Knoxville, Tenn. -- The team at UNITE has seen God move firsthand at college campuses recently, but the vibe at this university event was different.
Thousands of University of Tennessee, Knoxville college students filed into the free UNITE Tennessee event at Thompson-Boling Arena, expecting to hear teaching and worship from Passion featuring Kristian Stanfill, author and speaker Jennie Allen and author, podcast host and Pastor Jonathan Pokluda.
Many of the young people even brought their bibles.
But there was a heaviness in the crowd; a tangible spirit of apathy or depression.
Speaker Jennie Allen asked the students hard questions. "Are you depressed because of your own sin?"
Jennie Allen asked the students to shout out some of things that they wanted:
"Freedom!"
"Money!"
"A husband!"
She asked the students to close their eyes and to think of their favorite place to be, imagining Jesus sitting next to them.
Allen encouraged the audience to be bold and ask Jesus anything they wanted to ask.
Later, Allen suggested that everyone gather in groups of two or three and share their most embarrassing, vulnerable thing that they struggled with--nothing was off limits.
"Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results." - James 5:16 NLT
The dry ground had begun to crumble a little bit.
The atmosphere really began to shift as Pastor Pokluda spoke candidly about being a prodigal church kid once he started college. Instead of focusing on God and his studies, Pokluda shared about his drift into women, "drugs and hip hop".
Eventually, Pokluda returned to Jesus and his life radically changed.
His redemption story and a poignant question seemed to be a turning point for the crowd.
Pastor Pokluda asked, "On a scale of 1-to-10, how sure are you that you're going to heaven? If your number is between 5-9, raise your hand."
Half the crowd waved their hands in the air.
"If your number is between 1-4, raise your hand."
Quite a few more had their hands raised.
"If you're 100 percent sure that you're going to heaven, raise your hand."
A remnant few confessed that they felt confident that they were going to heaven.
"If your number is 1-9, there's some doubt that Jesus did enough for you go to heaven. Jesus plus nothing means you're saved. Your works have nothing to do with your salvation."
That hard ground cracked wide open as the pastor invited everyone to join him in a prayer of salvation.
Suddenly, the room exploded with joy and power.
Click here to see the excitement.
And when Jennie Allen invited anyone who wanted to get baptized to meet them outside behind the arena, thousands of kids headed to the water-filled horse troughs in the back.
"I can't wait to see what God does next with this generation!
They're hungry, they're ready and they're radical," shares the heart of Monika, who covered this story.
Ella Schnacky, a K-LOVE musical artist, @jwlkrsworship, summed up her Knoxville experience in this conversation with Monika: