Kirk vigil in Bristol doubles as spiritual revival

BRISTOL — A Sunday night vigil in Kelley Park, honoring assassinated right-wing political activist, entrepreneur and media personality Charlie Kirk, served as a spiritual revival for the roughly 300 people who attended, organized by members of the Hill Village Bible Church.

Rather than emphasize Kirk’s political views, the vigil focused on his description of how he would want to be remembered.

“I want to be remembered for courage for my faith,” Kirk responded to the question in an interview. “The most important thing is my faith.”

During the vigil, Pastor Andrew Hemingway said, “The moment that Charlie was shot and life passed from his body, he opened his eyes, and he was in the presence of the one whom he had been worshiping and talking about.”

He continued, “He didn’t say he wanted to be remembered for helping to elect Donald Trump, though we’re thankful for that, aren’t we? He didn’t say that he was claiming or bragging about, perhaps, how important it was that he raised hundreds of millions of dollars for his organization. He didn’t talk about all of the campuses that he visited, or all the podcasts that he did, all the metrics that perhaps we might measure things by. No, his answer was very simple. It was for the courage of his faith. That’s what he wanted to be remembered by — the courage of his faith.”

Fellow Pastor Dan Boyce opened the program with a prayer to set the theme of the evening: darkness and light.

Quoting from Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, Boyce read, “You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them, for it is shameful even to speak of those things which are done by them in secret. But all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light.”

He prayed, “We thank you for the memory of Charlie Kirk. We pray for his family in the days ahead. And, Lord, we pray for America. America needs you. America needs revival. So we pray that you would send revival fires that would spread across our land, and we would once again be a city that is set on a hill.”

“Amens” punctuated the vigil and, while some arrived wearing patriotic colors, most wore nondescript clothing or sweatshirts bearing company logos. One T-shirt bore the message “Peace — Love — Pizza.”

While the crowd was assembling, one man bearing a large American flag led a chant: “Charlie Kirk! USA! Charlie Kirk! USA!”

The 50-minute program included a 12-minute video featuring clips from Kirk’s appearances, with a focus on his support of God and family.

“It’s important to remind yourself that, when you face God the Judge, he’s going to list everything you did wrong in your life,” Kirk said in one clip. “To me, [it’ll be] a long sentencing hearing for me, but you get justice, which is hell, because that’s what we deserve; mercy, which is less of that, which all other theologians figure out what that is; or grace. What is grace? Grace is something so unique, so different, so profound, which is, as soon as the sentencing is about to be ushered in, someone comes in and says, ‘No, I will serve that prison sentence for him. I will go into the prison cell for him or her so they can live forever.’ That’s grace. You didn’t earn it. You didn’t check boxes for it. You didn’t go park cars for a ministry, and that gets you extra points to go to heaven. None of that’s true. It’s that it’s equally accepted for all people that allow Jesus Christ to be your Savior, the Savior of the world, to be born new and to be completely and totally renewed. That’s a gift that we must try to give all people.”

Hemingway described Kirk’s funeral earlier that day as “a four-hour-long gospel message.”

“You see,” Hemingway said, “the darker things get, the brighter the light is, isn’t it? If you’re in a dark room and you have just a little light, it seems like a lot, right? That’s where we are today. And yet, listen, when you look around us tonight, when you see the size of this crowd tonight in this area, in the least-churched state in the country, and what is assumed to be the darkest place in America, New Hampshire, here we are bearing the light.”

Hemingway concluded the vigil by saying that listening or even believing in Jesus “is not enough to make you a light-bearer. You must be saved. You must cry out in faith and receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

"All around us tonight are those who’ve made that decision. As you heard, Charlie made that decision in fifth grade as a young man. Many of you have made that decision, maybe as children, maybe later in life; but ... hearing the gospel and hearing about Jesus Christ forces you to make a decision. To turn and walk away is to suppress truth and is to move to darkness. I plead with you tonight, do not turn to darkness. Embrace the light.”