Book Reviews: Heart of Fire by Barry Chant,
The Spirit in the Church by Adrian Commadeur, Streams of Renewal by Robert Bruce (ed), Word and Spirit by Alison Sherington, Living in the Spirit by Geoff Waugh,
Reviews of the Renewal Journal by Lewis Born and James Haire
Jesus is totally committed to radical church growth. He promised to build his church. He is still doing that – in astounding ways. We can co-operate with him as he works in us and through us.
The famous revivalist, Reuben A. Torrey, reported on moves of God’s Spirit in his time early this century. We can pray and participate in this in our day. Here is Torrey’s comment. God can do this for your church
The very first sermon I preached as pastor of Moody Church, Chicago, was on prayer. As I drew my address to a close I said something like this:
‘Beloved brethren and sisters, how glad it would make your new pastor if he knew that some of you people sat up late every Saturday evening and rose early every Sunday morning to pray for their minister.’
Those honest souls took me at my word. What was the result? When I took the pastorate, the church (which seats about 2,200 in comfort) had never been filled above the main auditorium and the galleries had never been opened. But God heard prayer, and in a few weeks the place was packed.
But that was not the best of it. The power of God fell, and from that day till I left America, there was never a single Sunday without conversions. I don’t believe that there has been a single day in the whole of the ten years that have since passed without somebody being converted in or about that building.
You say, ‘That must have been remarkable preaching!’ Not at all. I was away five months in almost every year, but the work went on.
What God did for that church, he can do for yours. Pray without ceasing. Pray and believe. Pray and obey.
Thank you for your interest in this Renewal Journal. Many people have found it timely and helpful.
A minister in Ulverstone, Tasmania, wrote saying how appropriate the Journal was because the Lord is moving in that area in ways described in the Journal.
A man in Wangaratta, Victoria, noted that the Renewal Journal ‘has come at just the right time when there are stirrings of the Spirit in our own area after a long dry spell.’
A lady from the Atherton Tablelands in North Queensland wrote: ‘I believe the Lord is awakening his people because everyone I talk to has the same urgency about prayer in the churches. Many who have been sitting still for years are beginning to blossom and are encouraged and growing more than they have for twenty years in a short space of time. People are returning to the churches of their own accord – not through being witnessed to, but because the Lord is drawing them. This can only be because God’s people are praying and this is enabling the Holy Spirit to work.’
A man in Brisbane was so interested in the Renewal Journal he bought 50 copies to sell at meetings. He sold them all.
A group in Adelaide has been distributing the Journals at meetings.
These people all requested bulk orders of the Journal so they could pass copies on to their friends.
We encourage you to do the same. That will help us keep the Renewal Journal afloat, for we need more subscribers for this new journal. Friends telling friends are our best advertising.
You can still obtain copies of the first issue, on revival. It has struck a strong chord for many people.
This second issue explores church growth. Andrew Evans describes the place of prayer in a church that grew from 150 to 3,500 people. Jack Frewen-Lord, Cindy Pattishall-Baker and Dean Brookes all report on significant growth in Uniting Churches. John McElroy outlines vital leadership principles in growing churches. Stuart Piggin gives an overview of local revivals in Australia and Trevor Faggoter tells the story of one of these. David Wang tells of revival growth in Asia, and I comment on the astounding church growth in the world today.
I’ve been encouraged by reports of people who have started prayer groups for revival since reading the first issue of this journal. The example of people giving one day a month for prayer and fasting, described in this issue by Andrew Evans, has been taken up by more churches. One young man in Brisbane heard of this and asked his minister if he could organize it in their church. He promptly gathered a list of over 31 people who would pray and fast for their church and for revival one day a month. Now they have someone doing that every day of each month.
Stuart Piggin’s article in this issue tells of over 6,000 Anglicans in Sydney now gathering regularly to pray for revival.
Not only are more people praying than ever before, but there are now reports of the Spirit of God moving more strongly in individuals and in churches, such as the reports at the beginning of this editorial. In church services and prayer meetings whole groups of people are being touched afresh by God. Some groups now report strong impacts of the Spirit in people’s lives like we saw in the early seventies. Many are renewed. Many saved. Many have visions or are overwhelmed by the Spirit.
Hoist your sail! Fresh winds blow across the land now.
(c) Renewal Journal 2: Church Growth (1993, 2011)
Reproduction is allowed with the copyright intact with the text.
Now available in updated book form (republished 2011)
Reviews: Cho, David Yonggi. 1984.Prayer: Key to Revival, Burgess, S. M. and McGee, G. B. 1990.Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements, Jan Jongenell, ed. 1990.Experiences of the Spirit, Jan Jongeneel, et. al. eds. 1992.Pentecost, Mission and Ecumenism: Essays on Intercultural Theology. Festschrift in Honour of Professor Walter J. Hollenweger, Geoff Waugh, ed. 1991.Church on Fire, YWAM Videos/DVDs.
Welcome to the first issue of the Renewal Journal. It is a resource in renewal ministries for the whole church, the body of Christ.
This issue describes a little of the amazing move of God’s Spirit in the world today. Future issues will give more details, especially on how renewal and revival affect us. We can be involved. We need to be. We can pray for revival and believe God’s promises. We can humble ourselves, pray, seek God, and repent (2 Chronicles 7:14). We need to repent of our disobedience, for we have not loved God wholeheartedly and we have not always loved one another.
Many thousands of praying groups now meet in unity across the land like showers of glowing sparks blown by God’s wind. Prayer cells, home groups, church prayer meetings, vocational groups, student groups and informal clusters of friends gather regularly in ever-increasing numbers. Your praying groups are part of that vast movement raised up by God.
We are learning to pray and minister as Jesus did, as he taught his disciples to do, and as he told them to teach others to do (Matthew 28:18-20). It’s a massive revolution in prayer and ministry in homes, farms, schools, colleges, universities, and workplaces, as well as in many churches.
This journal encourages you to pray in faith for renewal and revival. You can make a difference – a big difference. Pray in unity with others. It only takes two or three, as Jesus told us (Matthew 18:20).
The articles in this issue by Stuart Robinson and Edwin Orr show the vital link between earnest prayer and revival. Djiniyini Gondarra describes recent touches of God’s Spirit which have affected Aboriginal communities. John Greenfield’s writings recall the impact of the Moravian revival, and I give an overview of revival movements including some current examples.
Reviews and news in this Renewal Journal will inform you of some current renewal activities and resources.
