When your father spends his life on the road with B.B. Crimm — the cowboy preacher who wore a 10-gallon hat and carried a six-shooter into the pulpit — ministry feels like an adventure. Now a third-generation evangelist following in his father’s footsteps, Dr. Rob Randall has carried that legacy and adventurous spirit into a life devoted to revival.
“I’m a musician like my dad was, a singer, and preacher,” Randall said. “Revival evangelism gave me a place where I could use all my gifts.”
As a child, he listened to his father recount stories of attending Baylor University in the 1940s, when the Waco Youth Revivals ignited a renewed interest in evangelism across Texas. Those stories stayed with him. Decades later, they would inspire him to bring revival back to Baylor.
Randall explained that revival “comes from the Latin word revivo,” meaning “to live again.” He likened it to someone on a gurney who is suddenly brought back to life.
Revival is often marked by spontaneous worship and gatherings that draw thousands. However, revival historian Dr. Michael McClymond wrote for Christianity Today that “A gathered multitude does not constitute a revival. What distinguishes a revival is a deepening of spiritual feeling and expression.”
The influence of the 1940s movement still exists in FM72, an annual spiritual gathering that has been a Baylor tradition since 2019. FM72 is a more structured event — a contrast from the Waco Youth Revivals entirely born from student initiative — drawing large crowds, following a fixed schedule, and coordinated by Baylor’s Office of Spiritual Life.
The Waco Youth Revival movement began in 1944, when students returning from World War II, having witnessed profound tragedy and loss, started praying for spiritual renewal on campus and across the city. Their vision grew, leading to the 1945 Waco Youth Revival.
The success of the 1945 revival was tremendous. Securing a vacant downtown lot, students raised a sprawling white tent while Wacoans from across the city joined in, helping level the ground and building a stage.
Over the next few days, a revival took place unlike anything Waco had ever seen. The tent was packed every night. According to a small blue pamphlet titled “He Lives,” detailing the events of the revival and housed in the Texas Collection, 281 people made “decisions for Christ.”
“No sooner had the last service ended and the tent gone down than plans were being made for a second youth revival,” the pamphlet read.
That second revival took place the following year, and this time the students had a system in place. They hoped the second revival would garner even greater crowds and dedicated most of their budget to publicity. By the end of the 1946 revival, more than 4,000 people filled the tent.
However, the belief that the revivals of 1945 and 1946 were unique acts of God didn’t stop Baylor students from asking God to “do it again.”
For the next few decades, conversations about revival on campus gradually faded, lingering only in the memories of those who had witnessed it and in the legacy they left behind.
But years after his father’s time on campus, Randall arrived at Baylor, and the stories he had grown up hearing came flooding back. He began to wonder why a revival couldn’t happen again.
“We were at a pizza joint out on Valley Mills … and all of a sudden, on a black-and-white silent video, there’s a picture of the evangelist Billy Sunday on the streets of Chicago,” Randall recalled. “I looked at that and thought, ‘Lord, why can’t that happen here?’”
According to Randall, God answered him: “Because you haven’t asked me. All you have to do is ask me.”
But Randall was only one person, a transfer student still trying to find his footing in the Baylor community, and he needed support.
“The Lord spoke to me,” Randall said. “He said, ‘I want you to call [University President Abner V.] McCall up and talk to him about revival at Baylor.'”
When Randall approached McCall, he wasn’t asking for the institution to plan or organize the movement — all he needed was support.
“I said, ‘Dr. McCall, would you send out a memo with your signature and put it on the desk of every faculty member that you approve of this campus revival? I will coordinate it. I’m not asking you for money. All I’m asking is for your blessing,'” Randall said.
The timing wasn’t accidental. Across the country, a spiritual revival known as the Jesus Movement was gaining momentum. The Jesus Movement drew young Christians we were searching for purpose outside the era’s prevalent drug culture. In 1971, Time Magazine described the phenomenon as a “religious revolution.”
“It was all about the Jesus Movement,” Randall said.
When it finally came time for the event, the setting resembled the gatherings of the 1940s — a large tent, music, and a lineup of speakers.
“It was this bigger-than-us moment, and God began to provide and bless in ways that words really fall short,” Randall said.
Some of the most memorable moments at this revival came from unlikely voices — including a janitor named Benny from Penland Residence Hall who Randall asked to give his testimony.
“Benny spent his life walking up and down cleaning the halls of Penland, praying for everyone in every dorm … When he got up to give his testimony, heaven opened up,” Randall said. “I’ve never heard anyone more full of God than this janitor.”
Randall said Benny’s story is just one of many moments of divine intervention he witnessed during that revival, reminding Baylor students that what happened in ‘40s could and would happen again.
Randall loved Baylor, and to him it felt like home. But he believes the revival of the ‘70s can’t be credited to the University alone — It was an act of God.
“Let me say what a miracle this was. Institutions are threatened by revival,” said Randall. “Why? Because it’s what God does, it’s not what we do.”
