ORLANDO – 60,000 Christians from across the United States gathered Saturday to be part of a "new Jesus movement."
"The Send," was a 10-hour event organized by Youth With A Mission, Christ for All Nations, and Lou Engle of Lou Engle Ministries. The Orlando, Florida event at Camping World Stadium featured several collaborators from various national ministries who hoped to motivate Christians to fulfill their God-given call.
According to Engle, the live-streamed event was inspired by a conversation in 2011 with YWAM members hoping missionaries would rise up following the death of Rev. Billy Graham.
As the day went on, The Send featured pastors and evangelists such Bill Johnson, Daniel Kolenda and Francis Chan, along with worship teams such as Hillsong Young & Free, Jesus Culture, Tasha Cobbs-Leonard and Bethel Music.
While at The Send 2019, The Christian Post caught up with two of the events collaborators, former professional ice hockey player turned evangelist Todd White and evangelist and founder of Jesus Image, Michael Koulianos. Below is an edited transcript of their reaction to the revival.
Christian Post: What is The Send?
Koulianos: The send is ultimately a war on inaction. It's to me a twofold beautiful experience. Number one, we're gathering here to be in the presence of Jesus to truly encounter Him and then be sent from His presence, to take His actual person, to our cities, to our towns, to our neighborhoods, to our families, to our marriages. Some to the mission field and some to their own workplace. The Send is an ascending movement from the presence to the world, unto the glory of Jesus.
CP: There are thousands of people gathered here worshiping Jesus what’s your reaction?
White: I think it's amazing. It's God's waking up a sleeping giant, His church to come together and being in unity of faith and not say, "I prefer my ministry before yours" but we actually prefer each other. What we've done is a collaboration of ministries coming together saying, "Let's all go forward in one purpose, one mind, and let's go purpose, Jesus everywhere we go."
Koulianos: I think if we tried this a year ago it probably would not have worked, we just think it's the Holy Spirit. Before anybody knew who we were, we were all friends and it's God knitting hearts very authentically because of common passion and love for Jesus.
It's the Holy Spirit moving and our city has been buzzing. People are getting saved on the streets, they're getting healed on the streets. The pre-rally meetings were ridiculous. It's been an amazing, amazing time and a real privilege. I told Todd this morning, "There's 7 billion people on the earth and the fact that we get to be here today is a true honor and privilege."
CP: Lou Engle said he wishes to usher in the Jesus movement of this generation, what has shifted in the atmosphere that makes you believe that time for the next great awakening is now?
Koulianos: I think ultimately it's the Holy Spirit, first and foremost, but He works with yielded hearts and you find out very quickly, that platforms don't satisfy you, people knowing your name doesn't satisfy you, money doesn't satisfy, these things aren't intrinsically bad, but ultimately it's about Jesus and it's unto Jesus.
I feel like the Lord is birthing this Jesus movement and a Jesus people on and off the platform, in their homes. It's what He burns for.
White: I have new words, This is God! It's amazing, we started doing schools 12 years ago and 30 or 40 people would show up because we had to go do outreach, and hardly no one would sign up.
You don't have to be an evangelist you just have to be a Christian. So now we're seeing thousands and we're watching this, and over time we are seeing people just start to live up to what God's created them to be. There's such a hunger, there's such a hunger here in this place and it's drawing on Heaven and right now it's just going to build.
According to The Send’s website, the successful event was “a call to action, a call to repentance and a call to service.”
Event attendee and ministry leader in her local Orlando church, Yassirie Moreno testified that The Send did exactly what it set out to do.
“I definitely felt it was a call to action, for sure. The most significant thing about the event to me was that it was obvious, it wasn’t about the people on the stage but the people in the crowd. There was a singular purpose that was felt, and it was to seek Jesus and worship Him,” Moreno told CP of the event.
The worshiper said she could feel the Lord's presence in the crowd as everyone collectively “served each other by praying for one another unprompted.”
Moreno added, “The atmosphere that was set simply allowed us to move in that and empowered us to want to see God’s power manifest outside of the stadium. It was like charging up your spiritual battery to go out and be the gospel for the community and serve with the heart of God. I can honestly say it was so much more than I expected. This event wasn’t hype, which I truthfully expected, but it was definitely a call to action and to live Holy, as Todd White said, ‘Grace isn’t a pass for us to sin but the power for us to live the way Jesus did, without sin.'”
To view the event, visit bethel.tv/thesend.