You could keep copies of the Renewal Journal in your church or college library. Some home groups or churches may be interested in arranging bulk orders for their people. Please don’t throw your copy away! Pass it on to a friend.
Your prayer and support, such as encouraging people to subscribe, will help to keep this new venture going. I am grateful for the constant prayer and personal support given by our Renewal Fellowship in Brisbane which grew naturally out of a small home group, and for the involvement of the Brisbane Outreach Centre School of Ministries which is publishing this Renewal Journal from 1999.
Pray without ceasing
All across the land thousands of small groups are praying. Many are spontaneous, brought together by God. Some congregations have dozens or scores of praying groups now. Every revival began this way. Your part in this is vital.
We urge you to pray on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings for your leaders as they prepare, pray and preach. We also urge you to join with us and others praying on Mondays every week (in groups or alone) for renewal and revival, for God’s glory. Be encouraged as you join with thousands of others in earnest prayer for revival in the land.
If you have 31 people willing to set aside one day a month to fast and pray for revival and for your ministry, you would have someone in your church or fellowship doing so every day of the year. That is now happening in some churches in Australia.
If you have 168 people willing to set aside one hour a week to pray for revival and for your ministry, you could have continuous prayer around the clock, in hourly shifts, day and night all year long. The Moravians did that for 100 years. We can now, in this day of God’s power.
The Renewal Journal will keep you informed of developments as we hear about them. One example is the 600 million people now involved in Pentecostal, charismatic and church renewal, which is over one-quarter of all Christians. Those numbers continue to explode in revival.
May revival fire burn brightly within us all so that thousands believe, the church comes alive, and communities are radically transformed by God. To God be the glory.
*
(c) Renewal Journal 1: Revival (1993, 2011)
Reproduction is allowed with the copyright intact with the text.
Share below on your Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linkedin & Emails – to inform and bless others. Blessed to bless.
Kambaidam, Papua New Guinea, by Johan van Bruggen
Then came Thursday, August 4, a miserable day weather wise, although we had great joy during our studies. Evening devotions not all students came, actually a rather small group. I too needed some inner encouragement to go as it was more comfortable near the fire. We sang a few quiet worship songs. Samson, a fellow who by accident became one of our students last year, well, this Samson was leading the devotions. We had sung the last song and were waiting for him to start. Starting he did, but in an unusual way. He cried, trembled all over! … Then it spread. When I looked up again I saw the head prefect flat on the floor under his desk. I was praying in tongues off and on. It became quite noisy. Students were shouting! Should I stop it? Don’t hold back! It went on and on, with students praying and laughing and crying not quite following our planned programme! We finally stood around the table, about twelve of us, holding hands. Some were absolutely like drunk, staggering and laughing! I heard a few students starting off in tongues and I praised the Lord. The rain had stopped, not so the noise. So more and more people came in and watched!
Not much sleeping that night! They talked and talked! And that was not the end. Of course the school has changed completely. Lessons were always great, I thought, but have become greater still. Full of joy most of the time, but also with a tremendous burden. A burden to witness. …
What were the highlights of 1988? No doubt the actual outpouring of the Holy Spirit must come first. It happened on August 4 when the Spirit fell on a group of students and staff, with individuals receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit on several occasions later on in the year. The school has never been the same again. As direct results we noticed a desire for holiness, a hunger for God’s Word which was insatiable right up till the end of the school year, and also a tremendous urge to go out and witness. Whenever they had a chance many of our students were in the villages with studies and to lead Sunday services. Prayer life deepened, and during worship services we really felt ourselves to be on holy ground. …
We have been almost left speechless by what God is doing now through our students. We realize that we have been led on and are now on the threshold of a revival.
Acts 2 all over again
A young student, David, in his early twenties from the Markham Valley had a growing burden for his area of Ragizaria and Waritzian which was known and feared as the centre of pagan occult practices. He prayed earnestly. As part of an outreach team he visited nearby villages and then went to his own people. He was concerned about the low spiritual life of the church. He spent a couple of days alone praying for them.
He was invited to lead the village devotions on the Saturday night at Ragizaria. Johan van Bruggen told the story in his circulars:
Since most of the Ragizaria people are deeply involved in witchcraft practices, David made an urgent appeal for repentance. Two men responded and came forward. David put his hands on them and wanted to pray, when suddenly these two men fell to the ground. They were both praising the Lord. Everybody was surprised and did not know what to think of this. David himself had been slain in the Spirit at Kambaidam in August 1988, but this was the first time that this had happened to others through him. The next morning during the Sunday service scores of people were slain in the Spirit. Said David, “People entered the church building and immediately they were seized by God’s power. They were drunk in the Spirit and many could not keep standing. The floor was covered with bodies.” It did not only happen to Lutherans, but also to members of a Seventh Day Adventist congregation (former Lutherans) that were attracted by the noise and commotion.
David reported that there was a sense of tremendous joy in the church and people were praising the Lord. Well, the service lasted for hours and hours. Finally David said, “And now the people are hungry for God’s Word and not only in my village, but also in Waritzian, a nearby village. And they want the students to come with Bible studies. Can we go next weekend?”
We all felt that some students together with Pastor Bubo should go. …
Pastor Bubo told me,“Acts 2 happened all over again!”For three days all the people were drunk in the Spirit. God used the students and Bubo in a mighty way. On Saturday night the Holy Spirit was poured down on the hundreds of people that had assembled there. From then on until the moment the school car arrived on Monday noon, the people were being filled again and again by the Spirit. There was much rejoicing. There were words of prophecy. There was healing and deliverance. And on Monday morning all things of magic and witchcraft were burned. Everybody was in it, the leaders, the young, yes even little children were reported to be drunk in the Spirit. … The people did not want to go and sleep, saying, “So often we have had drunken all night parties. Now we will have a divine party until daybreak.”
This area had been a stronghold of evil practices. Many people received various spiritual gifts including unusual abilities such as speaking English in tongues and being able to read the Bible. People met for prayer, worship and study every day and at night. These daily meetings continued to be held for over two years.
That revival kept spreading through the witness and ministries of the Bible School graduates.
Acts 3 all over again
In November 1990, Johan van Bruggen wrote:
This is what happened about two months ago. A new church building was going to be officially opened in a village in the Kainantu area. Two of our last year’s graduates took part in the celebrations by acting the story in Acts 3: Peter and John going to the temple and healing the cripple.
