"Legacy: Pentecost — Movement of the Holy Spirit in the Next Generation” | Rev. Dr. Vicki Harrison
What If Revival Is Already Here?
"What if revival isn't something we're waiting for, but something we're witnessing right now?"
That's the question Pastor Vicki Harrison brought to the room on Pentecost Sunday — and it carries more weight than it might seem at first. We are good at waiting. Waiting for the right season. Waiting for numbers to improve. Waiting for the culture to shift.
But what if we have been looking in the wrong direction?
Acts 2: The Day Everything Changed
To understand what Pastor Vicki was asking, you have to go back to the original Pentecost.
Fifty days after Passover, Jews from every nation under heaven had gathered in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost — a massive harvest celebration that drew pilgrims from across the known world. At the same time, about 120 disciples of Jesus had gathered in the same city. They were waiting. Before Jesus ascended, he had told them to stay in Jerusalem until the Holy Spirit came.
Then this happened:
When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. — Acts 2:1-4
People from different countries, speaking different languages, were suddenly declaring the wonders of God and understanding each other. Something with no natural explanation was happening in broad daylight.
The crowd's response was split. Some were amazed and perplexed. Some decided the disciples were drunk.
That's when Peter stood up.
Peter's Sermon — and an Ancient Promise
This wasn't the impulsive, uncertain Peter we see in the Gospels. This was a man transformed. He was bold, clear, and filled with the Spirit of God. And he pointed the crowd to words written centuries earlier by the prophet Joel:
In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days. — Acts 2:17-18
For the Jews in that crowd, this was not a small statement. Under the old covenant, the anointing of the Holy Spirit was reserved for kings, priests, and prophets — Moses, David, the high priests. Not ordinary people. Certainly not women, not servants.
And now God was saying: all people.
As Pastor Vicki put it: "The Spirit crumbles all the walls — age, gender, and status alike." What happened on Pentecost was not a special experience for a special class of believers. It was the beginning of something available to everyone.
The Last Days — Including Right Now
Here is something that matters for how we read this: the phrase "last days" in the New Testament doesn't mean some distant, future season we are still waiting for. In the New Testament, the "last days" refers to the entire period of time between Pentecost and the Second Coming of Christ.
Pentecost begins the last days. We are in them.
Which means the promise is still active. The Spirit is still being poured out. And the prophecy — your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions — is not history. It is present tense.
A Revival We May Already Be Witnessing
At the 2023 New Room Conference, Pastor Vicki first heard whispers of something being called the Quiet Revival in the United Kingdom. The UK was a country many had written off as post-Christian — and then something unexpected happened.
Young people with no church background started dreaming about the Bible. College students who had been raised in entirely secular homes began having visions of church buildings and walking into any church-like structure saying: "I need help understanding this."
Between 2018 and 2024, the number of 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK attending church at least once a month jumped from 4% to 16%. Bible sales went up. Conversations about Jesus multiplied across campuses and online. There was no sociological explanation for it — the cultural pressure ran the other direction. The most plausible explanation offered was also the simplest: the hand of God.
Here in the United States, Christianity has been declining for years. But that trend has started to shift — and the generation leading the change is Generation Z.
According to Barna research, for the first time in decades, younger adults — both Gen Z and Millennials — are now the most regular churchgoers in the country, outpacing the older generations who once formed the backbone of church attendance. Gen Z teens, research shows, are more spiritually curious than any previous generation in recent memory, with younger cohorts leading the way in new commitments to Jesus.
In February 2023, Asbury University in Kentucky experienced what became known as the Asbury Outpouring — a Spirit-led movement that grew out of an ordinary chapel service, stretched across days, and drew tens of thousands to a small college town. It was characterized by spontaneous worship, radical humility, and public confession and repentance. It was led not by seasoned church professionals but by college students.
Similar waves have touched campuses at Florida State, Baylor, the University of Kentucky, Ohio State, and others.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy.
What This Generation Is Actually Looking For
These young people are not looking for entertainment or clever programming. They are looking for something real.
Belonging. Sincere worship. People who do not just talk the walk but actually live it. No performance. No hypocrisy. As Pastor Vicki put it: "Real worship, real repentance, real faith."
She spoke from personal experience. She has three Gen Z kids of her own who have struggled to find church homes in each of their settings. She knows this not only from research, but from being a parent who watches her children navigate faith. And what she has heard from the young people at New Hope echoes the same hunger: a desire for something life-changing, substantial, and genuine.
The Hard Questions
So where does that leave us?
The Holy Spirit is moving among the next generation. There is evidence in the research. There is evidence in the stories. There is evidence in the room.
The question is not whether it is happening. The question is whether we are ready to receive it.
"What is it you need to let go of or embrace in order to receive these young people?"
Pastor Vicki did not soften the challenge. You may have to move your pew. You may have to experience some discomfort — worship that sounds or looks different, church life that unfolds at a different pace. And this, she said, is not primarily about worship style. It is a question of heart posture.
When you experience something that looks or feels different from what you are used to — what is your immediate response? Curiosity? Openness? Or something closer to suspicion?
What's at Stake
New Hope has been a community of faith for 150 years. Generation after generation has passed the faith forward — nurturing believers, leading people to Jesus, building something that endures.
Pastor Vicki believes God is asking this church to be open to a new movement of that same Spirit.
"The Holy Spirit is up to something incredible. Are we willing to join Him?"
The history of the church is a history of the Spirit doing something new. The Methodist revival in eighteenth-century England changed the course of a nation. The Great Awakenings in America transformed communities across two centuries. The Azusa Street revival in the early twentieth century gave birth to Pentecostalism. The Jesus Revolution in the 1970s swept thousands of young people into the church.
In every case, the Holy Spirit moved first — and the church had to decide whether to receive it or resist it.
"What if God poured out his Spirit on us right here? What if we saw our sons and daughters prophesy, what if our young men saw visions and our old men did dream dreams? What if we were part of the next movement of the Holy Spirit — lives changing, families changing, communities changing, in the name of Jesus?"
And then, with the kind of honesty that does not let you off the hook: "But what happens if we aren't part of it?"
The Legacy Series continues at New Hope Church through the end of May. Join us Sunday mornings at 9:30 AM — or support the next generation by giving to the Legacy Fund at findnewhope.com/give and selecting Legacy Giving.
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Other Sermons from Pastor Vicki
Pastor Vicki Harrison opens Acts 2 on Pentecost Sunday and asks a question that reframes everything: what if revival isn't something we're waiting for, but something we're witnessing right now — especially among the next generation?