Is there a Method to Outpouring? Anniversary Reflections on the Asbury Outpouring
Photo by Luis Quintero
As I write, it is the one-year anniversary of when I stepped into Hughes Auditorium for the first time. The “Asbury outpouring” had begun two days prior. I had spent the previous day at an academic gathering in Indiana where some were discussing the outpouring in surprisingly pessimistic ways. For instance, a well-known former bishop stood up and remarked sarcastically that we should try to reproduce the circumstances surrounding the outpouring so as to have our own results. Everyone chuckled. Similarly, a paper had been presented that warned against the “revivalism” that arose from the awakening of the Wesley era.
I disagreed with those assessments then, and I disagree with similar assessments now, a year after having experienced the outpouring myself. In what follows I offer a more optimistic assessment that is unapologetically methodist, meaning that there is a method to outpouring. Not only do I believe that the Asbury outpouring was an authentic move of God, but I believe that it ought to serve as a model for normative Christian pursuit through the means of grace. If there is any failure with regard to the outpouring, it is that we have already moved on instead of leaning in.
Primed for Outpouring
In 2016, at a time when my ministry and personal spirituality felt fruitless, I was reading Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection. I had read it many times since 1999 when my father first gave it to me, but this time a particularly convicting statement caught my attention. Regarding the supernatural gift of holiness, Wesley wrote that God would only give it if we sought it through the means of grace. “This consideration may satisfy those who inquire, why so few have received the blessing. Inquire how many are seeking it in this way; and you have a sufficient answer” (1966, 62, emphasis mine). I felt God was saying to me, “Kenny, you want me to do all these things for you, but you don’t even take time to seek after me in the ways I’ve already specified!”
At the same time, I had been convinced that the outpouring of God’s Spirit in Acts pointed to a more normative Christian experience than that to which I had been accustomed. “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself” (Acts 2:39 ESV; cf. Wesley’s journal entry for May 20, 1739).
From that time on, I began to preach and pray for God’s outpouring. Needless to say, when I first heard about Asbury, I was already primed to pay attention. My road trip to Indiana on February 9–11 would take me, providentially I believe, within twenty minutes of Asbury University.
Ongoing, Temporary, Outpourings
A close reading of Wesley’s journals between 1738 and 1739 reveals that he often collapsed experiential faith with experiences of temporary outpourings. Consider his record of the testimony of David Nitschman: “Immediately I felt a strange sweetness in my soul, which increased every moment till the next morning,” which “lasted for six weeks without any remission” (August 12, 1738, emphasis mine). Wesley recorded another person as testifying, “My whole heart was filled with a divine power, drawing all the faculties of my soul after Christ, which continued three or four nights and days. It was a mighty rushing wind, coming into the soul” (December 5, 1738, emphasis mine).
Wesley himself testified to ongoing experiences of temporary outpourings. “In the morning, being by myself, I found the work of the Spirit was very powerful upon me” (July 6, 1738). He explained:
The love of God was shed abroad in my heart, and a flame kindled there, so that my body was almost torn asunder. I loved. The Spirit cried strong in my heart. I trembled: I sung: I joined my voice with those “that excel in strength.” My soul was got up into the holy mount. I had no thoughts of coming down again. … He has all charms. He has ravished my heart. He is my comforter, my friend, my all. He is now in his garden, feeding among the lilies. O, “I am sick of love.”
These temporary outpourings were not confined to private experiences. During a love-feast at Fetter-Lane, Wesley described what happened while sixty persons gathered:
About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God came mightily upon us, insomuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to the ground. As soon as we were recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence of his Majesty, we broke out with one voice [singing] (January 1, 1739).
The Means of Grace
We can also see that Wesley viewed the means of grace as essential for continued outpourings. Regarding the difference between authentic and inauthentic experiences, Wesley wrote that those are enthusiasts who “think to attain the end without the means” (January 17, 1739), by which he meant the means of grace.
There is a particular instance in 1739 that illustrates the conditional outpourings of the Spirit in Wesley’s view:
We met at Fetter-Lane, to humble ourselves before God, and own he had justly withdrawn his Spirit from us, for our manifold unfaithfulness. We acknowledged our having grieved him by our divisions…By our leaning again to our own works, and trusting them, in instead of Christ; by our resting in those little beginnings of sanctification…. In that hour, we found God with us as at the first. Some fell prostrate upon the ground. Others burst out, as with one consent (June 16, 1739).
Unfaithfulness was the problem and seeking with humility through the means of grace the solution (cf. “The More Excellent Way,” I:2).
These sorts of experiences of corporate outpouring can be found throughout Wesley’s journals and are not confined to his early years (cf. April 4, 1764, and June 4, 1772).
My Asbury Experience
On Saturday February 11, two others and I left the conference in Indiana and decided to go straight to Asbury University. Upon arrival at Hughes Auditorium around 3:00 p.m., things were in transition. I remember being unimpressed. Nevertheless, not wanting to miss my opportunity, I went forward to pray. I began to experience the presence of God in a unique way that was new to me. I felt impressed to pray for things that concerned others and when I tried to leave off praying for those things, I would also feel the presence move away. I learned very quickly to listen and obey.