Their cripple was a real one a young man, Mark, who had his leg smashed in a car accident. The doctors had wanted to amputate it, but he did not want to lose his useless leg. He used two crutches to move around the village. He could not stand at all on that one leg. He was lying at the door of the new church when our Peter and John (real names: Steven and Pao) wanted to enter. The Bible story was exactly followed: “I have got no money, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Well, they acted this out before hundreds of people, among them the president of the Goroka Church District and many pastors and elders. Peter (Steven) grabbed the cripple (Mark) by the hand and pulled him up. And he walked! He threw his crutches away and loudly praised the Lord! Isn’t that something? What a faith!
Their testimony was given at a meeting of elders when Kambaidam was discussed. Mark was a most happy fellow who stood and walked firmly on his two legs. He also had been involved in criminal activities, but in this meeting he unashamedly confessed his faith in the Lord Jesus.
Later I talked with them. Steven (Peter) told me that the Lord had put this on his heart during a week long period of praying. “I had no doubt that the Lord was going to heal Mark, and I was so excited when we finally got to play act! And Mark? He told me that when Steven told him to get up he just felt the power of God descend upon him and at the same time he had a tingling sensation in his crippled leg: “I just felt the blood rushing through my leg, bringing new life!” Mark is now involved in evangelistic outreach and his testimony has a great impact.
Amazing revival stories from Bougainville in the South Pacific. New Testament events still happen. Walking on water to witchcraft island and back. Magic discovered and destroyed.
Selections from revival stories in South Pacific Revivals. Share this page to inform and bless others – great stories for messages, youth groups and study groups.See links below to share on your Facebook, Twitter, Google, Linkedin & Emails.
Bougainville Revival – South Pacific
Royree Jensen (Sons of Thunder, 2009) tells the story of powerful revival in Bougainville, east of Papua New Guinea, during the decade of war from 1988, sparked by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) to defend their land and culture from devastation caused by mining. Spiritual leaders worried about the western evils that arrived with the mining: pornography, alcohol abuse, drugs, smoking and immorality. Here are selections from Royree’s story.
Friday, November 6, 1987 marked the first supernatural revival event. It was at this time that the crisis was about to boil over. The stories of that day and the period of time that followed have been told to me by Papa Luke, a genteel man – white haired, 73 years of age, a school teacher, world-travelled. He lives on Saposa Island, 30 minutes by banana boat from Buka Island. He was a small boy during World War II and can remember the time when the Japanese invaded his island. Having lived through so much turbulence, Papa Luke now spends most of his days sitting with God. When we finally found him, he was sitting by the ocean reading his Bible.
Papa Luke
Both teacher and story-weaver, he began to talk, vividly recalling the day the revival began, in the circular story-telling style of the Melanesian people.
“Before revival came up, I wrote a drama about God that mixed the culture with the Word of God. We had a drama group of young people who travelled around Buka area.
Around this time, nine people got sick from black magic. Out of the nine, five died and four were left.
“My cousin Salome was one of the four people who didn’t die. She was brought to the hospital in Buka but she didn’t recover, so she was referred to Arawa General Hospital. She didn’t recover there. The Indian doctor told her and her husband that he had seen witchcraft in India and knew that this poison came from the witchcraft. The doctor discharged her and she came home.
“They had a ritual ceremony where they asked for the sorcerers to release her by making a sacrifice to free her. She was meant to get better but didn’t improve. After black magic failed, her brother, the chief, requested for the drama group to come back to our village and pray.
“By Sunday morning, my cousin was still sick. My family brought her to the Lotu (church service). They prayed for deliverance and healing. She got healed immediately along with the other three who were still sick. Five dead. Four healed. On that Sunday, many spiritual gifts fell. Everyone received a spiritual gift – all different kinds of gifts.
“Now the group went to the island where Salome and the others got sick. They were going to heal the island of the witchcraft that had killed the people. They put their hands into the ground without having to dig and they pulled out the poison. Their hands went through the ground to the exact spot of the bones or whatever artifacts had been used for the witchcraft. Their eyes were closed but the Holy Spirit led them to these places.” (As he told me this, he shaped his hand as they had shaped theirs – like a rigid blade extending straight from the arm.)
Walking on water
“Now things became wild, exciting and interesting. Supernatural things began to happen. By the power of the Holy Spirit, my cousin Salome discerned that there was some witchcraft poison on another nearby island (a burial site) that was put there by a sorcerer. We began to pray. While we prayed, fifteen people stood with their eyes shut. Still with their eyes shut, they began walking on the water from our island to the nearby island. The Holy Spirit led them while they walked. When they reached the other island, they put their hands into the ground and pulled out small parcels of scraped human bone. This powder was being used by sorcerers in their witchcraft rituals. They brought these parcels of scraped bones back to our island, still walking on top of the water with their eyes still shut. They did not swim.
“We prayed over the parcels and threw them away into salt water. This broke the power of witchcraft. We don’t know how they did the walking on the water except by the power of God. Plenty of people saw them walking on the water. There were plenty of eye witnesses. The distance between the two islands is one kilometre.
“The effect that this had on the island was that we became very excited about God. Many became Christians and worshipped God. It didn’t stop there. Some of our school boys and girls, including my son, visited another island. All the mothers prepared food for them to share out. My son climbed a tree leaving his plate of food for a friend. The friend ate the food and died, along with eight other children and their teacher. My pikinini only got sick.
“This was not the only group to visit that island and die so we were waking up to the fact that the island had something no good on it. We notified all the ministries around us. For one week, we fasted, prayed and read the Bible.
“First we went back to the island where our 15 people had walked. We found more black magic – enough to fill a 10kg bag of rice. We prayed over it and threw it in the water. A big flying fox with legs like a man settled on top of the house where I was staying with another pastor. We could feel the wind from his wings. We rebuked this evil, black magic. It was powerful and even those who were praying fell down. This battle went on for quite a while but the people in our church were skilled in deliverance and intercession and eventually we started to win over this black magic.
“Two days later, we visited the island where the school children had died. We circled the island in a small boat worshipping God. We were all a little bit afraid. First people who could discern black magic went ashore. Then those who could fight black magic went ashore. Then we all went ashore.
“We stood together and worshipped God. Then we split into two groups, heading around the island in opposite directions. Just before we joined up, one team stood under a tree and looked up. They saw a live bird that they knew was part of black magic. They said, ‘In the name of Jesus come down.’ The bird died and began to fall. By the time it hit the ground, only the skeleton of the bird was left.
