Asbury’s Fall Revival focuses on community

Published 10:54 am Thursday, September 27, 2018

From staff reports

This year Asbury University’s Fall Revival theme #CircleUp answered the question of the university’s emphasis on community and why it is important the school’s culture.

Asbury alumnus Rev. Jorge Acevedo, the lead pastor at Grace Church in Cape Coral, Florida, spoke during Chapel services and coffee house events throughout the week earlier this month leading the Asbury campus in discussions on community.

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During a Monday Chapel event, Acevedo reportedly got students thinking outside the box about the ways in which they can learn to connect with Christ. Speaking about the concept of lines versus circles., Acebedo explained to students while lines are used to keep people in order, they can also draw dividing lines between “us” and “them.”

“Circles can be expanded to include more and more people in them,” Acevedo said.

He went on to explain that people learn to connect with Christ in pews, in rows and lines through corporate worship – but people should also be learning how to connect with Christ through community and in circles.

“Many of us have been seduced into believing that this is the most important place for us to connect with God…sitting in these rows, nice and orderly, looking at the men and women who lead us in worship,” Acevedo said. “We’ve been seduced into believing that’s all that we need to do to grow spiritually. I want you to know that that is a lie.”

It is in community that people are healed, given support at the darkest hours of life and freed from addictions through confession and practicing vulnerability, Acevedo said, also adding when people get out of rows they can finally see each other, and it is then that healing and spiritual growth can begin.

“Miracles most often happen in circles, not in rows,” Acevedo said.

#CircleUp comes just after the announcement of Asbury’s brand-new Banded Discipleship Groups program, wherein students form gender-specific groups of three to five people intentionally commit to meeting weekly around scripture, prayer and accountability questions.

To learn more about spiritual life at Asbury visit https://www.asbury.edu/about/spiritual-vitality/spiritual-life/