March 27, 2025
Churches across the Southern Baptist Convention and beyond are having weekend gatherings for their students called Disciple Now or “DNow” retreats. These retreats provide the students with a unique environment for worship, Bible study, fellowship, evangelism, and, in some cases, service projects.
Disciple Now originated in 1981 when Duke Tolbert, a pastor in Florida, envisioned having a retreat weekend that would inspire middle and high school students to draw closer to the Lord and seek His will for their lives. Tolbert asked his youth pastor, Wayne Dismuke, to design and execute the plan for the church’s students.
Disciple Now can be traced back to when Jesus went away to some secluded refuge to pray and fellowship with His heavenly Father.
In most cases, a DNow weekend provides an ideal opportunity for students to invite their friends to what could become for them a life-changing experience. The rapport that students have with fellow students makes their invitation to these retreats more appealing than when adults extend the invitation.
Host families open their homes for the DNow students to have fellowship and a place to sleep on Friday and Saturday nights. Most report that the sleeping aspect of the weekend has a low priority, but the spiritual benefits are generally blessed beyond measure.
One group of DNow students in Georgia used their service opportunities to tidy up the yard of a church member who was battling cancer. Another group from the same church packed bags of groceries for distribution to the needy, and a third group visited with some of the widows in the church to provide a helpful measure of love and encouragement.
In some cases, the students engaged in DNow retreats will be asked to alter their normal lifestyle by leaving their cellphones at home and surrendering all means of social media contact. Being disconnected from normal routines enhances their ability to focus on spiritual things, more effectively worship, and ardently concentrate on the study of God’s Word without worldly distractions.
In the 41 years since DNow was first visualized, tens of thousands of students have participated in this carefully designed spiritual retreat, many have been saved, and others have been called into Christian ministry.
Who knows, but that the next spiritual awakening might be ignited through a Disciple Now weekend? We have watched as fires of revival have swept across college and university campuses in our beloved land. Some of the media outlets have reported on these amazing events. There is ample evidence to indicate that God is at work among many of America’s students. And it has often been that way.
In 1970, a revival took place on the campus of Asbury College in Kentucky. In his book, The Asbury Revival: When God Used Students to Wake a Nation, Wayne Atcheson, the former director of the Billy Graham Library, writes about the school being suddenly invaded by the power of God. “Classes were forgotten. Academic work came to a standstill. God had taken over the campus. The result was the greatest student-led revival in American history.”
The college revivals of 2023 and 2024 have already been mentioned, but some of the colleges impacted by these spiritual renewals include the University of Arkansas, Florida State University, Liberty University, Ohio State University, University of Georgia, Auburn University, Texas A&M, and Mississippi State University.
One of the most publicized revivals in history is the Welsh revival of 1904-1906. which started with a group of young people who were thirsty for a deeper walk with God. It all began on a Sunday morning after the main worship service when some of the young people in the congregation of the church remained in the church for a youth meeting. A teenage girl by the name of Florrie Evans stood up and simply stated, “I want you to know that I love the Lord Jesus with all my heart”.
The Holy Spirit descended upon that meeting, reducing the young people to tears. The convicting work of the Holy Spirit quickly spread to other young people, and the fires of revival were ignited. Before the year had ended, 100,000 people were converted to the Christian faith, and other countries were also impacted by what God was doing in Wales.
Dwight Nelson, pastor of Pioneer Memorial church in Berrien Springs, Michigan, has stated, “Older adults have not made much progress toward the goal of having a spiritual awakening, but today’s generation has more in common with the generation of the disciples of Jesus than any other generation in history.”
Nelson may be right. Maybe college students could become catalysts for revival in our land, or maybe it could be a group of students from a DNow retreat that could set our churches afire with one more great awakening.
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J. Gerald Harris is a retired pastor and journalist who served as editor of The Christian Index for nearly two decades. You can reach him at gharris@loveliftedmehigher.org.
