Washington Watch, which airs on American Family Radio, had a guest speaker this week: Pastor Carter Conlon of Times Square Church in New York City and President of Summit International School of Ministry.
The discussion started with the Asbury revival (shown above) just over two years ago at Asbury University in Kentucky. Conlon said that 12-day revival prompted students to hit the pause button and turn to God.
Host Tony Perkins gave some background.
“And it just seemed like it continued and continued. Well since then, college campuses across the country, both Christian and secular, have witnessed a move of God within their student bodies. Last month, over 3,200 churches adopted more than 6,000 college campuses for the Collegiate Day of Prayer. At Texas A&M University, they filled their 2,500-seat auditorium to capacity with students seeking something more in their lives, something only the Lord God can offer."
Conlon weighed in.
"We started in 2023 at Yale University. What happened is we have a worldwide meeting at Times Square Church through our bible school, Summit International School of Ministry, and some of the people at Yale started watching that prayer meeting, ended up getting in touch with us and said, do you think you could do something like this on the Yale campus?"
On it went from there.
Conlon said his team set up at Yale, in New Haven, Connecticut, and at Cornell in central New York. He added they've seen lots of young people turning to God at Princeton in New Jersey, describing it as an absolute outbreak of joy.
He described his team's work going to these various institutions, and living out and sharing the examples of how God has transformed their lives.
Conlan said students are just sick of the radicalization on their campuses, saying what a lot of people tend to forget is that probably 80, 90 percent of them are just normal kids who want to have a marriage, a family, have and raise kids, they want to have a good living.
He said he's seen large groups of students who see him at his campus visits get riveted at hearing the gospel.
The willingness to walk away
"What was wrong with Jesus Christ that we have abandoned him? What was wrong with the blessings that he gave us over 400 years ago that we have somehow seen fit to walk away from? I'm going to be doing a radio special on, on Independence Day, and my thought is going to be where did we start thinking that we could be independent from God without suffering the consequence of it?” Conlon asked.
The stirring of college students represents a window for repentance, Conlon said.
“The reality is … I think we're in a four-year moment of mercy that if we don' t really lay hold of this moment we're in, the darkness on the other side of this is going to be staggering in my opinion."
