A bunch of the seniors on the OSU football team decided to forego going to the NFL for a year because they felt like God wanted to do something more. But I think the best part was that all these players, they have legit testimonies and they have a heart to preach the gospel.

It felt a little bit like being in Acts 2 when revival is coming onto campus. - All right, hello everyone. Welcome to the official, unofficial Acts 2 network podcast. I'm Steven. - I'm Isaiah. - And today we have Will joining us on the show. - Good to be here.

- Yeah, Will, why don't you introduce yourself a little bit. Yeah, your peer class, where you're serving now, stuff like that. - Yeah, my name is Will Wu. I'm class of 2009 from Los Angeles originally. I have peer serving all around the US. Got some guys in Irvine, Albert Locke.

He's not in Irvine, he's in LA. Got Nelson up in Michigan. Got a bunch of guys in DMV, Nathan Chung. They're some of the guys in my class. - Nice, nice. And you're serving now in OSU? - Yep, Columbus, Ohio, the Ohio State University. Got to make that clear.

It's important. - And today's episode is going to be about some cool things that have happened this past fall there. But before we get there, maybe you could just take us through, like how did you end up at Columbus, Ohio serving there. And yeah. - Yeah, well, Chris and I, we were serving at Pittsburgh.

We were part of the 2017 church plant. - The Great Scattering. - The Great Scattering. - You went from Berkeley. - Yeah, from Berkeley to Pittsburgh. And then we got to serve there for four years. Along the way, we got a chance to do a vision trip out there at one point.

And then in 2021, you know, there was talk about more church planting. And we kind of knew that either our couple or Angel and Judy's couple is probably going to go somewhere. It bounced back many times, many locations. And then we just got asked, "Hey, what about Ohio State?" And we thought, "Oh, that's a big campus." Sounds good.

Let's go. It's a little bit late in the school year. I mean, our team was assembled, I think, in May, right before we left. We landed in July. I mean, we were asked a little bit earlier, but the team was assembled later and kind of got some people from around the network who volunteered.

And then we had the privilege to move out there. So it was really cool. - Yeah. - So before that, you were in Berkeley undergrad, and then, yeah. So, yeah, you guys had some history. - Fun connection. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Will was a senior when I was a freshman, very first student archers that I met.

And then after I graduated, Will was my leader for a year before you went to Taiwan. - Yep, before I went to Taiwan. - Yeah, so you've been to a lot of different places. And then when we, I remember when you were my leader, there was a car ride we had where we both talked about like, "Hey, would you go full-time one day?" You know, and both of us were talking about going full-time in ministry for our church.

And then when I went full-time, we overlapped for about like three, four months before you went to Pittsburgh. - I think so. - And that was kind of a neat... - We had a neat moment sharing the office going, "Wow, that car ride has fled." - That came full circle.

- Wow, that's neat. - So we were the two young guys at HP for a little bit. That was nice. That was pretty amazing. - Yeah. - So let's just cut to the chase. Let's jump right to it because this is a really neat story. For those of you who don't know, it's like four days ago, or at least at the time of this recording, NPR did a segment, and this article is called, "The Ohio State," they forgot that part.

- Oh, yeah. - Football players are leading a religious revival on campus, and it's about these Christian football players, not just any football players, but some of the like really well-known... - Some of the starters. - Yeah, the starters. They held like a religious revival event, and maybe what people don't know is that we had a role in that.

- Yeah. - So maybe you can kind of share about like how were we involved, how did that get started? - Yeah. - Sure. So this started before the school year, right before the school year, about mid-August. And our professor who sponsors our group, he's pretty well-connected with the just campus Christian population.

He kind of started a prayer group the year prior for just all Christians on campus. So he's kind of well-known for just being a connector, and he's had some football players in his class before, I believe, just built some friendships. And it turns out that the OSU football team, there are some solid Christians who have been kind of passing down the faith and reaching the next generation.

- Wow. How long has that been going on? - I think at least five or six years, maybe. So a little bit more recent. They do Bible studies and stuff like that. But really, two guys who had graduated, Cam Babb and Master Teague, you know, one of them was in the NFL for a little bit.

You know, they're still really connected to the players that have a really solid locker room. And, you know, they were growing in their faith while they were on the football team. And so there's just kind of a good culture going there. You know, the guys there, they're really tight.

