The Asbury Outpouring Unpacked
The Night Before
On February 8, 2023, a humble prayer response to chapel at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, grew to become an outpouring of the presence of Jesus that captured global attention.
But something important also happened the night before as students, faculty, and staff gathered in a Witnessing Circle, humanizing forgotten names of people once written into history as property. Encounter with God continued into rehearsal of the choir that would lead chapel the following morning.
What began as an act of honor and lament became a threshold of preparation for what God would do next. Here are eye witness accounts of some who where there…
Lift Every Voice
and Sing
Lift ev’ry voice and sing,
till earth and heaven ring,
ring with the harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise,
high as the list’ning skies,
let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith
that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope
that the present has brought us.
Facing the rising sun
of our new day begun,
let us march on till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
bitter the chast’ning rod,
felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
have not our weary feet
come to the place
for which our people sighed?
We have come over a way
that with tears has been watered,
we have come, treading our path
through the blood of the slaughtered;
Out from the gloomy past,
till now we stand at last
where the bright gleam
of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who hast brought us
thus far on the way;
Thou who hast by Thy might,
led us into the light,
keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places,
our God, where we met Thee,
lest our hearts, drunk with the wine
of the world, we forget Thee.
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
may we forever stand,
true to our God,
true to our native land
