By the weekend Hughes Auditorium was over capacity, as hundreds, even thousands, of people streamed in from all around the country. The expanding of revival sites came at the behest of the fire marshal, who for safety's sake, decreed that the crush of people could not crowd the balcony or the main level as the growing crowd pressed in.

"Lord, grant the fire marshal a special anointing of patience... as we far exceed seating capacity and Shekinah fires rage," Asbury Professor Thane Ury prayed tongue-in-cheek.

So many people are currently making their way to Asbury University that the 1,489 seat, 94-year-old Hughes Auditorium cannot contain them all.

The fire marshal wants everyone to have their own seat. But for the most part their seats are not being utilized. People stand while singing to the Lord, arms reaching high in praise. Others are kneeling, folded over in prayer. And a few others even prostrate with their face on the floor in total homage to God.

Sunday a second revival site had to be established at Estes Chapel across Lexington Avenue at Asbury Theological Seminary. By Monday a third revival site was established at McKenna Chapel also at the Asbury Seminary. McKenna Chapel is also the home of the Wilmore Anglican Church, an ACNA church plant. The Anglican ministry offers daily Eucharist during school terms.

On Tuesday morning, as the 2023 Asbury Revival was about to eclipse the 144-hour mark of the famed 1970 Asbury Revival, the nearby off-campus Great Commission Fellowship Church opened its doors to accommodate the growing crowd following the movement of the Spirit.

Not all revival participants want to go to one of the overflow chapels so they prefer to gather on the steps outside the Hughes Auditorium listening to the singing drifting through the doors.

Wilmore, Kentucky is a small city with a population hovering around 6,000 residents. It is the bedroom community for Lexington and it is home to two institutions of higher learning -- Asbury University and Asbury Theological Seminary. Although the two colleges are historically related, they are totally separate entities.

The small Bluegrass community was founded in 1877 and named for John R. Wilmore, a local landowner. The community is a little more than four square miles in size with flowering ornamental trees lining the downtown streets which give Wilmore a unique small city charm.

Asbury University was founded in 1890, as Kentucky Holiness College, by John Wesley Hughes, a Methodist minister. The school was quickly renamed Asbury in honor of Bishop Francis Asbury, the second Methodist Episcopal Bishop in the United States. The Methodist Episcopal Church is an early forerunner of the United Methodist Church.

At the tender age of 22 the young Asbury was chosen by John Wesley, the co-founder of Methodism, to become a circuit riding preacher. Eventually he made his way to Colonial America. He remained in America during the Revolutionary War between the Colonials and his native British Red Coats.

Asbury's spread of Methodism in Colonial America was part of the Second Great Awakening which was an outpouring of religious fervor and revival beginning in Kentucky and Tennessee during the turn of the 19th century.

Years later the founder of Kentucky Holiness College (Asbury) John Wesley Hughes was committed to grounding his students in living out the Bible.

"We will endeavor, as a faculty, to do all in our power to lead our students to the Biblical experiences of regeneration and entire sanctification and to live daily a consecrated, holy life with warm hearts and cool heads, always endeavoring to tear down the works of the devil and to build up the Kingdom of God," Pastor Hughes said in charging his first faculty at the founding of his Christian school in Wilmore.

In addition to founding what would become Asbury University, Pastor Hughes also founded the Wilmore Camp Meeting in 1890. The camp meeting ran for 125 years, finally disbanding in 2015, although the modern camp meetings are still very much a part of the Protestant American religious fabric.

The American camp meeting also comes out of the Second Great Awakening and is favored by the Baptists, Methodists, and Presbyterians. In its day it was a multi-day evangelistic and revival service punctuated with energetic hymn singing and powerful preaching. Bishop Asbury was a very strong supporter of the camp meeting and helped to develop the Methodist camp meeting formula.

The Asbury Theological Seminary was founded in 1923 by Henry Clay Morrison, the fifth president of Asbury College, who spun the Asbury College Theology Department into a separate seminary. In 1940 the educational connection between Asbury College and Asbury Seminary was severed, although the two institutions remain cooperative, friendly and share a common history.

As the current Asbury University revival outgrew the Hughes Auditorium neighboring Asbury Seminary quickly opened up two of its chapels to accommodate the overflowing crowd.

In 1970 Asbury Seminary also created the Ichthus Festival as a Christian music response to Woodstock. The event was held at the Wilmore Campground. Ichthus has been a yearly event since, save for a five-year hiatus from 2016-2020. Once the popular Christian music festival started up again its management was shifted to Asbury University.

The Anglicans have a strong presence at Asbury Seminary. The Wesleyan Methodist seminary now offers Anglican Studies.

Methodism comes out of Anglican (Church of England) roots. Both John Wesley, and his brother Charles, were ordained Church of England priests. Methodism was originally a revival movement within the Church of England during the 18th century. The Wesley brothers would be scandalized by what the Church of England has become in the 21st century.

"Anglican Formation at Asbury Seminary exists to form leaders in the Anglican tradition," the Anglican Studies Program boasts. "We are a multi-cultural community of students, faculty, and staff seeking to live their faith and calling in the Anglican Way. We believe this ancient path of discipleship, empowered afresh by the Holy Spirit, speaks authentically to the longings of our post-Christian context. In that confidence, we gather for common prayer, Communion, teaching and fellowship. Our growing network of Anglican churches and missions, locally and abroad, offers students rich ministry experience and mentoring."