“One month before, some plantation workers had been on the island. A man had sat under that tree to rest. He took sick, went to hospital and died. However, after we fought the black magic, it was okay. Even today, 20 years later, people live there and no one gets sick. There is good food, good fish and everything grows. It is no longer a witchcraft island.
“These things marked the beginning of the revival. Demonic spirits were being chased out of our land.”
More miracles
Albert was a young Christian during the crisis. He adds: “I now see, feel and walk on the power of God. I didn’t know these things when I was a young Christian but I saw it in others. There were those who were operating on the high voltage power of God. These were people who would walk through a hail of bullets and not get hit. I would say that the host of heaven caught some of the bullets for me.
“There was one instance in 1993 when I was leading a group of chiefs from up in the mountains to sign a peace agreement. I was not doing this job of my own accord but because it was my job to do. I prayed to my God, “The fighting is all around us and I am a Christian. If You are going to go with me, talk with me tonight, Papa God. I don’t want to lead them through the bullets.
“At 2 a.m., my elder son who was three spoke in English. He did not know English. He said, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, you can go.’ He was fast asleep. Fifteen years later, the memory still brings tears to my eyes and a reverent awe of God. This was not the time of meetings, conferences, mobile phones or encouragement. This was a hard time and we only had God.
“I woke up in the morning with peace. That day, 15 of the chiefs started to run back to the mountains. I told them that God was with us and that not one single man must run away even if there is gunfire. I told them that, if one runs, then the guns will get us but that if no one runs, we will all be safe.
“There was a place called Ambush Corner always maintained by BRA. They knew where I was taking these chiefs and why. They didn’t want anyone to sign peace papers. I was in the front of the line. The Holy Spirit stopped me and I heard a voice tell me to take the chiefs to one side. I stopped them and said, ‘We are about to enter Ambush Corner and I am afraid that there are people ready to kill us. However, last night, I felt the peace of God. Don’t run but stand strong beside me.’ We walked ahead and the BRA descended upon us. I said to them, ‘In Jesus’ name, I am a servant of God.’
“They pointed their weapons to the sky and fired them off, then they pointed their guns at us but the guns wouldn’t fire. The chiefs kept following me saying that the peace must come from God. The peace we enjoy today in Bougainville is because of that document.
“One time, I was holding my son on my shoulders going for a tramp. We came to a flooded river which was odd because there had been no rain so we took another route. Later I found out that there was an ambush waiting to kill us. The unnatural flood changed our direction.”
During the late 1980s when war erupted, life was going on in its exotic daily routines in the jungle. Yet there was one clan leader who decided to stay in his village, 2 kms from the coastline and about 80 kms from Panguna Mine. Such villages were caught between flying bullets. Pastor Ezekiel made a home there he made called Aero Centre. Here are just a few stories that have been told directly to me some ten years since the guns were laid down.
A boy’s story: “During the crisis, PNGDF men entered the little house I lived in with my mother. I was 12 years old. They demanded kerosene and food at gunpoint. My mother was a Christian and so she began to pray. They held a gun to her head but she said, ‘No’. Kerosene was more valuable than gold for us. Without it, we couldn’t run our home. The soldier pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t go off. All this time, I watched my mother. They pulled the trigger a second time. The gun didn’t go off. The soldier went outside our hut, pulled the trigger and it went off. The gun was loaded and it exploded. These soldiers realised that God was with my mother. They quickly ran away. We kept our kerosene.”
By the time that 12 year old boy told me this story, he was a young man, yet the awe of God was still on him. He had witnessed his mother’s faith in God and he is still walking in the fear of God.
Ruth, a vivacious school teacher recalls her experiences of being a woman during the crisis and the revival: “In the time of the crisis, God helped my family in a big way. We had no money to buy clothes, food and soap. God showed us how to use coconut and lemon to wash our clothes to make them white as snow. He showed us how to use coconut oil from our own coconut trees for our lamps. Before the crisis, we used to buy kerosene for our lamps. Now there was no money and no kerosene. Salt was also not available so He showed us how to cook our food in salt water from the ocean, adding grated coconut for our flavours. Sometimes we would boil the ocean water until all we had left was the powdery salt. In these ways, God showed me that He loved women in their domestic situation; that even in a crisis He could provide all we needed by looking after our clothes and our bodies.
“God also blessed the ground during the crisis. Food that we hadn’t planted appeared – sweet potato, yam, taro, casava, chinese taro, banana and other fruit. This didn’t just happen in one place. It happened all over the island. In fact, there is now a category of sweet potato called crisis kaukau!”
Jane: “When the crisis came, people ran away to the mountains leaving their chickens behind. It seemed that those chickens found their way to our village so we had plenty of meat for a long time during the crisis.”
10 years after the surrender of guns, young men and women – some married with children – are going to great lengths to complete primary and secondary education. Schools are being built or re-built but teachers are few and often minimally qualified. Because of the crisis, those who should now be teaching are themselves still in formal education. Those educated before the crisis are helping those who are now studying. Those who are uneducated are making their living from working the cocoa plantations.
With no help from the neighbouring giant, Australia, and with the confusion and betrayal of brother fighting brother, they turned to God, sometimes praying from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. As the saying goes, “When God is all you have you find that He is enough.”
Pastor Ezekiel & Janet
Another leader, Pastor Ezekiel, had been a United Church pastor since his training for the ministry. He had received the spiritual experience known as the Baptism in the Holy Spirit at the time of his salvation. This experience turns knowledge into spiritual energy and liturgy into dynamic power. Knowing about God is exchanged for knowing Him personally. Icy religion is melted by joy and hope. It was not surprising, therefore, that he became a key player in the revival in Bougainville.
Pastor Ezekiel was told to close down his Bible School. Because of the crisis, all of the schools on the island had been closed down and he was to comply. He refused. He said that it was not his place to close it down. God had opened it and God would have to shut it. He was viciously beaten as a result of this decision, and on a number of other occasions. Over 500 people, including many women, have graduated from his Bible School. Many are now missionaries in other countries.
Another extraordinary side effect of the crisis was the subsistence diet. Many times I have heard it said that they came out of the crisis 10 years younger than they used to be because all the refined food was taken out of their diet. They ate from the soil. “Our bodies got healthy and strong.
Prayer Mountain
A Prayer Mountain emerged deep into the crisis years. Its origins were mysterious and its role in the crisis and in the revival was equally other-world.
A contributing factor to the glory of God over Bougainville and to the revival has to have been this Prayer Mountain. In Bougainville and in other parts of the world, it is not uncommon for a geographical site to be set aside as a prayer mountain. However, when I began to hear stories of this one particular Prayer Mountain, I knew that God had met with this people in a rare manner, not unique, but certainly rare.