After being seated, and many hours later, there was a palpable sense of the glory and sweetness of God all around. As others have testified, time ceased. There came a moment when the leaders reminded us that God was doing special things, and they invited us to bring our petitions before the Lord. I asked for one thing: “Lord, give me a yielded heart.”
Around midnight we felt that we must leave to make it home in time to beat a snowstorm. Walking out of Hughes there was a sense that we were no longer “in the presence.” It was disappointing. I arrived home at 5:00 a.m., with just enough time to prepare for Sunday service.
While preparing for church that morning, I felt ashamed and embarrassed. Had I been caught up in emotional hype? At 10:00 a.m., however, I knelt to pray as was my usual practice. When my knees hit the altar, the power and glory of God came over me beyond what words can express. I felt at that moment my heart yielded and healed! I wept uncontrollably. Such joy! Such love! Such presence!
People gathered into the sanctuary confused. The Holy Spirit had wrecked me beyond decorum. I got up from the altar and tried to explain, but I could not. I could only weep for joy. Fortunately, someone else was scheduled to preach for me that day.
Over the next few months, our previously dead ministry became alive in new and exciting ways. My own heart had been exhausted, burned out, and angry but instantaneously became soft and filled with the love of God. We began to see others come to faith and freedom as well. Previously, our altars had been empty but now were filled with prayer, weeping, and repentance, something that continues today. We have seen more baptisms and victory in the last year than in my previous twenty years of ministry. Previously we had focused on having a culture of loving community and intellectual persuasion, but now we have found ourselves nurturing a culture of the presence of God through the means of grace.
Lasting Fruit?
Just today I read a statement about the outpouring that questioned whether it produced any long-lasting fruit. The person claimed that the only apparent fruit it produced was enrollment numbers for Asbury University.
My own experience and that of my church contradicts that presumptuous assessment. I anticipate that criticism will arise from basing too much on “experience.” Many accused Wesley of this. This ongoing criticism is founded upon a misunderstanding of the epistemic role of experience generally and Wesley’s sophisticated use of it particularly. Because I have written extensively on this elsewhere, I will not bore you with it here (“Perceiving Wesley,” Methodist Review 14 [2022]: 78–117, and “For the Love of God,” Wesleyan Theological Journal 57/2 [2022]: 108–131). In the meantime, scripture-affirming readers should beware that to make war on claims of experience is inadvertently to make war on claims of scripture where experience is given significant evidential force.
But suppose we grant that little fruit came of the outpouring. What might we be able to conclude? Is the lack of fruit evidence that the outpouring was inauthentic? I think not.
Consider the question Jesus highlighted after what some might have considered a failed ministry in Galilee (Matthew 5–13). “Master, did you not sow good seed? How then does the field come to have weeds?” (Matthew 13:27). Matthew 11-13 teaches us that there are variables associated with the production of healthy fruit. One of those variables has to do with how people respond to the work of God.
Matthew 11:20 tells us that the people who failed to repent were among those who had witnessed and experienced the mighty works of Jesus. Their lack of fruit was not a sign of misperceived miracles. It was a sign of hard-heartedness (Matthew 13:10–17). People wanted the miracle of healing but not the sweat of cultivating a temple for the presence to continue. And so it is, I believe, with the Asbury outpouring.
Yes, there is a Method to Outpouring
God did not grant an outpouring so that we could sit back and wait on the fruit and the next outpouring. Instead, he granted an outpouring so that we might fall on our faces and change our paradigm; that in perceiving what God can do we might find ourselves up late knocking on heaven’s door (Luke 11:5–13). He did not show us what we can expect every fifty years when all else fails but what we can expect if we do not fail to seek him.
I have seen those who came home from the Asbury outpouring, enthused for a time but lacking long-lasting change. Where this is the case, the problem is not the outpouring but the response. The table has been set but behold, we are too busy!
Were we to take our cue from Wesley himself, we would not settle for the outpouring of a year ago. We would go on to take hold of outpouring as normative. Perhaps this is why the awakening of the first Methodists lasted so long.
With all the talk about reconstructing Methodism, I suggest that the best way to do this is to return to the assemblies of prayer and relentless accountability that defined those early days, the band meetings. What is more Methodist than this? (see Johnston, “Thirteen: A Story of Growth and Grace through an Experimental Small Group,” in Holiness Journal 8/1 [2023]: 39–48).
It is appropriate to conclude with Wesley’s own words, elaborating on the quote above:
This consideration may satisfy those who inquire, why so few have received the blessing. Inquire how many are seeking it in this way; and you have a sufficient answer. Prayer especially is wanting. Who continues instant therein? Who wrestles with God for this very thing? So, “ye have not, because ye ask not; or because ye ask amiss,” namely, that you may be renewed before you die! Will that content you? Nay, but ask that it may be done now; today, while it is called today. Do not call this “setting God a time.” Certainly, today is His time as well as tomorrow. Make haste, man, make haste. (1966, 62).
Make haste! Why not now? Why not today? Do not rest in those little beginnings of sanctification!
Kenny R. Johnston is an ordained pastor in The Wesleyan Church and a PhD student at London School of Theology.