When the Dean Sat Down

October 5, 2026

Jesus told His disciples something that sounded backwards. “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7). First, the road ahead was betrayal, denial, a cross, and a tomb. Jesus wanted them to know this was a good thing because what follows is the resurrection and ascension, and then the great gift arrives. The gift of the Holy Spirit would not come until Jesus had finished His work and returned to the Father.

That gift is the difference between two ways of doing church. One way gathers the best, the brightest, and the richest, makes a plan, and executes it. It can look impressive. I loved leading that kind of church. Along the ministry journey I came to understand that this is not God’s original plan to build up His people and His church. The other way waits for the Advocate, that is the Holy Spirit, that Jesus promised would come after He ascended into heaven. On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles He cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:37-38). Jesus means these “rivers of living water” refer to the Spirit. The river is not a program run by an elite group of powerful people that are fully funded. The rivers of living water is the presence of God in ordinary people through His Spirit. Zechariah had already named the contrast: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord Almighty” (Zechariah 4:6). I think of one as a “Power and Might” church and the other as a Spirit led church.

On February 3, 1970, that contrast showed up in a chapel in Wilmore, Kentucky. Dean Custer Reynolds was scheduled to preach at Asbury College. He did not. He gave his own testimony and sat down. A professor quietly asked if anyone with a hungry heart wanted Christ. Students poured to the altar. Two lines formed. Classes were canceled that day, and then for the week. Hughes Auditorium stayed open for days of confession, prayer, and song, with no program and no famous name. Cheating, prejudice, and bitterness were named out loud. Repentance and forgiveness were given to one another, and the power of the Holy Spirit was transforming souls like no program ever could.

Then the students left campus. They did not build a campaign. Pastors invited them, and they went. In the first week, teams visited sixteen states and saw several thousand conversions. Over the next months, roughly two thousand witnessing teams went out from the college and the seminary next door. About half the student body was involved. They reached some 130 colleges. In Anderson, Indiana, one visit sparked fifty straight nights of meetings, so large the church moved them to a high school. Some teams went as far as South America, paid for by home churches. Those who stayed in Wilmore prayed for the teams and listened to the reports when they returned. The same Spirit moved wherever they told the story. The institution did not try to own the moment. It got out of the way.

That is a Spirit-led church. A power-and-might church trusts the plan. A Spirit-led church stays when the sermon is over, confesses what it has been hiding, and then goes out because the Advocate has something to say, and that something is revival fires. Jesus did not leave His people to manage the kingdom with human wisdom. He sent the Spirit so that rivers of living water would flow from within them. All over our country churches are struggling since covid. Our country gave a part of itself to satan during covid, and no well-funded program will get it back. We need the power of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit to visit His church again.

Do you want this gift, or only the results you can schedule? What is holding you back from asking God to send you and your church the power of the Holy Spirit: fear of looking foolish, a habit of trusting your own strength, a preference for a church that looks successful? Where would you need to step aside so the Spirit can lead?

I invite you to bow your head and ask for the Advocate, not as an assistant to your agenda, but as the One who leads. Not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit of the living God. When we receive that gift, the name of Jesus is lifted high. (To learn more about Al Earley or read previous articles, see www.lagrangepres.org. You can purchase my book, My Faith Journal, at Amazon.com, a compilation of 366 articles as a daily devotional. Check out my podcast on YouTube, called “My Faith Journey”).