Revival

REVIVAL

50 YEARS LATER ALUMNI REMEMBER 1971 REVIVAL

During Spiritual Emphasis Week in 1971, a movement of the Holy Spirit swept through the North Central campus and brought revival. Fifty years later, the memories of that week and how the Spirit moved in the hearts of North Central students remain vividly in the minds of several alumni.

North Central University Chancellor Rich Wilkerson explained that God was preparing for the revival well in advance. As a freshman in spring 1971, he had been drifting away from God, when a woman attending a prayer meeting at the church his dad pastored prophesied over him. “She prophesied over me, and said, ‘God wants you to get right with Him because God’s going to send a revival to North Central Bible College in the fall of your sophomore year.’

“I had not even been planning to go back,” Wilkerson said, “But she said, ‘You’re going to stay at North Central and God’s going to send a revival.’ That day I got back to the Lord.”

‘THAT’S WHAT OUR STUDENTS NEED’

In the summer of 1971, a young alumnus named Dick Eastman ’67 received a phone call from North Central Bible College President E.M. Clark, asking him to lead Spiritual Emphasis Week. Eastman was leading a prayer-focused youth ministry in Colorado at the time and didn’t see how he could match the caliber of speakers that he knew were “the usual” lineup for this important week at North Central.

Intending to decline “Brother Clark’s” invitation, Eastman explained to him, “I just go into these prayer retreats, and we pray, and God just moves.”

Eastman said, “There was a pause on the line. Such a long pause I thought that I lost [the call]. But then Brother Clark spoke again, and he was weeping. He told me, ‘That’s what our students need.’”

After praying about it, and on the condition that he could hold a weekend prayer meeting prior to preaching at North Central, Eastman accepted the invitation.

REVIVAL BREAKS OUT

In October, following the two-day prayer meeting Clark arranged at the Minneapolis Gospel Tabernacle, Eastman came to North Central and preached day and night for five days, and Holy Spirit revival broke out.

Philip McLeod ’74 remembered the prayer retreat and the Spiritual Emphasis Week meetings, and shared them in “A Faithful Past, A Shining Future” (NCU Press 2005). “Dick Eastman spoke at a youth retreat presented by the Minneapolis Gospel Tabernacle,” McLeod said. “I attended that retreat and was challenged to pray and seek God at a depth that I had not yet encountered in my life to that point. Following the retreat, my heart was prepared for God’s work through the Spiritual Emphasis Week.”

The energy from the prayer meetings carried into the chapel services led on campus (in what is now Miller Hall). Eastman said that the Lord spoke very specifically to him, telling him exactly what He would do during each day of the meetings. Eastman was compelled to write each item down on a piece of paper, which he tucked into his Bible.

DEMONSTRATION OF DISCIPLESHIP AND SACRIFICE

When he began to preach, Eastman heard God challenge him to tell the students specifically what the Lord had told him would happen that week, and he ended up pulling the paper from his Bible and reading what he’d written—even though he admits it didn’t make any sense to him. To this day, Eastman recalls that God said on the second day he would send “a demonstration of discipleship and a wave of sacrifice.”

Eastman said that when he got to the end of the message on Tuesday, a girl jumped up and left hastily. “I thought, ‘Oh boy, now they’re going to be leaving,’” he said. When she came back in, she continued right on up onto the platform, and said, through tears, “Excuse me, Brother Dick. I don’t mean to interrupt.”

He asked her, “What’s on your heart?” And she said “I am so sorry I didn’t hear a word of your message. All I kept hearing was, ‘How much do you love me? How much do you love me?’ I said, ‘I love you with all my heart.’ God said, ‘Are you willing to go into your dorm, into that drawer in your closet and get all the money that you have had in the way down there, and give it because of your love?’

“‘How much do you love me? How much do you love me?’ I said, ‘I love YOU with with all my heart.’”

“And she handed me her wallet and said, ‘Here, Brother Dick. This is all I have in the world.’”

Mike Shields ’73 was there and said he had never seen anything like what happened next. “After she laid down this wallet,” he recounted, “it launched the wildest, craziest time of giving I’ve ever seen in my life. I mean, students took off and went back to the rooms. [A student] who had been a beauty queen showed up with her trophy and laid it on the platform. Suddenly, there were football trophies there … everything that you can imagine—[one guy came with] his keys for his new car and dropped them off on the platform.”

“As the students returned, they were placing them on the altar,” McLeod said. “A collection of things, from stereos to sporting goods to you name it was at the altar.”

In addition to preaching, Eastman prayed over the students throughout the week. Gary Grogan ’73 said, “On one of those mornings, Dick Eastman lined us all up [in the hallways] and then he went around and prayed and prophesied over all of us. I was leaning against the wall and Dick had this incredible, simple little prophetic prayer for me, and it just pierced my heart.

“And I realized I was prideful, and I said, ‘Lord, I’m sorry. Do whatever you want. I’ll go where you want me to go. I’ll do what you want me to do. I’ll be what you want me to be. I’ll say what you want me to say. Lord, my life belongs to you.’ There just became a new passion in my life for God's presence, for prayer, for intercession, for waiting on the Lord, for hearing from God’s voice. And that's been a hallmark of my life ever since.”

“‘I’ll Say what you want me to say. Lord, my life belongs to you.’”

A WORK OF GOD

The outpouring of the Spirit caused North Central students to seek the Lord as never before. Many experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in incredible, even physical ways. The possessions and money students donated that week totaled nearly $30,000 and enabled the construction of what today is known as the Lindquist Sanctuary.

McLeod said, “As the years have unfolded, I have often returned in my mind to that night, and I realize the specific item that I surrendered was not what mattered, but the act of surrender lives on and will continue to impact my future. That night could never be duplicated because it we a one-time work of God in hearts that were tender and prepared for the Spirit’s gentle touch to shape our lives.”

Wilkerson, whose own faith was strengthened during that great revival, believes that the faith of the institution was revived, as well. “You could in some way say that North Central was given a second chance and when that chance came, the school took it. And the school’s never been the same.”

Learn more about the revival at northcentral.edu/history.