Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts

Asbury Revival! Daily Updates

We're still trying to figure out when the last of the worshipers from the Asbury Outpouring left Hughes Auditorium (post a comment if you know), but we connected with two people who left at midnight after the Collegiate Day of Prayer service ended, so that seems to have been the official close. That means -- if you count the Collegiate Day of Prayer, which flowed out of the Asbury Outpouring -- February 8th's chapel at Asbury University went at least 374 hours. 

Friday the last of our contributions ran on Intercessors for America's Asbury Revival! Daily Updates. You can visit that page to see them all, but here are highlights from ours:

Friday, February 24
Rich: While driving home to New York City from Asbury University we passed through the Washington D.C. area for a family event. We prayed into the commissioning we sensed we have all been given from Asbury. On the drive down we prayed for IFA state prayer leaders as we drove through their states [see below], so we also picked up Virginia and Delaware on the drive home:


Thursday, February 23
Rich: On Thursday, Feb. 16, a speaker at Asbury University (they are intentionally not introduced to keep the focus on the Lord) read from John 15, focusing on verse 4 (ESV): Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me.


I have to point out that those empty seats were about to be filled! There were hundreds in the line waiting to get in. 

Also, I found out later, the anonymous speaker was Zach Meerkreebs, who preached in the service on February 8. After he was done with that one he texted his wife: "“Latest stinker. I’ll be home soon.” Three hundred and seventy four hours later the University felt they had to close that service to get back to being a university.

Tuesday, Feburary 21
Joyce: My first day, Tuesday, February 14, at the Asbury Outpouring, I spent less than a minute in Hughes Auditorium, the main venue for the worship services. Even so, the presence of the Lord was so tangible, I burst into tears.

Saturday, February 18
Rich: My favorite moment at Asbury University — and actually a favorite moment of my life — was early Tuesday morning, Valentine’s Day. I woke up and saw that it was 2:44 a.m. I remembered that Jeannine Brabon said she first experienced the Shekinah Glory fall at 3 a.m. on October 3, 1969, four months before the 185-hour revival. I wanted to be fresh for Tuesday’s Headline Prayer Live, so I asked the Lord if I should go. I just burst into tears remembering how I sensed Him say: ‘You need my permission?’


Friday, February 17
Joyce: Yesterday Rich Swingle, IFA contributing writer and prayer leader, spoke with a man who had been a classmate of Jeannine Brabon, who was instrumental in the 1970 Asbury revival. The man made an interesting comment about the differences between the two outpourings: The 1970 revival was marked by testimony, usually focused on repentance, and then with worship: this current outpouring seems to be marked by worship, followed by testimony of repentance, healing, and deliverance.

Thursday, February 16
Joyce: “Viral is not revival.” Joyce Swingle reports from on-site at Asbury University: We spoke to two professors. One mentioned that he realized he had assigned a group project for a Friday deadline and he thought it would be difficult for the students to get together to do the work. He queried his class and realized they were keeping up with the schoolwork. He also mentioned he and several of the professors were finding that the outpouring was not keeping students from their classes. Fewer were cutting than the professors expected. Seems this outpouring is not making the students indolent but industrious!

Tuesday, February 14
Rich (My original article): Chapel on February 8 at Asbury University went long…and as I write it’s still going! In 1970, a chapel service in the same Hughes Auditorium went 185 hours. Ever since I heard about it circa 1987, I’ve been praying — as many of you have — for another revival to break out! I believe revival is breaking out.

Praying Our Way to Asbury
Rich (this was a separate article): On our way to Asbury University for Tuesday’s Headline Prayer Live, we decided to pray over each state we drove through on the 11-hour drive from New York City. We also prayed for each of the state prayer leaders. It ends with us walking into Hughes Auditorium, where the revival went for 185 hours in 1970. This outpouring has been going over 150 hours as I write, and there’s a line stretching down the road to get in!



I released “Pentecost: Beyond the Imagination,” a scene from my one-man play, The Actsat www.RichDrama.com/Pentecost.

IFA Policy & Prayer Summit Overview

Joyce and I covered Intercessors for America's Policy & Prayer Summit. Here's the first in a series of articles about the event and the speakers:

IFA Policy & Prayer Summit Exceeds Expectations

Lord, may the impact of the Policy & Prayer Summit resound through the halls of government in 2023 and the years to come. In Jesus’ name.
IFA’s inaugural Policy & Prayer Summit (Oct. 24–26) exceeded expectations, with more than 60 intercessors, including 17 state prayer leaders, in attendance. The summit ran for three days and combined intercession with speeches from such policy experts as Ambassador Sam Brownback, Dr. Ralph Reed, and Dr. Alveda Scott King. Recording artist Natasha Owens led worship through music.

Read the whole article by clicking here, and join Joyce and I on Tuesday for Pray with Others Live, when we're planning to cover more of our articles about this tremendous event: www.RichDrama.com/Prayer.
 

Views of the Manger will be live-streamed on www.BCONLove.org. Spanish subtitles only at the live event in Butler, NJ.


Love bade me welcome


This is one of five poems by George Herbert that I performed at The Kennedy Center in 2002.  It was hanging on the wall in the room where I stayed while in Chicago with the father of Melissa Lorraine, who performs the one-woman play, Juliet: A Dialogue About Love.

Wheaton College Church, where I miraculously performed that night, had asked Melissa's parents if they'd host me. Later he realized Joyce and I had hosted Melissa in '07. I had met her at a speed networking session at a Christians in Theatre Arts conference, there in Chicago. We had two minutes to share about our work. She said, "I'm going to perform at the Fringe Festival this summer."

"So am I!" I bellowed. "I'll see you in Edinburgh!" Turns out she was performing at the New York Fringe Festival the same weeks we were performing at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So we let her apartment sit.

So her folks returned the favor.  I asked Melissa's father about the significance of the poem, and he shared that after many years of rejecting the love of God and her family she wrote out this poem and framed it for her father's birthday present, to let them know that she had accepted Love...

"Love bade me welcome, but my soul drew back
Guilty of dust and sin. 
But quick-eyes Love, observing me grow slack 
From my first entrance in
Drew near to me, sweetly questioning
If I lacked anything.
"A guest," I answered, "worthy to be here."
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? Ah, my dear, 
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand, and smiling did reply, 
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord; but I have marred them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat.
~George Herbert

On the Christmas card Melissa wrote, "Please forgive the five-year-old quality of this gift...I wish it was just a little bit prettier.  But know that the reason this is your gift today is because I finally and fully know Him and I have at long last pulled my chair up to His feast...."

Melissa's dad invited me to read a chapter she wrote in Mere Christians: Inspiring Stories of Encounters with C. S. Lewis. I was sobbing after Melissa's profound retelling of how she found Jesus in a very secular theatre company commune in Hungary by reading pages from C. S. Lewis' book, Surprised by Joy, which her sister had selected for her.



Heading down to DC

I'm on my way to the table reading of For the Glory, an upcoming film in which I'll play the role of Coach Sean Ryan: RichDrama.com/ForTheGlory.


We just crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge.