If you’ve been on social media at all recently, especially Christian media, I’m almost certain that you’ve seen the “revival” movement happening. I hate to say it, but it is yet another evangelical social contagion, and, in all honesty, it continues to degrade the image of what it means to follow Jesus.

A clear marker of evangelicalism is its mode of worship. For many evangelical Americans, worship is limited to raising one’s hands to a stage and waiting for an overwhelming emotional experience. Sadly, we have reduced worship to a spiritualized concert. Let’s break it down.

Concerts are wonderful experiences. You get to go with people you know and care about to this intense experience of music and oneness with with a crowd. In this alone, many people have intensely emotional — and arguably spiritual — experiences. If you add on top of this the dim lights, expectations for a “move of the Spirit”, and religious music, often containing heavy lyrics, you get a bombshell of emotional overwhelm.

Typically, this isn’t a bad experience. In fact, it is often unifying, inspiring, cathartic, and ecstatic. It becomes an issue when this experience gets confuted with Jesus. I would compare it to trying to find a needle in a haystack. Many people lack the self-awareness to introspect and ask themselves, “Why am I feeling these feelings? Where do I see God in this experience?” In turn, people blindly follow a subcultural practice (the subculture being evangelicalism) and make it a pillar of their Christianity. I sadly see that these spiritualized concerts are a cornerstone for how many people follow Christ. I say this not to judge. Lord knows that I have been this exact person. But it has never been more important to think critically and rationally about the faith that has been passed down to us. While I don’t at all condemn this practice when done honestly, I do advise caution in regards to the narratives that we tell ourselves.

Funnily enough, as I write this, I do actually see God in this experience. (He tends to show up in our ugly.) There exists a parallel between the oneness of the crowd and the nature of God. After all, he is omnipotent. In the Juedo-Christian tradition, we have been worshipping God through song and music for centuries. This is beautiful! Music is a language that is not bound by concrete literalism. By its very nature, it is abstract. What a wonderful way to rejoice and lament to a God of whom we cannot rigidly define!

What is happening at Asbury Theological Seminary, and now other colleges, must be viewed fundamentally as a social contagion. It may be a form of worship towards God, but it is a trend nonetheless. God is not magically making moves of the Spirit in one specific place over one specific period of time. People are merely following others in tapping into this profound, but complex, experience. God is everywhere! Christ is within you! It would serve all of us better to meditate on this daily rather than treat this “revival” as a special event.

Undoubtedly, there is a population of individuals within this movement who participate in this worship for reasons below praising God. One would be that they are chasing after a novel experience. They wish to be “filled with the Spirit”. This is, like I have mentioned, a wonderful thing. However, problematically, they are not reaching out to God; they are reaching out for a novel experience, thus making God a means to an end. These people do not wish to be transformed into the likeness of God through their worship. Another idea is that there are people who are religiously performing. I imagine these people acting out of shame, conformity, and expectation rather than joy and humility. To them, my heart goes out.

Worship as I have been describing is primarily self-serving. Again, this isn’t inherently bad. We all need to receive from the Father, but we cannot let this be our primary mode of worship. We know from the book of Matthew, “what you have done for the least among you, you have done for me.” (Matthew 25:40) Perhaps a more Christ-like form of worship would be to feed the poor, weep with the heavy burdened, care for the stranger, and love our enemy. In confiding with a friend today, she said something that stuck with me. She wisely stated, “I think what we can do is pray that this does not stop in the walls of the church.” At first, I was judgmental and cynical of this movement. Her words embodied where the holy spirit was trying to pull me.

Unfortunately, I, as a Christian, have little confidence that the people involved with this movement will be transformed by their worship and take with them love into the world. This is consequential of the fact that many of these people are naive. They are frequently not looking to worship in a way that is self-sacrificial. We often fall short in that we idolize a novel experience rather than conforming ourselves to the image of Christ. To be serving of others is frequently our last motivation. While this may be my analysis, it is not fate, nor is it the full picture. God willing, at least one person may turn to love the actual people around them, and in Jesus lies my hope for that.