Colleges explode with revival joy

Over the past year, headlines about America’s top universities have predominantly focused on the disrupting effects of the liberal agenda: antisemitic protests, promotion of transgenderism in sports, and the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

However, these negative headlines have overshadowed another movement sweeping America’s campuses: an awakening of Christian faith that could change the course of America’s future.

In 2018, Impact 360 Institute conducted a study on the emerging generation of young adults known as Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012. The study found that members of Gen Z were twice as likely to identify as atheists and that only 4% held a biblical worldview. Nearly a decade later, the situation has changed significantly.

The Barna study State of the Church 2025 found that Gen Z’s commitment to Jesus in the U.S. has increased by as much as 15% since 2019. In 2023, the American Bible Society reported that 58% of Gen Z identified as Christians, and half said the Bible had a transformative effect on their lives.

Seeds of revival

Bill Elliff is the pastor of Summit Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and pastor/church director for OneCry (onecry.com), an organization that leads a movement for nationwide revival. Elliff told The Stand that experiencing COVID-19 partially accounts for the shift in Gen Z attitudes since 2018.

“COVID shut down the world in six weeks and stripped us of everything we held on to: health, security, finances, and it even stripped the church of all the things that made us think we were doing good,” Elliff explained.

“I watched so many pastors and churches come to the end of themselves and realize they’re proud and they’re prayerless. … That fostered a prayer movement.”

Eliff suggested that major spiritual awakenings in America have been preceded by a prayer movement. He argued that revivals often begin with students, as they are acutely aware of the unrest, confusion, and chaos around them, and they are not afraid to express their feelings about it.

In 2023, a wave of revival swept through many college campuses, largely fueled by behind-the-scenes prayer efforts. This movement began at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, and received significant media attention. Elliff attended the Asbury revival for five days. During that time, he took part in a prayer event that he believes helped ignite the momentum for revival at other campuses.

“I was on the OneCry team that broadcast the Collegiate Day of Prayer (collegiatedayofprayer.org), which had been scheduled a year before to be held at Asbury,” Elliff said. “Collegiate Day of Prayer is a ministry that intends to get people praying on the third Thursday of every February for every campus in the nation. … [Since then,] Collegiate Day of Prayer has become a real touchpoint for colleges and students.”

Revival at the Ivies

Christian colleges and campuses in the southeastern United States are not the only ones that have been impacted; the spirit of revival has also been moving among college students at Ivy League institutions, such as Princeton, Yale, and Harvard.

Carter Conlon (carterconlon.com), author and former pastor of Times Square Church in New York City, has been an eyewitness to revival and a key player in ministering to college students at America’s elite schools.

“We went to Yale with a prayer meeting two years ago, and about a thousand people showed up,” Conlon said. “God … visited that prayer meeting. We returned to Yale a second year, and other Ivy League schools had sent either van loads or busloads of students from Princeton, Harvard, and Brown University. Invitations [to lead prayer and worship at the Ivies] started to come in.”

Conlon has either conducted or scheduled worship services at six Ivy League campuses. He has observed that the “best and brightest” students often have little to no knowledge of God. According to Conlon, this is because they have spent their entire lives in educational systems that do not permit discussions about God, prayer, or the Bible. However, when these students are exposed to the Word of God, their reactions are overwhelmingly receptive.

“I’ve personally seen such a hunger in young people,” Conlon said. “When they hear about the grace of God, when they hear about the completeness of the cross, when they hear about the love of God for them, it’s been amazing to see the explosion of joy.”

On every campus where Conlon has gone, the reaction has been the same: When students encounter the gospel, they spontaneously confess sin, surrender their lives to Christ, and begin dancing with joy.

“It happened at Cornell, where a couple hundred came forward, and they fell on their knees … and they wept for quite a while. Then, they lined up all around me and started confessing sin,” Conlon described. “In some cases, they didn’t care if anyone was listening. They were saying, ‘I don’t want to live this way anymore. I want to be who God wants me to be.’ And then the joy broke out, clapping and crying and dancing.”

Roots of revival

Like Elliff, Conlon also credits the fire of this current revival at Ivy League schools to a lengthy season of preparatory prayer. He told The Stand that Times Square Church had been praying for years for the opportunity to reach these college students.

“There’s no revival without prayer,” Conlon said. “It’s almost ludicrous to think that we can experience revival without the presence of God or without dependence on God. Concerning our colleges, we began asking and praying as a church in New York City years ago. We prayed, ‘Lord, open the iron gates that for decades have locked out and marginalized, minimized, and even ridiculed the gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ.’ And God has just opened those gates.”

Elliff believes revival has lingered on Ivy League campuses since America’s founding.

“In the early days of our nation, many of those schools were started as seminaries, training grounds for pastors,” Elliff said. “They would drift. … Campuses like Princeton and Harvard would have a season where students mocked Christianity, burned Bibles – doing all the things that we’ve seen happening recently on some radical campuses. …

“And then, revival would come, and those same campuses would have hundreds of students come to Christ, get saved, and have a dramatic turnaround. Those places would become hotbeds of revival,” which is exactly what they are today.