Holy, Holy, Holy

Reflections on the Asbury Outpouring (Part 3)

Photo by Hannah Busing on Unsplash

This essay is the third of a series reflecting on the Asbury Outpouring. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

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The first few nights of the Outpouring, as I went to bed, I could still hear the songs in Hughes Auditorium echoing in my head. Words are not sufficient to describe the effect worshipping in that crowd had on me. I have never heard songs so beautiful in my life. And that is not because of some aesthetic or the eloquence of the leaders or the flow of the music. The veil between heaven and earth grew strangely thin in that room, as though we stood in the house of God, gazing into his splendor, singing along with the saints and angels that surround him— “Holy, holy, holy!”

One would expect, considering how often we recycled the same songs or how clunky the transitions were or how song lyrics weren’t even being projected for the crowds, that the experience would grow dull and that the crowds would grow bored and fall silent. But that was never true. On the contrary, I came to understand that no matter how much we sang the same songs, we’d never reach the end of the truths they expressed about God’s holiness, majesty, and love. He is always more than what we could understand, imagine, or articulate.

I remember one time when we sang the same song for around 25 minutes. When those gathered in Hughes reached the end of the chorus, they started back again from the beginning, over and over singing:

You are holy, holy

Are you Lord God Almighty

Worthy is the Lamb

Worthy is the Lamb¹

It was straight out of Revelation 4, and it was not contrived. Several times, in fact, the worship leaders and facilitators even tried to end the song or stop the crowd, but they were overruled.

In many moments it seemed the crowd was actually leading the worship leaders in song. During those 16 days, the demarcating lines and titles to which the church usually attributes great significance became obscure and unimportant. The only name that mattered was that of Jesus. The most effective leaders and facilitators were those who were best able to yield to his work. And when anyone made any attempt to draw attention to themselves rather than render worship unto Christ, they were kindly asked to step off the platform until their hearts were made right. Celebrities and big names were not granted access to the stage. Those who sought to commandeer the spotlight for any agenda, political or otherwise, were kindly asked to leave.

It was late, close to midnight, on February 8^th and the room was packed. I was standing by the aisle and my friend Tony found me and asked if I would like to join him to pray for a friend. As we made our way up toward the altar where we were going to meet him, we got distracted. The room was getting louder. People were on their feet, hands raised in the air, singing as loud as they could. I suddenly became aware of God’s presence in a way I had never before experienced—it was as though Jesus himself was seated on the stage before me. I grasped in that moment that he was so much more than I had ever recognized. I sang, and when it was too much for me to bear, I fell on my face at the altar and cried and cried. I remember saying that I had not known it would be this way, that this was the God I worshipped. I felt so unworthy and so privileged and so loved.

On many occasions I have had a difficult time conveying to my friends and neighbors what worship was like at the Outpouring and the effect it had on me. It obliterated my theology in the best sense. It rewired my imagination. It raised the bar significantly in terms of what I have come to expect as being possible as we await Christ’s return. I will never be able to attend a public Christian gathering the same way again. I will never be able to worship the same way again. In a sense, I will never be content with anything in this life until I am standing in the Lord’s house, worshipping before the throne forever.

It is almost as though I have a version of PTSD, except rather than a traumatic event, my experience was a “eucatastrophe,” to borrow a term from J.R.R. Tolkein. These days, when I happen upon a rare recording of the Outpouring, it gives me chills and sometimes even makes me tear up. When I sing the same songs at church that we sang during the Outpouring, in my heart I am transported back. Jesus gave many of us who worshipped him in Hughes a rare glimpse of his glory. We will never be the same.

That said, I refuse to accept the notion that the Outpouring was the pinnacle of Christian worship. In the months and years that have followed, I have seen a dangerous tendency for Christians to glorify the Outpouring as though it is the most of God’s presence that we will experience in our lifetimes. We like to segment moments like this, place them on a pedestal, and set them aside. That way, we are released from any obligation to persist in the contending necessary to bring it about again and the missional call to share the blessings we have received with those around us.

I don’t want the Outpouring to be the most that I ever experience of God’s presence and the only time I get to enjoy it. I want to press in and experience more, for certainly I could only see through the glass darkly in that moment despite all that I enjoyed. And I want to experience an outpouring of God’s Spirit again and again, every day even, in my ordinary activities and the extraordinary. Like the Psalmist, I want to “dwell in the house of the Lord / all the days of my life, / to gaze on the beauty of the Lord / and to seek him in his temple.”² I want to carry revival in my bones and in my breath so that everywhere I go I can be with him and somehow awaken those around me to a measure of his holiness, goodness, and love.

The Asbury Outpouring was an incredible experience for so many people, not just for me. Even so, it was supposed to be a moment that redefined our every moment for the church. Jesus was not only Lord there and then; his glory was not confined to Hughes Auditorium over those 16 days. All that we experienced was a unique glimpse of something that has been true long before we recognized it, and something that will be true forever after—a truth that we have only begun to grasp to a greater measure. Let us contend, then, so that we could glimpse the glory of God again, and begin to live in the constant awareness of his holiness and worth. And not only us—all the world.

1. From the song “Agnus Dei” by Michael W. Smith.

2. Psalm 27:4