a lot of non-Jesus, non-spirit that can accompany an American church as we worship together. And that's just the nature of the beast that we face. So what I wanted to do was dive into, I kind of searched the Psalms a little bit. I wanted to look at biblical worship song and what are the components of a biblical worship song in comparison to kind of the modern approach to worship music and so here's how we're going to do this I looked at Psalm 66 and I was able to find five principles five principles and I was toying with the idea of comparing Psalm 66 to a couple popular worship songs and And I think wisdom, the Spirit, it's unnecessary. I don't need to. I don't need to because I've done that. I did that years back. I was teaching at a Bible college, and I did a worship class, and I just kind of was negative about a popular worship group, and we kind of picked apart one of their songs. It wasn't necessary to make the point, you know, so... So we're not going to do that. We're just going to look at Psalm 66. We're going to kind of see what is presented as just this small sampling of psalms, which is like a book of worship music. But I think this highlights some of the key, key themes. And we're going to pull principles away that you can carry with you as you sit in your church and sing psalms. worship songs because even if the church is kind of a you know is kind of does kind of some of these modern kind of emotional kind of practices and things of that nature at least you can tune your heart because even as i as i worship i i typically i can authentically worship god in pretty much every worship setting and that's because the word has been able to tune my heart to celebrate the things that Christ wants us to celebrate the most. And even in kind of what I would, you know, what I might consider a bad worship song, quote unquote, there's a line or two that I can just jump in and I can celebrate with the rest of the congregation. And so if you're not a worship leader, you don't have control or a pastor, you don't have control over the song selection. So you just got to go with it. And if you are a worship leader, maybe use these principles that Psalm 66 lays out to kind of help you navigate your song selection and where you go. And I will say I was part of a church that was very strict on their worship song rules, which was cool on one hand, but on the other hand, very judgmental, through some good, what could be some good spirit-led songs, like To the Curb, Kicked Him to the Curb, which could have been unnecessary. So that's why I take a principled approach, not a prescriptive approach, where you have to find a song that does this and only does this. It's like, no, tune your heart to these principles, And then when you hear those principles being celebrated, you can just join in. And when you hear those principles, maybe not, you can just be kind of silent to yourself in some prayer. But yeah, I try to avoid the, this band is biblical, this band isn't. I try to avoid all that because grace, grace people, we have a salvation based on grace. So the second principle, I declare what is right and good. Yeah, I know I'm going to be wrong. So anyways, so let's dive in. Psalm 66. So we're going to, as we go through this, we're going to go back and forth. We're not just going to read the whole thing and then pull out the points. We'll pull them as we go and we'll do some contrasts as we go. So let's dive in. First, we'll do verses 1 through 4. It says, all the earth again worships you and sings praises to you. They sing praises to your name. First principle that you see here as it says, shout for joy to God, all the earth and all the earth worships you. You see we, not me. You see the collective over the individual. In the Psalms, the The collective, the voice that's ringing out towards heaven is a collective voice. Now, you contrast to a lot of modern American worships, you hear a lot of me. You hear a lot of I, I, me, me, me. And I'm not saying that because you'll see that those pronouns, the I, me pronouns do come in the psalms. But what I'm directing this towards is worship was... is best experienced collectively and it's best understood as an entire group of people singing out to God as opposed to just me in my little worship experience. So again, the hyper individualism of the 21st century American will, you know, this, this stuff does influence the culture of our church. So again, So we have to be mindful of that. So notice that the voice going up isn't an individual voice. It's a collective voice. So be mindful of that. Even if it's an individualistic song that your worship leaders decided to choose, enjoy the fact that you're in a collective group, singing it out, because that's the true power of a worship experience is the collectiveness, that God doesn't just give me what I need. He is doing simultaneously the exact same thing across the entire earth for all of his people. So, so important. All right, so first thing, we over me. Second thing, we'll look at verses five, six, and seven. Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deeds toward the children of man. He turned the sea into dry land. They passed through the river on foot. There did we rejoice in him who rules by his might forever, whose eyes keep watch on the nations. Let not the rebellious exalt themselves. Selah. So here, again, you see kind of the continuation of the collective as what God's deeds toward the children. There did we rejoice in him. But here you see the focus being on his deeds over my experience. So much of modern worship songs are individualistic in their experience. You'll repeat things like, I want more of you. And those are all well-meaning and not wrong or sinful or any stretch. But the purpose of a worship song is to recite the might, the glory, and the greatness of God and his power. and his actions towards his people. So it says, come and see what God has done. This is what increases our faith, not what I experience or want to experience in God, but who God is and what he has done for his people since the beginning of time. So So in worship, you want to celebrate his deeds over my experience. Those are some of my favorite songs where it's just verse after verse of just extolling