Pastor Ezekiel’s strength and focus on God encouraged others to become giants in faith also. David Gagaso is one such giant. This strong and good looking young man with a soft, melodic voice was the one who received the word from God about this mountain.
David made a choice as a young man to live an uncompromising life of faith in Jesus Christ. He was diligent in his pursuit of spiritual things leading him to a series of miraculous experiences. Phenomena in the night sky, visions, and voices helped him locate a certain mountain on which he, his brother and friends built a bush house for prayer. This became known as Prayer Mountain. In the context of the chronology of the crisis, the Prayer Mountain phenomenon was most intense just prior to the final attempts by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and Papua New Guinea to bring peace to the island.
He said, “In that bush house, the presence of God came down. The place was totally covered and filled with thick fog and smoke. We could hardly see other people in this little house. Pastor began using Prayer Mountain, hosting prayer seminars and prayer programs.
“We began to see manifestations of God. People began to receive songs and others saw angels. We were lost in prayer and fasting.
“If Pastor was going out to speak at a crusade, we would first go up the mountain to pray. Then, while he was speaking, people would stay on the mountain praying. My older brother saw an angel dressed in white.
“When people were disobedient, lightning would appear and wrap itself around the people. For instance, God had showed us how to build the house on Prayer Mountain. It was hard work. We cut the trees down the mountain and then carried the wood up the mountain to the place where we were building. One day, three men decided to go hunting instead of doing this hard work. The lightning appeared and wrapped itself around them. They nearly died. They smelt bad and could hardly speak. They were out of their senses. After an hour, they began to talk to each other, asking how they felt about the lightning. My brother told them the reason for the lightning – that they didn’t follow instructions.
“In 1999, we replaced the bush house with one that had a tin roof. At the opening service for that house, I felt the presence of Jesus Christ as we were worshipping. Everyone was flat on the ground, face down. Even the musicians were on the ground with their instruments. It was an awesome incredible experience for me that I will never forget. We had to stop the whole service because we enjoyed God’s presence so much. It took us a very long time to come back to the rest of the service. We could not pray or dance or sing but could only be flat on the ground before the presence of God.
“Normally before people set foot on Prayer Mountain, the sky would be clear. When people entered the prayer house, cloud would cover up the whole place even though there were no other clouds in the sky.
“We never slept at Prayer Mountain, but would always come back to the foot of the mountain to sleep. …
David paused and then continued. “Our experience in the crisis produced people who can be involved in missions. We are not scared about any situation. We learn language easily; we eat anything or nothing; we sleep anywhere; we need nothing; we carry fire.
“I personally believe that God is going to raise up very aggressive missionaries from our island. One of the things I believe is that the Church should be involved in mission. Our Church in Bougainville is now reaping what we were planting up there in Prayer Mountain. We prayed for Africa and now we have missionaries there. Same with Indonesia. We are becoming the answer to our own prayers. I myself am about to go to a place that is not safe for Christians.”
Jane took up the story. “Prayer Mountain was where the Spirit of God fell. Things happened that are foreign to the western mind.
“It started when we took Bible School students up to Prayer Mountain for a retreat. We planned to be there for two weeks, praying and fasting, before sending them out on a ministry trip.
“At the time of this two week stay on Prayer Mountain with the students, we were not thinking in terms of a revival. We were just being obedient to why we believed God had established Prayer Mountain.
“Soon, people were lifted up off the ground during worship and prayer. One girl was lifted up, flew past me and landed outside the building. Other students went through the wall, breaking it on their flight, landing outside.
“We tried to stop them; to quiet them down; to bring them back inside the building. But there was a fear of God and a fear of the unknown. We were afraid that if we stopped it, we would be touching something that was God.
“One time Ezekiel was up Prayer Mountain. On his way back to Aero Centre, he met two ‘white men’ who were glowing. They asked him where he was going. He said, ‘Home’ and then passed them. He turned around. They were gone.
“Another time a group was cleaning the building at the top of Prayer Mountain. They arrived to find footprints all around the house. You must understand that this is not a place where anyone lived and those on cleaning duty would have seen anyone leave the house on their way up the mountain. They knew straight away that these were the footprints of angels.
“I have to say that, even though we do not now go up the Prayer Mountain, the impact still remains. When we meet for worship, we don’t need to be gee-ed up. Rather, we begin to worship God from the start. We are aware of the danger of following a routine or a program.”
There is no doubt that this mountain played a crucial part in both the revival and in the beginning of the end of the crisis. Ezekiel’s adds:
“Before Prayer Mountain, and into the second year of the crisis, people were singing worship songs to God. The sound of the singing was heard around the mountains.
“When it was time to be in church, people would run to the front of the church, casting themselves down on the smooth rocks that were alongside the front of the church. There were times when the dirt floor of the church was indented by the banging of heads in repentance and worship.
“Then came Prayer Mountain. We stopped at the bottom of the mountain to confess our sins and if we didn’t do this well enough on the first stop, such conviction would come on us that we would stop again. Finally we would reach the prayer house at the top of the mountain and the presence of God would come down. We wouldn’t talk but could only whisper because of the awareness of the Holy Spirit. The day came, after the building was completed, for its dedication. I put a big ceremony on the doors and then we went inside. When we were about to sing the first song we found that we couldn’t stand. We were prostrate on the floor before God. Prophecy after prophecy came.
“We had not expected this. The prophecies spoke against the war. In fact, when the Peace-Keeping Forces arrived in Bougainville, God reminded us of the prophecies from that meeting. What is more, we were praying on Prayer Mountain when they arrived in Bougainville.
“Another time, the Holy Spirit showed Himself by thunder and lightning. I became aware that we needed to keep ourselves holy while on Prayer Mountain. Twice, lightning came and hit the ground. People tried to run away but a lightning bolt picked them up and rolled them all over Prayer Mountain. Seeing these things increased the fear of God. …
Pastor Ezekiel told me of its final days. “By 1999, a prophetic message came that we had to leave the mountain. God began to speak from John 4:21-24. The message of those verses came to me as,“I am no longer just in that mountain. Meet Me here as you met Me on the mountain.”
“This process of obedience gave us further understanding of the holiness and presence of God. “We began to question God. “Why are we not experiencing what we experienced before?”
