To be revived means “to be refreshed, strengthen, or given new energy to.” On Sunday Jan. 20, Eastern students experienced these very things when they attended a student-led Gospel Revival.
First year students Isaiah Martin and Tiffany Faulkner hosted the event, which was filled with praise and worship, a sermonic message and performances by members of both Transformed and Audacity. Martin and Faulkner were inspired to create this night of praise and worship one day while singing Gospel songs in the chapel with a group of.
“After that event happened, me and Tiffany received a message saying that this is what we need to bring to Eastern and we are going to do it no matter what” Martin said.
The theme of the night was Faith, Hope, and Love and they were echoed through every performance. The night opened up with El-Faith Chase and Tiffany Faulkner leading the worshippers who attended the event deeper into the presence of God as they encouraged them to open their hearts to the Father.
After they worshipped, Jaclyn Favaroso spoke on the theme of the night to which she referred to as, “The Three Divine Sisters.” She broke down the importance of each other three words and how personal and necessary they are to the life of all believers in Christ. These three words ring together in harmony when, “you have a deepened relationship with the Lord” Favaroso said. She spoke of how people can tend to put faith in things that can be easily destroyed but placing faith in Christ would not produce this result.
“Our faith in Jesus is something that can never be shaken or torn down. Our faith in Jesus can indeed be hindered by earthly things I will say, but God is sovereign and will remain whether we have faith or not.” Favaroso said.
After her message came Megan Schoenleb and Kerry Phillips who are both members of the spoken-word group Audacity and they both delivered powerful poems that spoke of their relationship with God.
As the night drew on, the Spirit of God showed Himself strong in a performance by Eastern’s own drama ministry, Transformed. Three of the group members put on a skit that detailed the life of a young Christian woman, played by Phillips, who has a relationship with God but struggles to daily commune with Christ as her social and academic life begin to take up more of her time and attention. Her conversations with God, played by one of the members of Transformed, become more brief. However, as the hardships of life begin to weigh on her, she starts to cry out to God and ask Him where He has been in all of heartache and stress. God replies and says, “I’m right here.” The skit served as a reminder to all Christians that God is always near and He cares about everything that happens in the lives of His believers.
Khandace Mitchell, a member of the praise dance ministry Precious Movements, gracefully worshipped God through dance. The song that she chose was about spending a day with the Lord from sunrise to sunset and her moves mimicked that of the peaceful lyrics.
Finally to close the evening, worship leaders Davier Daniels, El-Fatih Chase, Kristen Bradley and Tiffany Faulkner led the crowd of revived worshippers into a jovial atmosphere of praising and worshipping God. The night was a refreshing success which was all Isaiah Martin and Tiffany Faulkner could have hoped for.
“The whole goal of the Gospel Revival was to allow people to release themselves and worship God through Gospel music. We hoped that people would receive this Gospel Revival as a refresher and that those who didn’t know God that were there that they received Him that day” Martin said.
The next Gospel Revival will be held on Feb. 17.