Why you should go back and watch the Gather25 Conference

The Gather25 Conference took place this past weekend and was essentially a twenty-five-hour, international revival hosted by Christians around the world. As we discussed on last week’s Denison Forum podcast, believers on every continent with the exception of Antarctica—though, even there, people joined in—took blocks of time to lead worship, share how God was moving in their nations and cultures, and help people see how the followers of Jesus serve the same Lord regardless of where they call home. And, through AI, they were able to translate the event into more than 80 languages in real-time to allow most of the world to join together at once.

If you missed the event or just want to go back and watch parts again, the Conference is available to stream through their website for free and will, eventually, move to YouTube as well. At the very least, taking an hour to hear from the persecuted church—the only segment of the global church that could not be represented live—is worth your time. 

One of the event’s most powerful moments was when the worship team leading the music for this segment finished by silently singing the song’s final verse. As they explained during the event, persecuted believers are often required to praise God without making a sound in order to avoid detection. Even that small exposure to what it was like to sing silent praises to God was a profound experience that I will not soon forget. 

Yet, despite the diverse backgrounds and varied accounts of how God is moving around the world, two themes in particular seemed to show up throughout the event.

A call to biblical hope

The first theme that seemed to be present in every region was a call to a biblical form of hope rooted in the realities of what the Lord is doing across the globe. And the latter part of that emphasis is of particular importance for understanding what each speaker described.

You see, when we think of hope in our culture today, it can quickly become a sort of nebulous desire to see better things in our future than we’re experiencing in the present. While that kind of hope has its place, nothing could be further from what the preachers and leaders throughout the Gather25 Conference expressed. 

Rather, what kept coming up throughout the event was the call to recognize what God is already doing and to find our hope in him. Yes, we should pray for the Lord to continue and grow that work through his people but, in many ways, the revival we’re seeking has already begun. And that was just as true in places like Europe and North America as it is in Africa, Asia, and other parts of the world. 

One of the devil’s most effective tactics—particularly in the Western church—is to trick us into believing that the barriers to awakening are simply too great for us to see the Spirit move here in the same ways that he is already moving in other cultures. 

To be sure, those barriers do exist, and we should not ignore or minimize their significance. However, God doesn’t need to change nations to save individuals, and true awakening comes when people choose to make Christ their king regardless of what those around them decide. 

More and more people are waking up to the reality that the world’s answers are insufficient to meet today’s problems, and they’re looking to God with renewed interest. This is an exciting time to be a Christian, and that is true most of all with the younger generations.

How God is moving in Gen Z

A second theme that ran through each of the continents is the powerful and authentic way in which so many in Gen Z are turning to Jesus. At Denison Forum, we have written and discussed the ways in which the younger generations are open to the gospel quite a bit in recent years. What stuck out when listening to the reports from other parts of the world, though, is how so much of what they said about Gen Z applied just as well to young people here. 

I believe that part of God’s redemption for where our culture has been is the way in which those trends have brought many to the point that they’re left either looking beyond themselves for hope or concluding that such hope simply doesn’t exist.

Most people don’t want to go the route of nihilism, and so they’re genuinely searching for answers and open to the gospel as the potential solution in numbers that haven’t been the case for decades or longer. The same things that motivated millennials and Gen X to look beyond God in the past are now motivating many to look to God today. And God is showing up in powerful ways.  

A small glimpse of heaven

Ultimately, the Gather25 Conference was a unique and profound taste of the unified diversity that awaits us in heaven. From the songs to the sermons and stories, the entire event was geared around worshiping God for all that he is doing around the world. 

And if you didn’t get the chance to participate live, please go back and at least watch the video from the persecuted church and any others as the Lord leads. The calls to hope, not only for what the Lord might do in the future but for what he’s already doing today, were a powerful reminder of how great our God truly is. 

I was blessed by that experience, and I believe you will be as well. Please don’t miss it.