“Then God began to give us the understanding that Prayer Mountain was not just for ourselves but was for taking the Gospel to other people. He spoke to us about mission. Now we were to plant churches and experience things that used to only happen on Prayer Mountain. We have done this. For instance, we now even have missionaries in Africa.
“We had to learn about the omnipresence of God. Some young people went back to Prayer Mountain to try to get back what we had experienced but nothing happened. It was a time and a season and a place for a specific purpose.
“In 2000, we launched Christian Missionary Fellowship in Bougainville. We are now sending missionaries into PNG and to the rest of world.”
Daniel Kolenda wrote: This book is very different. It is 628 pages crammed full of some of the most fascinating and thrilling stories you will ever read…and they are all absolutely true! It reads like a sequel to the book of ACTS and every minister will draw courage and inspiration from its pages…especially evangelists.
It is especially interesting to me because I have heard Evangelist Bonnke tell many of these stories firsthand and they are unforgettable. Here is an abbreviated excerpt of one such story from Chapter 18. Enjoy…
My phone rang. Brother Harold Horn, someone I had known since my arrival in Lesotho, said, “Reinhard, come to Kimberly and preach to us.” I said, “I will come.”
…Friday night as I sat on the platform I looked across the gathering of 200 people. Not one young person did I see in the room. Not one. I leaned over to Harold, who was near to me, and asked, “Where are the young people?” He nodded sadly, acknowledging that I had correctly seen the problem. Every head in the room was gray. I preached. The service was closed, and the people filtered out to their cars to go home. When they had gone, Harold came to me.
“Reinhard, would you like to see the answer to your question? Would you like to know where all the young people in Kimberly are?”
“Yes, I would,” I replied.
“I will show you. Get into my car, and I will take you there.”
…He drove through the streets, turning this way and that until he came to a large building at the edge of a warehouse district. The building was ablaze with gaudy neon signs. One large sign blinked out the word, disco, disco, disco…The parking lot was jam-packed to overflowing with vehicles. …As he turned off the key I could hear the boom, boom, boom, of the heavy bass beat coming through the walls of that building. The so-called music seemed to shake the very ground beneath us with an ungodly spirit. “This is a den of iniquity,” I said sadly…He nodded. “This is the latest thing, Reinhard. It is called a discotheque, a dance club. It is a craze that is sweeping the whole world right now, and young people everywhere are very attracted to it. … Let’s go inside.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Let’s go home. I have never gone to such a place. It would be an abomination to me… But as I turned to get into the car I felt bad inside. I stopped in my tracks. This is when the Holy Spirit began to speak to me. Since I had come this far, something seemed wrong if I now turned away. But I had no idea what the Spirit wanted me to do. I just couldn’t leave.
“Let’s take a look inside,” Harold suggested. Suddenly, this seemed exactly right. Everything in my spirit said yes. I nodded. “OK, Harold. Let’s just take a look at this disco.” …We came to the door and stood there. I felt the Spirit say to me very clearly, Look inside. I will show you something you do not know. I took a deep breath then opened the door. The blast of music must have knocked the hair back from my forehead. I have never heard such volume in my life. It was deafening. But it was in that instant that I received a spiritual vision of the reality of the disco. In the flash of the strobe lights, I did not see young people dancing with joy. I saw frozen images of boredom, fear, loneliness, and insecurity, one after the other, captured on the faces of those young people. The split-second flashes of light revealed these images, over and over and over again, like stop-action. Each of those haunted faces spoke to me of emptiness. Pure emptiness.
…Suddenly, I could not care less what anyone thought of me. I knew that I would preach in this disco. Nothing could deny the love of Jesus that I felt. I shut the door and looked at Harold. I heard the Holy Spirit say in my heart, Find the owner of this place. And so, I said to Harold, “Help me to find the owner of this disco.”
“What good will that do?”
“I must talk to him. Let’s find him now.”
“But what will you say to him?”
“I will ask him to let me preach in his disco.”
Harold laughed. “You won’t do that, Reinhard.”
“I will. I absolutely will.”
Harold followed me now. I inquired inside the disco, and we were led to an office at the rear of the building. The owner was a middle-aged businessman who looked to be very much a part of the rock-and-roll culture. He had long hair, gold chains around his neck, an open-collared shirt, and blue jeans. I said to him, “Sir, I’ve come all the way from Germany. I am asking you for permission to allow me to address the young people in your disco for just five minutes.” He looked at me from top to toe. “You’re a preacher,” he said. I was still dressed in my suit and tie. I nodded. He said, “If you want to preach you should preach in a church.”
“There are no young people in the church,” I said. “They don’t come to the church so the preacher must come to the young people. Now give me five minutes, only five minutes, I ask of you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” He shook his head in disbelief, then turned around and walked away. “There is no way, man.” He had no sympathy for my plea at all.
As he was walking, suddenly the Holy Spirit touched me. He said to me, Tell him what you saw when you looked into his dance hall. I went after the man and took him by the arm. He turned to face me again. “One question, sir,” I said, looking deep into his eyes. “Do you think the young people find what they need for life in your disco?” Slowly the face of that man changed. He looked down thoughtfully. When he looked up again he said, “It is very strange that you would say that. I have children of my own. I’ve thought many times that the disco will not give the young people what they need for life.”
“I beg you, sir, give me five minutes with them.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “OK, but not tonight. Saturday night, tomorrow night at midnight, I will give you the microphone for five minutes.” I grabbed his hand and shook it. “It’s a deal, and thank you, sir. I will be here.”
…The next night I…dressed in casual clothes. I did not want to look like a preacher just coming from church. I needed disco camouflage….When at last the clock struck twelve, the music stopped. I jumped up and onto the stage where the records were being spun. I took the microphone from the disk jockey and shouted, “Sit down, sit down, sit down. I’ve come all the way from Germany, and I’ve got something very important to tell you.” Suddenly the young people began sitting down everywhere. It was then I realized I was not in church but in a dance hall. …Most of the young people plopped right down on the floor. There they sat, smoking cigarettes and chewing gum, waiting for me to tell them something very important that I had brought with me all the way from Germany.
I started to preach one minute, two minutes; suddenly the Holy Spirit was there; I mean the wind of God blew into that disco. Suddenly I heard sobbing. I saw young people getting out their handkerchiefs and starting to wipe their eyes, crying everywhere. …I had preached enough to know that when people start shedding tears, it’s time for an altar call. I said, “How many of you want to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior? How many want to find forgiveness for your sins and enter God’s plan for your life, as of tonight?”
