'God can speak in showers or waves': Tennessee middle school students lead in prayer, song and repentance
As a spiritual awakening moves among college students across the nation, one K-12 school in Tennessee says it's also seeing a revival atmosphere spreading on its campus.
Grace Christian Academy of Knoxville experienced an unplanned worship service on Friday where several middle school students held prayer, shared confessions and even made professions of faith.
A spokesperson for GCA told The Christian Post in an emailed statement on Tuesday that the gathering began with the school's annual tradition of Discipleship Days.
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The Discipleship Days seeks to have GCA students “enriched by God’s Word, grow in love for Jesus, and put their faith into action” by holding classroom discussions and activities, with the theme being “Know Him, Love Him, Love Them.”
Last Friday, after GCA concluded the worship service for their middle school students, many “felt compelled to continue their time of worship,” the spokesperson added. “Leadership pivoted any planned afternoon activities and allowed students to lead one another in song and prayer. This led to students repenting, confessing and seeking Christ.”
“God can speak in showers or waves, and at last week’s Discipleship Days, He decided to flood our campus with His presence,” GCA Upper School Principal Angie Nordhorn was quoted as saying in the statement shared with CP.
“As a tenured member of the GCA community, I only remember one other time, in 2010, when we experienced a profound demonstration of the Holy Spirit,” Nordhorn added. “I pray that the Lord will continue to flood our halls with His presence. Discipleship Days is only a ripple in the ocean of what can happen at GCA.”
The academy intends to continue discipling students who made professions of faith and hold small group discussions in response to last Friday’s worship gathering, GCA added.
“We praise God that students’ lives have been transformed forever, and we have witnessed eternity-changing decisions through this schoolwide initiative,” concluded the statement.
Earlier this month, Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, became the epicenter of an ongoing spontaneous worship service, with many considering the gathering a new revival.
In the Christian tradition, revivals are often gatherings in which large numbers of individuals come together for prayer and worship, with many seeking forgiveness, confession and sometimes conversion to Christianity.
The revival at Asbury has continued for more than two weeks and has attracted thousands of individuals from outside the state and other countries, and has spread to several other campuses and churches nationwide.
Among the Christian campuses where students are experiencing an outpouring of the Holy Spirit is Lee University in Cleveland, Tennessee, which is also holding continual worship gatherings.
Rob Fultz, a campus pastor at Lee, told CP in an earlier interview that their gathering began when a group of students who had watched the events of Asbury and “asked their professor if they could go to the chapel and pray that God would move on our campus as well.”
“The professor said, 'yes.' The class of eight to nine students went to the chapel and began to pray. Within a couple of hours, the room started to fill with students, faculty and staff,” Fultz said.
Fultz described the continuous prayer and worship at Lee as “a predominately spontaneous movement of prayer” and “a beautifully sacred movement” that is ongoing.
“We currently are not incorporating worship teams, speakers — other than some students, faculty or staff — or scripted worship service,” Fultz told CP.
“It is still going on. However, as the week progresses, I do anticipate the administration updating the schedule and availability to the public."
