Riding the Wind of God: a Personal History of the Youth Revival Movement. - book review

Baptist History and Heritage, Spring, 2003 by Eddie Stepp

By Bruce Mclver. Macon, Ga.: Smyth & Helwys, 2002. 273 pp.

As an undergraduate student at Baylor University in the 1980s, I recall hearing stories about the student-led revivals of the 1940s, the powerful personalities that lay behind the movement, and the great impact of the revival on the campus and the greater community. The stories have now been collected and preserved, often autobiographically, by Bruce Mclver, long-time pastor of the Wilshire Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, and one of the "first wave" of revival leaders on the Baylor campus in the 1940s. His account not only details his own pilgrimage to Baylor and to leadership in the movement, but also tells the stories of the other leaders of the movement and chronicles the growth of the revivals as they moved beyond a Central Texas phenomenon to a national movement.

Drawing from his personal experience, the Oral History archives at Baylor University, and individual communication with other revival leaders, Mclver weaves the story of post-World War II college students who prayed, trusted God, and experienced a mighty movement of God. In contrast to the trained revivalists of our own day, these revivals were planned and led solely by students. Tapping into a spiritual hunger that students were experiencing in the midst of a war-torn yet healing world, students took the lead and in the process a new generation of leaders for churches, seminaries, and missions was raised up.

The narrative also vividly captures the results of this initial revival at Baylor. Word of the success of the revival spread throughout Texas so that student revival teams were requested in Houston and Dallas. They ministered to large crowds and, according to the records, had great numerical success based on public decisions made. Before long, student-led revival teams were requested throughout the southeastern United States. Additionally, a revival team was requested in Hawaii, considered at that time "foreign missions" territory. Several groups traveled to Hawaii with one of the results being the formation of the Baptist Student Union (BSU) summer missions program that continues to give students an opportunity to minister throughout the world.

Mclver's book is noteworthy for its lack of pretension. In his story and the story of the other participants, the overriding theme, as the title of the book suggests, is that these students found themselves ready and willing to respond to something bigger than themselves and certainly not of themselves--what McIver repeatedly refers to as the "wind of God." Although McIver passed away in 2001, prior to the release of the book, we are indebted to him for collecting and powerfully retelling the stories of a fleeting generation who experienced a mighty movement of God.

Eddie Stepp, assistant professor of Christian studies, Bluefield College.