Every hand that I could see in that place went straight up. I said, “Alright, repeat after me.” We prayed the prayer of salvation together. My five minutes were up. My work was done. I left walking on CLOUD number nine, rejoicing, absolutely rejoicing…
A year later I returned to Kimberly. Harold met me at the airport. He said, “Get in my car. I have a surprise for you.” I got in his car. He did not say anything about it; he just drove through the winding streets until he came to the warehouse district. The car stopped. I looked out of the window. I could not believe my eyes. I wiped them and looked again. Instead of seeing the big disco sign, there was a huge white cross on the front of the building.
“This is not the surprise,” Harold said. “Come inside.”
We walked up to that door where we had stood one year ago…”Are you ready for this, Reinhard?” Harold swung the door open, and I looked into a packed house full of young people. They were chanting, “Bonnke, Bonnke, Bonnke.” I cried out with joy. They rushed to me, hugging me and shaking my hands, bringing me inside. One young man said, “Remember me? I was the disk jockey that night that you came.” Another grabbed my hand. “I was operating the light show.” Another said, “We were dancing the night away. Now we are serving Jesus.”
“After you left town, the disco went BANKRUPT,” Harold shouted to me. “This disco is a church!” He was beaming from ear to ear.
A fine-looking gentleman came up to me. “We heard about what happened to the young people here. My church has sponsored me to be a pastor to these kids.”
I stood again on that disco stage looking at those faces, so different from the ones I had seen in the strobe lights a year ago. The lights were up full now. Even more, the light of the Lord’s favor was shining on every face.
I pointed my finger to the heavens and shouted, “Jesus!” – “Jesus!” they shouted back to me as one, making the walls to tremble.
“Praise Jesus!” – “Praise Jesus!”
“He is Lord!” – “He is Lord!”
“Hallelujah!” – “Hallelujah!”
Now that disco was rocking the right way. Kimberley’s true diamonds were shining in their Father’s eyes.
Bonnke, Reinhard. Living a Life of Fire: An Autobiography by Reinhard Bonnke. Harvester Services, Inc.
Brazil – and much of Latin America and the Caribbean – is in the midst of what believers proudly call an ‘evangelical revolution’. According to the IBGE, Brazil’s census board, the country’s Catholic population fell from around 89% in 1980 to 74% in 2000, while its Pentecostal flock grew from 3% to 10%.
A public expression of this new evangelicalism is the ‘March for Jesus’. Over half a million Christians gathered in Rio de Janeiro in early June this year. The annual event was held under the slogan ‘I belong to Jesus. I am a champion’, in honor of the participants’ faith and the 2014 FIFA World Cup, which Brazil is hosting this year. Another ‘March for Jesus’ is planned in Sao Paulo on 12 July, a day before the World Cup final. This one is expected to draw 2 million participants. It’s the country’s largest religious gathering, and more popular than the Salvador Carnival.
Cesar Romero Jacob, a political scientist at Rio’s Catholic University, said Brazil’s evangelical revolution has gripped two key areas: remote regions in the Amazon and the deprived outskirts of Brazilian cities. A ‘state vacuum’, where poverty, violence, alcoholism and prostitution proliferated, has laid the foundations for the boom. “If the Catholic church and the state are absent, somebody else will occupy the space,” says Jacob. “Pentecostalism occupied it. The first movers often are mothers who are worried about their husbands becoming alcoholics, their daughters becoming prostitutes or their sons becoming drug traffickers. The church helps to hold their family nucleus together.”
“It is Jesus who cures. She is an instrument”
Brazil’s evangelical revolution also sees miracle healers take centre stage. Take Alani dos Santos, a ‘child healer’ better known as the Missionarinha or Little Missionary, who is reputedly capable of healing the sickest of congregants with a touch of her hands. Twice a week, bandage-clad and cancer-ridden believers flock to one of her church services in search of a miracle. “Thousands of people have been touched,” says her father, Pastor Adauto Santos, 44, a former hairdresser and car thief who runs what is one of Rio de Janeiro’s most talked-about churches. “She’s a normal kid – apart from this gift,” he says, adding: “It is Jesus who cures. She is an instrument.”
But there is also growing opposition to Brazil’s evangelical ‘success preachers’ and the increasing use of infant evangelists, as the motives are not always pure and self-enrichment is common. While many question why Brazil’s poorest citizens should pay a tenth of their meagre wages to churches, Cesar Romero Jacob says the decision is often pragmatic. “My theory is that people are paying to be citizens in a place where they can,” he says. “In this environment they feel they are someone. It is a form of leisure, a place where you can find work, where you feel protected.”
It’s a typical contrast in Brazil: while the number of evangelical believers in Brazil continues to grow and Brazil has become a missionary-sending nation, still 20% of the population lives in slums. As the world’s attention is on Brazil this month, it’s a good moment to pray for the advance of the Gospel in this nation.
Source: Tom Phillips, Prayercast, Vocativ, Jessica Martinez, March for Jesus
Brazil: Serving Christ in the favelas
Since his inauguration last year, pope Francis has been consistently working for the poor, boldly pointing out the need for social justice in countries with huge rich-poor gaps. During his first overseas trip to Brazil last year he challenged priests to bring the message of the Gospel to the world’s slums. “It is in the favelas that we must go to seek and serve Christ,” he told thousands of bishops, priests and seminarians from around the world gathered for a mass at Rio’s St Sebastian Cathedral. “We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel.”
“In many places, the culture of exclusion, of rejection is spreading. There is no place for the elderly or for the unwanted child. There is no time for the poor person on the edge of the street,” he added. “Let us courageously look to pastoral needs, beginning on the outskirts, with those who are farthest away, with those who do not usually go to church. They too are invited to the table of the Lord.”
One of the priests who has faithfully ministered in the slums of Rio is Father Renato Chiera. He has been a priest for 46 years, and for 36 of those he has lived in the slums. For nine years he saw children get murdered in drug wars. But the final straw came when he found 30 dead people in his parish. In 1986 he decided to build a shelter for homeless teens, the ‘Casa do Menor’. “We have many teenagers who have committed murder,” he says. “That destroys their already low self-esteem, and they see no future. They usually don’t have a family and they try to find a replacement in gangs or drug cartels.”
The ‘Casa do Menor’ now has 25 centers all over Brazil, providing medical care, education and sports. With the 2014 FIFA World Cup taking place in Brazil, Father Chiera hopes part of the spotlight will be on children at risk who try to escape a world of drugs and violence.
