A thank you sign hangs in front of Hughes Auditorium on February 9, 2023, the day after the Outpouring began. Photo courtesy of Anna Grace Legband
In February 2023, Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, made headlines across the nation when a routine chapel gathering turned into a mass encounter with the Holy Spirit that lasted for 16 days and nights. This encounter drew tens of thousands of people to Wilmore to experience firsthand what the Lord was doing there.
While it seems clear that God moved powerfully during that two-week period, what about a year and a half later? Has the Asbury Outpouring had a lasting effect on the church in Wilmore, or even the world?
A student carries a mattress into Hughes Auditorium on Feb. 8, 2023 the first night of the Outpouring. The Outpouring continued for 16 days and nights, with many staying in the auditorium into the late hours of each night, Legband said. Photo courtesy of Anna Grace Legband
The Outpouring
Anna Grace Legband was one of the thousands who experienced “the Outpouring” at Asbury, named so to represent an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. She said she has seen its far-reaching effects.
Legband lives in Wilmore, Kentucky, just walking distance from where the Outpouring occurred in Hughes Auditorium. The moment she heard about what was happening, she said she went to go see for herself.
“It was so pure,” Legband said. “It was this sweet, calming, peaceful presence of God.”
Those first few days were marked by this pure and peaceful encounter with the Spirit, Legband said.
People line up at the altar to share testimonies during the Outpouring at Hughes Auditorium in February 2023. Throughout the Outpouring there were times of worship, confession, sharing testimonies and repentance, Legband said. Photo courtesy of Anna Grace Legband
As the Outpouring grew in size and scope, Legband said she moved into an administrative position, organizing what would be the prayer team — an interdenominational group of people who stood at the auditorium and prayed for those who needed it. The altar was a significant place for the prayer team because people constantly surrounded it.
Legband said she prayed for a woman at the altar experiencing family struggles. Legband prayed a simple prayer with her hand on the woman’s shoulder, asking the Holy Spirit to fill the woman with His love.
“It was like the presence of God was so tangible, pouring out on to her. The love of God was getting on to me, and we just sat there,” Legband said.
The woman said she felt healed of her emotional wounds and immediately walked over to her adult children and began praying with them, Legband said.
It’s stories like this — stories of healing, restoration, freedom and love — that witnesses consistently tell about the Asbury Outpouring, but the stories do not end there. A year and a half later, God has continued to move powerfully through the Outpouring.
The first gathering of the Wilmore House Church praying on their first Sunday in Wilmore, Kentucky, on Feb. 11, 2023. The church was praying for those who were visiting and commissioning them to the churches they belonged to, Legband said. Photo courtesy of Anna Grace Legband
The Outpouring and the Local Church
In late 2022, Legband said she and her husband were on the leadership team of a house church in Lexington, Kentucky that had reached the point of multiplication — when a few members of the house church leave to plant a new church. The planned launch day was February 11, 2023, in Wilmore, just three days after the beginning of the Outpouring.
The launch of the house church was memorable, Legband said. A large group of people from all over the country gathered in the Legbands’ living room to worship in the same way thousands were worshiping in Hughes.
“It was such a profound first Sunday,” Legband said. “The same presence of God that we had been experiencing in Hughes was in our house church, in our living room.”
This experience on launch Sunday would not be a solitary occurrence — a year and a half later, the Wilmore House Church is still a praying church, Legband said. The experience that the members shared during the Outpouring is often reflected in their Sunday gatherings, where they have a time of response that reflects the act of responding at the altar.
Each Sunday, they have a time of prayer where members can be honest and vulnerable about what they want to receive prayer for, Legband said. She believes a significant reason they have this prayer time every week is because of the Outpouring.
“One of the great gifts of our house church is that we all experienced the Outpouring and get to walk out its implications together,” Legband said.
Outside of the Sunday gathering, Legband said that the church encourages each of the members to have someone with whom there is nothing secret. For the Wilmore House Church, this accountability looks like a discipleship group that meets weekly to encourage and hold each other accountable.
Not only are the relationships within the church significant but cultivating relationships outside the church has also become much more frequent. Legband said she has seen an organic uptick of evangelism within her church.
Legband has experienced building relationships with those who need the Lord because she sees their need. She said the church is experiencing “a movement out.”
The Outpouring and the Global Church
The Outpouring has touched the Church not only on the local scale but also on the global scale.
From Wilmore to London to Beijing — Legband said she has heard stories of the Outpouring reaching and affecting churches everywhere.
“The Outpouring sent a signal and was a sign to the Church that God has not given up on the Church in the West,” Legband said.
Not only did the Outpouring send this signal to churches across the world but it also cultivated a new unity among churches that was not there previously. One specific example that Legband said she saw was between two churches in London.
Two pastors who had grown up in the same church and had planted two separate but similar churches were at the Outpouring, Legband said. Previously, they had a relationship marked by competition, but, at the Outpouring in Hughes, they approached the altar together.
“[They] went to the altar together and just confessed and renounced competition and prayed, ‘God would you send renewal and awakening to London and start with my friend’s church, not mine,’” Legband recalled. This relationship led to the churches now frequently doing worship events together in London, and these events have reached people on the streets who have stumbled in and come to know the Lord.
This church also hosted a conference that Legband was able to attend, and there, she saw a fresh intensity for the Lord that she had not seen in the U.S. She recounted a morning of prayer where one woman prayed for an awakening in Europe. “She read this line from a prayer [and] the line was, ‘God, don’t you see that your honor is at stake here? You have promised to pour out water on dry land; we’re dry, we’re thirsty and you have not done it.’”
This prayer would lead to what Legband said was the most intense experience she had ever had. The power of God descended on them and each person cried out for their homes and the cities they lived in, and this was a desperation that Legband had not seen before.
The global church is seeing what happened at Asbury and crying out for God to do the same in their cities.
A young child prays at the altar during the Outpouring in February 2023. Throughout the Outpouring, thousands of people approached the altar, including children, Legband said. Photo courtesy of Anna Grace Legband
“What happened at Asbury was not meant for just Asbury,” Legband said. “I would hope that people would leave with faith to say, ‘Don’t pass me by, Lord. In my church and my city, don’t pass us by.’”
The Asbury Outpouring began because a community cried out for God’s presence, and He responded. May each Christian community have the boldness to pray the same and the willingness to accept His presence as He reveals Himself to them.
For further information on the Asbury Outpouring, see the Awakening Library.
Emma grew up in Central Asia, but now lives in South Carolina. She is pursuing an Interdisciplinary degree with concentrations in Christian Studies and English Literature. She loves integrating her love for theology and literature through authentic storytelling that reflects God and His work in the world.