In 1909 and again in 1924 Asbury College experienced devastating fires which destroyed campus buildings.

In 1928 Pastor Hughes was on hand for the groundbreaking of the new Ashbury College Chapel. It was named Hughes Memorial Auditorium to honor him. He died in 1932. Chiseled on his tombstone is his last request: "TELL THE ASBURY PREACHERS TO PREACH THE WHOLE TRUTH AND BE TRUE TO THE BIBLE."

Hughes wrote in his autobiography: "Being sure I was led of God to establish (Asbury College), it being my college child born in poverty, mental perplexity, and soul agony, I loved it from its birth better than my own life. As the days have come and gone, with many sad and broken-hearted experiences, my love has increased. My appreciation of what it has done, what it is doing, and what it promises to do in the future, is such that I am willing to lay down my life for its perpetuation."

In 1894 Hughes mandated that all students will attend Chapel services three times a week. That is an Asbury tradition that is still in effect more than 100 years later.

"One of the most significant traditions of Asbury University is that the entire campus community gathers together to worship corporately in chapel," the Asbury website explains. "Currently, chapel is held every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning of the school year at 10 a.m. in Hughes Auditorium. Chapel at Asbury is unique in that it is the only time that the entire campus community comes together for any purpose."

It was during the 10 a.m. mandated student body chapel service last Wednesday (February 8) that the Holy Spirit broke out and the 2023 Asbury Revival began. And one week later there is no sign of it waning.

Wilmore has few eating establishments and even fewer places to lodge for the night. At this point the small community is dealing with a great influx of cars and buses creating bumper-to-bumper traffic through town.

Other universities and colleges have sent busloads of students to Asbury to participate in the growing students' revival then return to their own campuses with a burning coal to be fanned into flame at their school.

One such burning ember has already been fanned into flame Monday morning at Lee University. A small, but growing, revival has broken out at the Tennessee Christian college. The school's symbol, appropriately enough, is the burning flame. There have already been reports of salvation, deliverance, and healing.

Reports are that revival is also breaking out at Campbellsville University in Kentucky; and Cedarville University in Ohio.

"#AsburyRevival has gone north up the 75 to @cedarville near Dayton Ohio, and south down the 75 to @LeeU in Cleveland, TN," Jacob W. Jones tweeted. "Is Atlanta, Toledo, Detroit next? I pray the #revival fire keeps spreading."

In a Facebook post, Vivian Daugherty Edwards notes that a revival spark has also reached Campbellsville.

"Revival is breaking out on the campus at Campbellsville University," she writes. "The president is leading in worship. So thankful my kids are a part of a godly university. Can't wait to see how God moves on the campus."

"I love our students and their passion for Jesus! God may be stirring hearts across the country," Cedarville University President Dr. Thomas White posted on Facebook. "Pray! Pray for wisdom on how to steward this moment and for a genuine authentic outpouring of God's Grace and power."

So far some of the universities and colleges which have dispatched busloads of students to Wilmore include:
✓Anderson University (Anderson, South Carolina);
✓Bethel University (Mishawaka, Indiana);
✓Campbellsville University (Campbellsville, Kentucky);
✓Cedarville University (Cedarville, Ohio);
✓Eastern Kentucky University (Richmond, Kentucky);
✓Eastern Nazarene College (Quincy, Massachusetts);
✓Georgetown University (Washington, DC);
✓God's Bible School (Cincinnati, Ohio);
✓Indiana Wesleyan University (Marion, Indiana);
✓Kentucky Mountain Bible College (Jackson, Kentucky);
✓Lee University (Cleveland, Tennessee);
✓Midway University (Midway, Kentucky);
✓Mt. Vernon University (Mt. Vernon, Ohio);
✓Ohio Christian University (Circleville, Ohio);
✓Olivet University (Bourbonnais, Illinois);
✓Ohio State University (Columbus, Ohio);
✓Oral Roberts University (Tulsa, Oklahoma);
✓Purdue University (Lafayette, Indiana);
✓Southern Wesleyan University (Central, South Carolina);
✓Spring Arbor University (Spring Arbor, Michigan);
✓Taylor University (Upland, Indiana);
✓Trevecca Nazarene University (Nashville, Tennessee);
✓University of Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky);
✓University of the Cumberlands (Williamsburg, Kentucky);
✓United Seminary (Trotwood, Ohio);
✓University of Tennessee (Chattanooga, Tennessee).

Asbury University has posted an announcement on its website: "Since February 8, 2023, Asbury University students along with faculty, staff, administrators, local community members, and visitors from out-of-town have been gathering in Hughes Auditorium for a time of spiritual renewal. The Lord is at work as radical compassion, confession, change and transformation are taking place."

Asbury University also has set up email contacts for those who are looking for prayer, ways to help, or have media requests.
Those special email addresses are:
✓PRAYER requests: prayer@asbury.edu
✓QUESTIONS on how to donate, how to help, and any logistical questions: outpouring@asbury.edu
✓MEDIA requests: press@asbury.edu

Mary Ann Mueller is a journalist living in Texas. She is a regular contributor to VirtueOnline