Apparently, you know, the ministers, the athletes, they've been really solid over the years. And then a vision sparked in their mind. You know, last year, there are three pretty awesome players who could have gone to the NFL. And collectively, a bunch of the seniors on the OSU football team decide to forego going to the NFL for a year, stay for their senior year, because they felt like God wanted to do something more.

- Wow. - Not just to win a championship, which hopefully they do this year. But yeah, we'll see, I mean, but they want to do something more for God. And, you know, so they're like, Hey, you know, we should do something. Now, mind you, this is like only a couple of weeks before the school year started.

And so they're like, let's put on a revival night, you know, let's share our testimonies. Let's do some praise and then let's do on the spot baptisms. Wow. Now, interestingly enough, the OSU football team is not considered a student group. So they can't reserve venues, interesting, right? You know, they make millions of dollars.

They can't reserve a venue. So our professor just asked us, Hey, you know, I'm connected to the football team. They kind of want to do this revival night. And I'm like, and they're like, we need a venue. Do you think our group could reserve it? I'm like, sure. And he's like, well, you know, it's going to be kind of big, like they want to make it like thousands of people and this is very last minute planning.

So, you know, there's possible that we're not going to follow all the rules and stuff like that. You know, there might be a few things happening. And I'm just like, well, the football team is like, they're like dogs on campus. Right. And these are three of the starters. Yeah.

It's a hundred thousand people. Um, and so I'm like, well, what's the worst that could happen, right? The football players are not going to shut us down or anything. So let's do it. And, um, you know, our, our student president, you know, put in the reservations. Um, they had to do some back and forth explain because it was such a last minute event of a pretty big scale.

Yeah. And we got the venue. Yeah. So that's kind of our main involvement. The venue was on a giant lawn in the middle of the freshmen dorms. Wow. And so there's four dorms surrounding it. It's a really big one. Like the, the X. Yeah. There's a little bit of crisscross around it.

It can fit a couple thousand people. Cause at first they were thinking about a 500 person amphitheater, but they're like, I mean, this is the OSU football players, like just the Christian groups alone are going to fill it up. So we need a bigger venue. So, um, we got that venue.

Um, and I think what was really cool was, you know, it wasn't just our group, it was churches across the city. I'd say a lot of the campus ministry groups is a collaboration amongst all of us. We had a few meeting and planning calls, um, just to organize it, to do publicity.

They literally put posters, like printed thousands of posters, put them on everything, which was part of what we got dinged for. It was called the fall football kickoff night or something like that. And you have some of the players, you know, all off, they're like praying, praying to God.

That's clearly very, like a spiritual. Very spiritual. It was very clear. It was going to be a spiritual event. Um, and so, you know, night comes, uh, we got to help out. We got to help out with, you know, like ushering people that used our TV screen for pro-pre.

One of our staff got to be pro-pre, another guy got to, um, take video for them. So, overall, it was a really cool event, you know, um, and basically what happened was, you know, people start gathering, start bringing out their lawn chairs, 10, 15 minutes before the event. There's a few hundred people.

By the time it started and kind of really got going, I think they estimated about 2000 people showed up, um, and it started with rock and praise. But I think the best part was that all these players, um, they have legit testimonies and they have a heart to preach the gospel.

You know, one of the star running backs, Travion Henderson, he was sharing, kind of went through a period of depression after getting injured, but it was God who rescued him. And now he realizes, like, man, life is so much more than football because you can get injured one minute and everything's over.

Right. And so some of these players, they were just sharing their heart. And at the, the end, the tight end, man, he's a preacher in the making. He gives this amazing message on Luke 15. He's like, as people are walking by, he's like, Hey, you stop. Like, listen to this.

This is, you know, this is a chance to listen, you know, not cause we're football. And so, you know, he's like, you know, and everyone's like, what is going on? So he gives a call to accept Christ. People start streaming up to the front. I mean, it is amazing.

Right. And you're looking left and right. I mean, there's all these football players there. And just people on the campus are streaming over, making decisions to follow Christ. I mean, during the praise time, it was like raucous. Like it was awesome. It felt a little bit like being in Acts 2 when like, you know, revival is coming onto campus.

And so, and then after that, uh, they did on the spot baptisms. They had these five football tubs from the football facility, their ice baths. So they brought them over and we helped fill them up and everything. And then at first, actually, they asked some of the ministers to baptize people, but then realized like, no, the football players want to do it.

