Around 1,000 students gathered for a multi-night revival at a Texas Christian university last week, with dozens responding by committing their lives to Christ, renewing their faith or sensing a call to ministry.
The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton, affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, hosted its 27th annual three-night tent revival, a student-led event that combined worship music with preaching.
According to UMHB Dean of Students Michael Burns, planning for the event began the previous year when four student leaders partnered with the university’s Student Life division. By September, the effort had expanded to a committee of about 20 additional students who met weekly to organize the gathering.
The annual revival traces its roots to 1999, when the university replaced a traditional morning chapel revival service with a multi-day tent event designed to encourage student participation and spiritual renewal.
Of the roughly 1,000 attendees at last week’s revival, 80 students either made decisions to follow Christ, recommitted themselves to their faith or responded to a calling to ministry leadership.
This year’s featured speaker was Shane Pruitt, an author and the national Next Gen director for the Southern Baptist Convention’s North American Mission Board.
Pruitt told The Christian Post that the event held special meaning for him because his oldest daughter attends UMHB and served on the student committee that organized the revival.
“This is a great school and event,” he said. “So, preaching to and worshiping with college students, plus spending a week with my daughter and watching her serve the Lord, is a win-win.”
Pruitt’s messages centered on the biblical image of the potter and the clay, drawn from Isaiah 64:8: “Yet you, Lord, are our Father. We are the clay, you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.”
Through that theme, he encouraged students to allow God to shape their lives and walk faithfully in their calling.
“It was incredible,” Pruitt said. “We saw students make professions of faith in Jesus for salvation, many others surrender to a calling to ministry leadership and missions in their lives, and others repent and confess sin and experience victory and freedom in Christ.”
Attendance grew each evening, he said, with the final night drawing a crowd large enough to require additional seating beyond the capacity of the main tent.
“Each night … the crowd of college students grew. By the last night, there were overflow chairs, with students unable to fit under the large tent.”
Pruitt expressed hope that students left the gathering with a clear understanding that their lives are meant to be shaped by God’s purposes.
He said he hopes the students came away realizing that “we’re all called to be shaped by the Lord,” emphasizing that “we don’t shape and mold Him for our agendas; He shapes and molds us for His mission.”