the works of God. And my experience may not ever come into play in those verses at all. I'm not saying they can't, but those are Those are some of the most faith lifting songs that I sing where it's just Jesus did this. Jesus is this. God has done this. God is this. And just kind of this repetitive of lifting my heart and soul up in song to who God is and what he does. Taking the emphasis off me. So it's not just we over me, but it's also him over me. And that's one of the big traps of kind of commercialized American music is we feel like what will get people to care more about worship songs is if we show them how it impacts them, how Jesus impacts them and will improve their lives and make them feel better and things of that nature. And that actually... And in my little humble opinion, that does more to erode our faith than build our faith. Because let's say I sing a worship song on Sunday and then on Monday, I don't experience any of those things. I don't feel any of those things. None of those things in my little experience come to bear. My faith gets tested where... When we sing about God's deeds and what he has done, it's irrelevant of how that impacts my physical life than on Monday when I have the worst day of all times or whatever it may be. I'm just reciting. My faith can still grow because it's like, this is terrible. This sucks. But God, God is this. God is this. So I hope that makes sense. We'll keep going on. We'll go to verse 8. Kind of talking more about God's deeds. But you see the tense. And this comes up all through the Psalms, really all through Scripture. Bless, O God. So, when we're looking at God's deeds, It's, you want past over present or future. Past over present or future. You'd think tenses don't matter, but they do. So much of the Bible, the majority of the Bible deals with what God has done. Past tense. Then you have these future books like Revelation, which are so important. So I'm not saying, that's why I say past over present or future, not future. instead of present or future, but the Israelites would constantly worship and recite the incredible works that God had done throughout their history. And why is that important? It grounds the people in the reality of God's work. It then sets natural biblical expectations for what he may do in the future. And Sometimes I think modern American music, that's not hip enough, that's not cool enough, that's not relevant enough. I'm not saying all songs are like this. There's some amazing top worship songs right now that do great about extolling God's past deeds in the life of his people, and they're very biblical. But sometimes it just focuses on... God, you will do this. And it leaves for the mind of the believer, it leaves it too open-ended for me to fill in the blanks for myself of what I want to see God doing in my life or amongst his people, where when we constantly recite the past works of God, there's a clear scope that, oh, this is what God does. This is what, this is... how he works and how he moves without having to go to theology class or anything to define that. Worship music is so important because that's how we get trained as believers. When you're singing a lot of awesome songs that are reminding God's people about who he is and what he has done throughout salvation history, your brain gets naturally tuned to the fact, well, as I look forward towards his work in this present moment or in the future, you have naturally biblical expectations for what that's going to be. Because that's what we want to guard ourselves from. Because Satan will come in and tell us God will do something that is completely outside of his historical work. And then when that doesn't happen... We have faith crises and things of that nature. So we always want worship to build our faith, not just build our motivation and our inspiration. So third point, you want past over present or future. And what's the most exciting past work to sing about? Well, you see in verse 11 and 12, you... Salvation. Gospel. That's why I love just hearing just basic basic declarations of God's saving work through the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so Throwing the gospel into a worship song, it never gets old. My old saying, if you're sick of hearing the gospel, you may not have been saved by it. That's because those that have been saved by the good news of Christ, you can't get enough of it. Anytime you hear it, it just lifts your heart with joy. So when you think about God's deeds, past, over, present, or future, A great go-to for so many worship writers is just Christ, salvation, the gospel. You even see it here in Psalm 66. Yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance. And that's God rescuing his people. So sometimes there has to be a line or two that is less than inspiring. Like you had in verse 11. You laid a crushing burden on our backs. You let men ride over our heads. That's not super uplifting, but... When you want to tell of the work of God and what he's done, well, yeah, the bad news is necessary in order to truly elevate the good news. So, anyways, I could go on and on about that, but I won't. I'll hold off. Let's move on. 13, 14, 15, we get our fourth point. It's, I will come into your house with burnt offerings. Now here's where you see the pronoun switch from we, us, to I. So yeah, there is an individual experience to the work of God and to worship. Just notice that it took us all the way to verse 13 to get there. I think that's an important principle. You want to lead off with he, us, we, us. And then you can appropriately throw in the individual. So 13, I will come into your house with burnt offerings. I will perform my vows to you that which my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. I will offer to you burnt offerings of fattened animals with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams. I will make an offering of bulls and goats. So, What's the individual experience here in this worship song is honoring God with my actions over blessing me with my actions. That's the contrast that you want to be mindful of. That, yes, there is an individual experience, but here what you see, what does the individual do? The individual uses their freedom and their agency to bring honor to God. Here, the psalmist here is This is what I do. I'm going to walk through all the offerings that God has made available to me to show my love and devotion to him. So the individual agency comes in and the individual experience comes in to honor God with my actions as opposed to my actions will bless my life. Yes. Your life does get blessed. Matthew 6, 33 principle always applies. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you. So when you put first things first, your life gets thrown in, but you don't want your blessing to be front and center, to be the priority. in the individual experience. So that's the fourth thing. Honoring God with my actions over blessing me with my actions. Moving on. Last point. Real quick. You see a cool testimony line in verse 16. Come and hear all you who fear God and I will tell what he has done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth and high praise was on my tongue. So there's some great... worship songs that are kind of encouraging testimonials, and that's beautiful as you see here. But as we get into 18, we get our fifth kind of and final concept here. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Man, imagine that in like a modern megachurch worship song. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened. He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me. End of the song. So the fifth principle that we want to be mindful of in worship is Bending to God's will over God bending to my will. Bending to God's will over God bending to my will. There's this clear truth that is sung that if I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. There's tons of scriptures that talk about when God doesn't pay attention to our prayers and it's always... connected to iniquity in our lives and our pride and our lack of humility when it comes to our sin. And so part of worship is entering us into a bending of our will as we lay down our pride and we pick up the banner of humility before God and so that we can sing He has attended to the voice of my prayer. Blessed be God because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me. So the fact that God even listens and attends to us is this beautiful, beautiful privilege. But first we have to bend ourselves to his will and understand that he does have a will and a desire that he will enter us into through the power of his spirit. And it's... Not our works so that man can boast, but it's his work. But still, that's what we have to sing about. We have to sing about this powerful will of God. And we have to remind ourselves that, no, we come to him on his terms. He doesn't come to us on our terms. And so much... of what I hear oftentimes, not all the time, but especially when it comes to youth culture worship, is what I call whiny worship, where it's God, me, bring me, I need me, God, bring you, God. It comes across, even the melodies are super whiny. I once had a lifetime missionary in France come to one of my youth chapels, this was years ago, when I had a youth band leading worship and he was like, man, he came to me after that was depressing because he was just used to what, you know, he was singing on the mission field of just kind of these uplifting songs about God and his, his, who he is and what he's done and these kind of triumphant, you know, kind of hymns and stuff. And, and then hearing these young kids just kind of like basically beg God to come down to their, to bend down to their terms and, and, like I said, there is a truth in that, you know, which I don't, that's why I don't want to just throw everything under the bus, but there still is a priority and there is an activity to how the Bible leads us in worship. So for review's sake, if you're And I do encourage you to take these down, not to enforce against your church. I mean, if the Lord gives you an opportunity to speak to a worship leader or a pastor about these things and you can do it in truth and love, great. But I don't arm you at this to give you now a... a kind of report card that you judge every worship service. I used to do that. I don't do that anymore. I don't do that anymore. That did more damage to my soul than it did good. But these are principles for you so that you can lead yourself. And like I said, I've been able to experience incredible worship in a variety of different settings, in a variety of denominations and flavors of Christianity. But But I remember it's we, not me. It's the collective over the individual. Number two, his deeds over my experience. So I'm always looking to tune myself to God and what he's done. Within God's deeds, I love rejoicing in the past over the present. So when I hear lines and stuff that talk about You know, the God of Jacob and the God who did this and there reminded me of a biblical truth from the word. Man, I just, I dive in with my whole heart. Four, when it does come to me and I'm singing about I, what I'm going to do, I want to honor God with my actions over God blessing me through my actions. I don't want to treat God like a genie. And then fifth, I want to Be reminded to bend to God's will over God bending to my will. So overall, to put this all in one big concept, you want God to be the subject and focal point of your singing, not you and your experience. That's what you want to be. You want God to be the subject. And then overall, you and i were the footnote where the footnote oh yeah my life was blessed oh yeah footnote appendix um but the bulk the bulk of the song what you remind what you remember and what you continue singing even after the the service is over is just these just god how incredible he is what he does and and how he by grace, listens to my prayers even though he shouldn't and shouldn't have to because of his will and his ways. I hope that helps. It's been super, super helpful to me and I've been able to do it in recent years without being a judgmental jerk and kind of evaluating all the worship music I listen to even though that's how I started. I'm hoping that this doesn't start you down that path but you can jump in you know to where god has been able to bring me all right i think that's it i hope that helps you know we love you As always, Christian Well, and hope you have a great, great week.