So we just like, Hey, you guys do it. Um, and then after the event, um, as people are getting baptized, we led them to a room where they could get kind of just confirmed in what they like just did. You know, they really want to make sure like these guys understand the decision, right?

It's not just, I want to go into water because football players are putting me in water. So, you know, there was like, there was a good 30 minute session where, you know, they're getting Bibles, they're getting connected to ministry groups. All the churches are there. And then, um, yeah, we basically kept going because praise started happening until the cops came and told us we had to close the event.

It was past 10 PM. So we quickly shut down everything as quick as we could cleaned up, emptied out the baptismals. Um, and man, it was, it was a powerful time. I mean, people are coming to Christ. Some of those people who went to that event, I mean, they, you know, they spread out amongst all the Christian groups.

Um, yeah, so if you, I mean, like you can see this all online, you know, if you look it up, there's Instagram videos and everything like that. So in terms of the event itself, people can look that up. But yeah, what was kind of your perspective doing a lot of the background work, having organized everything?

What was something that stood out to you about the event that made it like maybe more than just a revival night or like, yeah, maybe you can, you know, I think for me, um, and our team, I think it was just kept telling them, Hey, we get to play a small part in something bigger that God wants to do on this campus.

You know, every single week on Saturday, we do, we have a prayer walk on campus. We're praying for revival and you know, God, you know, there's no way one group can do that. Right. And so, how big is OSU? OSU is about 65,000 college students. Um, uh, no, within, including grad students.

Yeah. But 65,000 strong. It's one of the top five biggest campuses, I think. And, and it was just a privilege, I think, to get to play just even a little part knowing like, Hey, our reservation allowed these guys to preach the gospel. And, you know, it was their idea.

We just got to be a part of it. And I was like, this is what the church is about, you know? And, uh, people got blessed by it. Yeah. I know that's, that's not, you know, always true of like every campus and the Christian groups are on that campus.

But it's amazing. It's just by the sheer scale that all the Christian groups are like, we need every one of us to be doing stuff. And so that's a really neat sort of culture. Now, um, that, that kind of came into play a little later because there was some fallout.

There was some fallout. Yeah, there was a little bit of fallout. So, so it, it, like I mentioned, it felt a little bit like the book of Acts. So afterwards, you know, you expect, you know, this amazing event happening. It's in the newspaper. It's on like the news channels and stuff.

And, you know, we expected, okay, well, it's the football players. They're probably not going to like get mad or anything like that. Right. Well, it turns out, you know, they probably still have to follow their rules. So, um, we get an email from it's good. You know, they're trying to follow the rules.

The school is trying to do what they're supposed to do. But, um, our student president, our faculty sponsor, and I, we get called in by the school. Um, we have to sit in front of all these very official people telling us all the violations we made over the night, which we kind of knew was going to happen.

I mean, we lit posters went to like hundreds of people there. It was like everywhere around campus. So you're not supposed to do that kind of knew that, but, um, and then, you know, the baptismals, it didn't, it wasn't on the actual reservation, so you have to list everything.

So it's not necessarily that you can't do it, but it was planned in like two weeks. So the scale of it kind of was pretty big. Um, so they talked to us, um, we got a little bit dinged by the campus. Uh, we got put on probation as a group, so you could still reserve rooms, but, um, you have to pay for it now, um, you know, that half the normal price and whatnot.

So it ended up tolling with all our reservations, maybe being about $5,000 cost, which, you know, I'm thinking about like a couple of salvations, Hey, you know, totally worth it. But, um, I think what was really cool though, was afterwards, um, a lot of local Christians reached out to us.

So they sent out an email, the football revival group to all the people saying, Hey, if you want to donate, you know, the group that sponsored that to pay basically for some of that stuff. Um, and then even a local kind of unite the city group contacted us and, uh, it's called for Columbus.

Um, they put in their newsletter if anyone wanted to donate to help with some of the funds. So it was really cool. And even through that, a lot of other people got to participate. Um, but at first it really felt like, you know, the Sanhedrin are calling you in and flashing you because in the back of my mind, I'm like, Oh, does this mean we're not going to have reservations for the rest of the year?

Like we could get kicked off. But then even other groups are saying like, Hey, you know, we can reserve rooms for you if you need, like, we know that you took the bullet. So it just felt like it brought a lot of people together and God was using that to bring people together in a lot of cool ways.

