Hope Night Wisco! Frank Lloyd Wright probably didn’t have this in mind when he first began designing what became Madison’s Monona Terrace Convention Center: a Friday night Holy Ghost revival service that filled Exhibition Hall B for three hours or more.
Hope Night Wisco at Monona Terrace was the 13th event in a series of Hope Nights that started a year ago last March when a recently converted couple in Chippewa Falls decided to sell their bar and event center. Before the sale their pastor, Landon Huie of Eau Claire’s Oasis Church, suggested, “Let’s have a worship night and lift Jesus high in this place.”
The service attracted not only church people. Customers from the bar next door walked in with drinks in their hand and, as Huie put it, “Jesus walked into the room.” Later, a similar event was held in Bloomer, with similar impact. Hope Nights continued in cities across northern Wisconsin, a dozen cities in all, and came to Madison last night.
“Jesus still heals,” Huie told the crowd of several thousand that filled the hall. “If you need hope and freedom, don’t leave here until someone prays for you and lays hands on you. We want to see people in Madison set on fire for the Lord.”
The unity of the church in Madison was one focus of the night as Huie thanked seventeen local churches and ministries that helped sponsor Hope Night. He invited all of the pastors in the room onto the platform for a prayer. In particular he credited Bryan Peterson, pastor of Ridgeway Church, and Tom Flaherty, pastor of City Church, for their local leadership.
“Unity is supernatural,” Flaherty then prayed. “This is a gift to Madison. We want to say thank you.”
After several worship songs, Steven Keller, pastor of Love Church in Menominee, Wisconsin, gave his personal conversion testimony, telling of the hopelessness of his life until he met Jesus. At the end, scattered people around the hall stood at his invitation to invite Jesus into their lives.
“We’re in a crisis situation here in America, in our society,” said Andrew Whalen, the leader of a Texas discipleship ministry, who spoke next. “We stand on the precipice of a great rise or a great fall in America.”
There was no specific reference to current events, such as the failure of Congress to act this week to prevent the shutdown of the federal government or current labor disputes. Instead he mentioned a moving dream and its connection to several contacts he had with people who were immersed in the study of the rise and fall of civilizations. “We’ve reached the time where we either have a massive collapse or a great spiritual awakening and the salvation of a nation.”
Whalen called all of the students from college to junior high school to the front of the hall. He commissioned everyone in the room to pray for the next generation and the burden they’re carrying. “Without an awakening,” he said, “we will lose a complete generation to darkness.”
Hope Night’s final speaker was Dr. Charles Karuku, a Kenyan born pastor and leader of Minesota-based Unity Revival Movement USA. Karuku received national attention in 2020 when the family of George Floyd invited him to lead a Christian response to the tragic murder that shocked Minnesota and the world, and revival broke out.
“I love what God is doing in America, spreading hope,” Karuku said, “Hope’s name is Jesus. Hope is the anchor to your soul.” He said he had spoken in 300 cities across the US since 2020. “God wants to awaken America; now is the time.”
Those who felt God calling them back to their first Love were invited to the altar at the front of the hall as the revival service transitioned to a time of prayer. “Don’t leave until somebody prays for you,” Huie repeated, as prayer team members spread across the hall.
More Hope Nights are scheduled through the end of the year: in Eau Claire on October 31, in Green Bay on November 10, and in LaCrosse on December 1. Huie’s Oasis Church is also hosting a Churches on Fire conference October 11-13.
Perhaps Frank Lloyd Wright actually could have envisioned a revival service at Monona Terrace. After all, just across Lake Monona, in what later became Olin Park, the Wisconsin Sunday School Association trained Sunday School teachers and hosted inspirational speakers from 1881 to 1910. Wright lived in Madison during the earliest of those years.
The historical marker at the park says the Monona Lake Assembly became the “Chatauqua of the West” during those days. Perhaps it’s time that Madison once again had a national reputation for leadership in God’s Kingdom.
