By Tony Martin
Associate Editor
What began as a regularly-scheduled chapel service Feb. 18 at Blue Mountain Christian University (BMCU) turned into the beginning of a Holy Spirit-led revival on the campus of the Baptist-affiliated school in Blue Mountain.
“It was a special chapel in the sense that we had Preview Day students on campus,” said BMCU President Barbara McMillin. “Dr. Tim Mims delivered a message after a rousing time of worship led by our combined chorale and praise team. It was clear during the worship that God’s presence was with us. There was a real sense of expectancy.”
Mims, assistant professor of Biblical studies at the university, shared his message and then encouraged attendees to come to the altar if they needed to do so. People started coming immediately.
“People were praying together, they were praying alone, and when the praise and worship started back up people were singing,” McMillin said. “At some point people in the worship team came and went, with people swapping out and playing instruments. People were penitent, confessing, and seeking out others for reconciliation. It was a remarkable outpouring of the Spirit.
“My tendency — and it’s part of my nature — is to say, ‘Let’s look at the agenda and get the outline worked out,’” McMillin noted, “but this is God at work, unscripted, unorchestrated by anything we could try to do. That’s just how God is. He outshines anything we could attempt or plan,”
The chapel service in Modena Lowery Berry Auditorium began at 10 a.m. and continued into mid-afternoon. There was more praise, worship, and a time of testimony during which students spontaneously shared.
“We indicated to them that the auditorium would be open if they wanted to come,” McMillin said. “There was more testimony and worship Friday night until way into the night; even up until 2 a.m. Saturday night, people were meeting in the auditorium with small groups meeting after that.
“We encouraged students to go and tell, to go to their churches and testify of what God had done in their lives. We hope there will be opportunities for those students to go into their churches and share the word of what God is doing,” she said.
Jake Capers, a BMCU student from Senatobia, said, “I’m so thankful for what the Lord has done. Revival is a movement of God in the hearts of His people. It’s not down to this place or any one place. We can take revival with us.”
McMillin related how she had longed to see a movement at BMCU that could only be attributed to the hand of God. “I see a humility in this generation of students who are, in the words of one student, ‘radically obedient.’ What a blessing to think there is a generation of students who are pursuing radical obedience.
“That’s not to give a group of people the credit,” she pointed out, “but there is a submissiveness about this group that is humbling for those of us who are part of the older generation. God is just using this group of people for such a time as this.”
Caleb White, a BMCU student from Purdy, Tenn., said, “It’s been a difficult time for me the past few weeks, but it’s also been a wonderful time. God has used things with me to help take my eyes off the world and focus on Him, to see His hand of providence.
“I see Him at work in a situation even now and can see how He’s bringing reconciliation. I have a better understanding of what’s happening. I’m better able to serve Him in ministry. He’s using this season in my life to fill me so I can remember this time when it gets tough again,” White said.
“We are so humbled by how God has visited us,” McMillin said. “We are so thankful.”
BMCU and the other Mississippi Baptist institutions of higher learning,
Mississippi College in Clinton and William Carey University in Hattiesburg, are supported by gifts to the Mississippi Cooperative Program.