Yeah. All things considered, uh, having to pay for reservations, not the worst thing that I'm like, other campus groups are paying for their reservations. Like, Hey, you know, that's not so bad. Wow. Wow. Um, like what, what has happened since on campus has the vibe changed or like, or more of online?

Yeah. So, um, there's really positive just overall, you just talk to people almost everyone on campus had heard of it. I mean, it was in the newspapers and the local news. Yeah. Um, so overall people just had a really good impression. I think just talking to other campus ministers, they just, they've all mentioned like they've just been coming to all of our groups because they heard of it.

Parents have been telling their kids, Hey, go to that. You know, um, it seems like the football players, from my understanding, I talked to a couple of them. They said they want to try something even bigger next semester where they can plan a little more for it. Yeah. Okay.

So we'll see what happens. Um, I do think that they're talking about renting out like the basketball auditorium or whatever that can fit like tens of thousands, who knows what'll happen. I think they're busy getting ready for the playoffs, but maybe after. After the playoffs, they'll have a little time to settle down and figure out.

So I think they want to do something more before they graduate and they just want to like highlight God. I mean, the whole night was about God and you know, cause they're football players, people come, but they were really trying to just share the gospel and preach. Yeah. As you, as you share that, two things stand out to me.

One, it's so cool that like the most talked about event on campus is a Christian event. Yeah. You know, and, and, um, that, you know, not that we had that and in Philly, you know, but, um, uh, I remember during our welcome week, just a lot of the Christian groups doing really cool events and people just going like, why is this not a Christian group weekend and stuff like that?

Like what that's going on? And it's just really neat when, um, you see that happen, um, that the, the Christian groups are so active towards the campus that, that that's the most talked about thing. Yeah. Right. So that, that itself, I think helps just set a certain kind of atmosphere on campus.

Second thing is like these football players are seniors. Yeah. Right. And so like they want to take advantage of their last year to make that impact on campus. And that's something we see in college ministry. It's just really neat to see like football players doing that. right. And like how, how that can, you know, impact the campus.

And so that's just very inspiring to hear that sort of thing. I had a, like one final question. It's kind of more a personal question for you, but, um, you played, you played football. I did. I did. I played for four years in high school. Four years. I did.

I was a lineman. Lineman. Okay. I know I don't look it. And I didn't look it back then, but you know, we came from a very small, humble school. Yeah. So even a guy like me could play a starting position. So you, you, you played football in high school.

You, you weren't really Christian at the time. I know your story, just, you're, you're my leader, you know, and then, but you're wearing now this, the shirt from the event. Yes. Jesus won. So what would, what would high school, non-Christian football gamer, woo-woo like see, like, what would he think seeing you wearing this shirt and having done this thing?

He would be mind blown about how God can transform people and be like, wow, like who knew? Like, I mean, part of the reason I was so excited to just say yes immediately was cause I love football. So I'm like, football. Yes. So, um, so yeah, I think. Tell us a little bit of your story.

Just like, yeah. Reflecting on that. Yeah. I think, um, my story is just one of being able to step into places that God had already kind of created, you know, like I grew up in church, wasn't a personal faith. When I stepped into our church back in 2005, you know, I was always looking for something more, you know, like if this thing is true, I really want to know.

And if it's true, I want to go for it. Um, and when I got to our church, I found a compelling picture of people really wanting to share their faith, living out the actual church, fell in love with it and been around ever since. And, um, you know, that's why I stuck around with our church.

That's why I wanted to go out and keep reaching out to college students. But it was seeing, um, both college students and young adults, uh, live out their faith that really compelled me. Um, and I think it's still one of the most compelling pictures. Yeah. Yeah. I'm thankful you do that because, uh, because then I met you and now I'm here too, you know, and everything.

Amazing how God works. Yeah. Well, good luck with, um, the, the playoffs. Yes. I know. I can't root for you guys because there's like other people in our network and be like, "No! What the heck?" Like, there's little rivalries going on. That's what I'm saying. This podcast does not endorse any official NFL team.

Yeah. Good luck. And man, we're, we're looking forward to hearing more of, yeah, hopefully more revival nights, more just impact on that campus. Yeah. Hopefully other campuses too. Who knows? I've heard that. Inspire other teams. Other teams have been talking about it. Yeah. Praise the Lord. Awesome. All right.

Well, thank you. Um, like, subscribe. Thanks for tuning in and, uh, hope you can tune into our next episode. See you around. Bye. We'll see you next time.