The word of the Asbury Revival is being spread through e-mail and texting then on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram with video and live streaming being posted on TikTok and YouTube. The live streaming videos of The Revival are being followed throughout the United States and worldwide such as in Canada, Brazil, Australia, and India.

Thousands are being drawn to the small community in the Bluegrass region of Kentucky. Word is that people are flocking to Wilmore from far away states. Colleges and churches are sending busloads of students and congregants to Asbury University to witness and experience the fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit in 2023. Others are driving long distances or flying in to participate.

Already nearly two dozen colleges have indicated that their students are headed to Wilmore to participate in the Asbury Revival. There have already been reports of salvations, reconciliations, healings and transformation of lives as the result of the dedicated, concentrated, consecrated prayer.

Students and others have come from Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia, Michigan, Texas, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, and Kansas to experience the Asbury Revival. Some churches are helping to underwrite the expenses for their students to make the long distance trip. When they return to their own campuses they will bring the experience, and graces generated by the Asbury Revival, with them along with the prayers that The Revival's fire will be ignited on their own school grounds.

Chicagoland Pastor Dan Marler said there are also reports of Revival breaking out at other locations in the area and beyond.

"Those of you praying for Revival get ready!" he said. "What would happen if we had a life-changing, eternity-altering, Holy Spirit directed-encounter with the Lord Jesus?"

At times Hughes Auditorium, which seats about 1,500, is filled to capacity. The university itself has a student body of fewer than 2,000 with an academic and administrative staff of about 500. Three times a week they gather in their school chapel to worship God. That is a part of their mandated weekly school schedule.

The Revival has been going on non-stop -- day and night -- since Wednesday morning's (February 8) university-sponsored worship service. Much time is spent in just worshipping and glorifying God for Who He is. Some classes have been cancelled and homework assignments postponed to allow for students and staff to participate in the non-stop praise-a-thon which has been laced with witnessing and testimony, silence and reflection, and an outpouring of love. Food and water has been set up in the Hughes Auditorium basement to help accommodate the physical needs of hunger and thirst.

But Asbury Theological Seminary Vice President of Formation Matt Barnes has issued a cautionary warning on his Facebook page:

"Not everyone has experienced what is happening at Hughes Auditorium in the same way. Not everyone who has entered the building has felt the presence of the Lord. Not everyone has felt peace. Not everyone has felt the special moving of the Spirit. Not everyone has felt even the desire to darken the doors of Hughes Auditorium at all," he posts. "And that is OK. Not everyone experiences the Spirit in the same way. This has always been the case."

"If you are following the Revival on social media, you will know that it began on Wednesday morning," writes Jason Vickers, a professor at Asbury Seminary. "My office is directly across the street at Asbury Seminary. Despite this proximity, as of this morning, (Saturday) I had not put in an appearance. I was not avoiding doing so. I'm simply in a busy season of writing about sacramental theology."

However, by Saturday afternoon Professor Vickers did cross the street and stepped into Hughes Auditorium.

"Alas, around 2:30 this afternoon I crossed Lexington Avenue and made my way up the stairs of Hughes Auditorium slipping into a seat in the back row," the seminary professor writes. "I wanted to see for myself what was happening."

It turned out that his visit to The Revival was a powerful experience for him. He posts: "The peacefulness in that place is so palpable that a mere ten minutes had made an impression that will last the remainder of my lifetime."

The non-stop round of prayer and praise, song and preaching, intercession and reflection, confession and weeping take a lot of energy to stay focused and engaged. Students are now beginning to find themselves exhausted: spiritually, mentally, physically, emotionally spent and weary from draining energy and a lack of sleep. The 100 hour mark passed midafternoon on Sunday, and there seems to be no sign of the spontaneous revival winding down.

"We experience exhaustion in all senses-- physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually," writes Alexandra Presta Executive Editor of The Asbury Collegian. "I was exhausted; my heart was weary."

The Collegian editor is writing daily about The Revival as it unfolds. As a budding journalist, and a fellow university student, she is spending a lot of time in Hughes Auditorium experiencing all aspects of The Revival.

There has been so much outside interest in the Asbury Revival that The Asbury Collegian website has crashed at least once.

However, the tiredness, exhaustion and weariness does not lessen what is happening on campus. The Holy Spirit has swept in and He is touching hearts and souls. And He is also reaching across the denominational lines Methodists, Baptists, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Nazarenes and Charismatics have shown up.

Why is revival breaking out in Kentucky? Only God can fully answer that question. But in today's world, in today's culture, everything is questioned -- even the movement of God.

"The reason why these early reports of revival are so moving, I think, is that we all have grown so cold and cynical toward the possibility of an authentic experience of the Spirit, and we don't even realize it. Or else we don't fully appreciate it. The Christian West is dying, withering, fracturing," writes Luke Stamps at Secundum Scripturas. "But for those of us whose spiritual patrimony lies, at least in part, in the Anglo-American revivals of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, perhaps we have neglected something important. Maybe there is still some fire left in the embers of evangelical piety. God grant it."

"I stepped out to get something to eat at the cafeteria," explained Pastor Daryl Blank from southwest Ohio. "I did not know where it was and I found myself walking completely around the outside of the chapel and I realized as I walked around all sides of the building the wind was always blowing in. Blowing in TOWARDS the building -- North, South, East, or West. No matter what side I was on, the wind blew in the direction of the building."

The Nazarene pastor said he remembered the action of the Holy Spirit in the Acts of the Apostles.

"And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting." (Acts 2:2 - KJV)

"It reminded me of the Mighty Wind that blew in Acts 2 when the Holy Spirit was poured out on the believers," the pastor posted.

Another person, named Adrian, also sees a biblical connection to the Asbury outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He references Exodus 40:34 where a "cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

"A truly supernatural phenomenon that has been accompanying this Holy Spirit Revival at Asbury University is the presence of a cloud," he notes. "It's as if the Holy Spirit has laid a blanket over the area ..."

Now that The Revival has passed the one hundred hour mark some of the media is starting to take note. Church media and religious news organizations have been keeping a wary eye on the growing event but now some of the local television stations are also sending film crews to the chapel. So far the major media has not picked up on the story. Even the local newspaper, The Jessamine Journal, has not covered the story even though all of the motel rooms in town are booked.

As of late Sunday have some of the heavy hitters in the evangelical world have not reported the news about the 2023 Asbury Revival including: Charlie Kirk, Sean Feucht, Robert Jeffress, Kirk Cameron, Tony Perkins, Paula White, Franklin Graham, or James Robison.

Evangelical news outlets CBN News nor Charisma News have touched on the ongoing Asbury Revival but there has been plenty of coverage about the faith aspect of the Super Bowl.

Clayton Bullion asks a question to be pondered in Outreach magazine: "What if the defining moment of this generation isn't the Pandemic of 2020 but the Revival of 2023?"

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