College Students See Revival in University Life

When you think of “revival,” do you picture a large church outreach? A gathering of healing and prophesying? A history lesson?

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship evangelist York Moore says these
are all misconceptions about what revival truly is. That’s a problem
when, Moore believes, the United States could be on the brink of real
revival.

Understanding revival takes some study. Moore says,
“Throughout church history, there are these unique events that are just
punctuated works of intense spiritual activity where God supernaturally
infuses the church with a new sense of direction, and power, and energy,
and that spills over into society.”

Moore says revival is more than just mass amounts of people coming to
faith, although that’s often a result. “Revival, if it’s of God,” he says, “will
move out into culture to revitalize and renew the institutions of
society.”

This appears to be in the works in university life.

Students are not only at the forefront for potential of what Moore calls
the seven major institutions of society—law, commerce, sports and
entertainment, government, medicine, family, and academia—but this
generation in particular seems ready for change.

Staff and students from within and outside of InterVarsity have begun
praying for revival—a preliminary hallmark to nationwide revival in
years past, Moore says: “When people begin to pray for revival, when they begin to seek revival,
when they become dissatisfied with where they are, those are all
hallmark indicators both of historic as well as biblical revivals.”

The interesting thing is: No one seems to be telling all these groups to
pray for revival; they’re all just burning for change independently.

“When we begin to see women and men praying for a greater work of God,
when we begin to see them desiring a greater work of God, when we begin
to see them seeking a greater work of God, those are indicators that God
is at work in a unique and powerful way,” explains Moore. “And what I’m
seeing around the country are quite independent events that are
mirroring each other.”

The generation of college students that InterVarsity works with now has
one more vital piece to what’s been an historic piece to the revival
puzzle: “a strong desire to change culture, to change society.”

This “Justice Generation” doesn’t just want to see lives changed—they want to change the world.

“They’re not merely interested in their own world, they want to change
the world. They want to do good in the world, and they want to become
the good that they long to see in the world. … Because of that, the
motivation to change the world also makes them extremely ripe for God to
use as kingdom vessels to move into culture and to begin to transform
the world they’re in.”

With so many factors in place, coupled with the exponential growth that
InterVarsity has seen in the number of committed relationships between
students and Jesus Christ, Moore believes the U.S. could be in for a
massive change. Start praying that God would radically shake up the
church, and eventually society, with passionate college students leading
the way.

Moore reminds us, “[Revival] is something that God longs to give us.”