Source: Pope Francis, Renato Chiera
Global: Good news for the slums
Today one billion of the earth’s people live in slums. Ashley Barker calls the church to action to prioritize urban slums and to impact them with the good news of Jesus Christ. Who will stand with the slum dweller until ‘justice rolls down like a river and righteousness like a never ending stream?’ she asks in this Lausanne World Pulse article.
Revival in the twentieth century had its roots in the eighteenth century Wesleyan concept of sanctification and the subsequent nineteenth-century holiness churches emphasizing an experience of ‘entire sanctification’. From within these movements with their promotion of a ‘second blessing’ grew acceptance and promotion of a specific, empowering work of God’s grace.
1901 – January: Topeka, Kansas, North America (Charles Parham)
Holiness preacher Charles Fox Parham (1873-1929), established Bethel Bible College as a missionary training school at Topeka, Kansas, from October 1900 in an old stone mansion rented from the American Bible Society on the outskirts of town. After prolonged periods of prayer and study the 34 students would meet in plenary sessions to discuss their findings. The final topic for discussion that year was the question: What is the Bible evidence whereby a person may know that he or she has been baptized in the Holy Spirit? On 31 December, after three days of personal study the students agreed unanimously that speaking in tongues was that evidence. Parham concurred.
The school emphasized personal and communal prayer, with staff and students continually using an upper room for prayer. They met there for their New Year’s Eve watchnight service which continued into the early hours of the new year. On the next evening of 1 January, 1901, Agnes Ozman (1870-1937), a Holiness preacher and inner-city missioner studying at the school asked for prayer with laying on hands to receive the baptism in the Spirit with the gift of tongues. Parham and the leaders prayed for her and she experienced a strong encounter of the Spirit with tongues. Parham and half of the students also spoke in tongues during the next three days in which there was constant prayer, praise and worship. Initially they believed that these tongues were gifts of other languages (xenolalia ) to be used in missionary evangelism. Those events have been seen as the beginning of Pentecostalism in America, being the first recorded time that the doctrine of speaking in tongues as the initial evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit was articulated, taught and experienced.
Parham established his Apostolic Faith movement among holiness groups, itinerated widely and ran various Bible Schools including a short term Bible School in Houston, Texas, in 1905-1906 where William Seymour, a Negro holiness preacher and son of Baptist slaves, attended. Seymour accepted Parham’s teaching on tongues as the initial evidence of baptism in the Spirit and adopted the Apostolic Faith title for his independent mission at Azusa Street in Los Angeles from April 1906.
Seymour invited Parham to speak at Azusa Street in October 1906, but Parham objected to the style and freedom of the meetings, so Seymour broke fellowship with him. Parham promoted the theological foundations of Pentecostalism from his experience of the Spirit at Topeka, but Seymour became the apostle of Pentecostalism through the Azusa Street revival.
Beginning with thousands of small prayer groups worldwide, the first years of the twentieth century saw revival break out in unprecedented measure. An Australian example was the preparation for the evangelistic meetings of Reuben A. Torrey with Charles M. Alexander in Australia in 1902. In preparation for their visit to Melbourne, 1,700 home prayer groups met to pray for the mission and revival. The Australian campaign registered over 20,000 enquirers, 8,642 in Melbourne, and many churches were filled early this century. Torrey reported on the large numbers of Melbourne home ‘prayer circles’ when he spoke at the annual Keswick Convention in England in July 1902. The 5,000 people attending Keswick responded with enthusiasm, committing themselves to pray for worldwide revival in ever-increasing ‘prayer circles’. Volunteers gathered names of additional thousands committed to join in united, constant prayer for revival.
The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 became the most powerful expression of that revival, and it, in turn, impacted the world. As news of the revival spread in print and as missionaries sailed from Great Britain, fervent prayer for revival increased across the world. Powerful revivals touched India, Korea, and China, and stirred revivals in South Africa and Japan, along with fresh awakenings in Africa, Latin America, and the Pacific.
From November 1904 in Wales thousands were converted in a few months and 100,000 within a year. That number did not include nominal members converted in the Anglican and Free Churches. Five years later 80,000 converts remained active in the churches. During the revival, crime dropped dramatically, with some judges left without any cases to try. Convictions for drunkenness were halved in the Principality, and many taverns went bankrupt. At times so many miners were converted that it caused slowdowns in the mines because the pit ponies hauling coal stopped, confused, not understanding instructions without profanity.
Early in 1904 touches of revival stirred New Quay, Cardiganshire, on the west coast of Wales where Joseph Jenkins was minister. At a testimony meeting at Jenkin’s Methodist Church, a recent teenage convert, Florrie Evans, announced, “If no one else will, I must say that I do love my Lord Jesus with all my heart.” The Holy Spirit instantly moved powerfully on the meeting with strong conviction. Many wept. One after another stood and acknowledged their submission God. Jenkins led teams of revived young people conducting testimony meetings throughout the area.
The evangelist, Seth Joshua, arrived at New Quay in September 1904 to find remarkable moves of the Spirit in his meetings. On Sunday 18, he reported that he had “never seen the power of the Holy Spirit so powerfully manifested among the people as at this place just now.” His meetings lasted far into the night. His diary continued:
Monday 19. Revival is breaking out here in greater power … the young people receiving the greatest measure of blessing. They break out into prayer, praise, testimony and exhortation.
Tuesday 20. I cannot leave the building until 12 and even 1 o’clock in the morning I closed the service several times and yet it would break out again quite beyond control of human power.
Wednesday 21. Yes, several souls … they are not drunkards or open sinners, but are members of the visible church not grafted into the true Vine … the joy is intense.
Thursday 22. We held another remarkable meeting tonight. Group after group came out to the front, seeking the “full assurance of faith.”
Friday 23. I am of the opinion that forty conversions took place this week. I also think that those seeking assurance may be fairly counted as converts, for they had never received Jesus as personal Saviour before.”
Seth Joshua, alarmed by the inroads of liberalism in the churches, had prayed that God would use a zealous young Christian to bring revival to Wales. One such young man, converted through his own ministry was Evan Roberts (1978-1951).
Born in Loughor in Glamorgan, between Swansea and Llanelly, Evan Roberts (1878-1951) was an exemplary school pupil. At twelve he began working in the mine with his father. He founded a Sunday school for the children of miners, and decided to become a preacher. Constantly he read the Bible, even in the mine. He published poems in the Cardiff Times under the pseudonym of Bwlchydd, learned shorthand, and taught himself to be a blacksmith. He describes his encounters with the Spirit as follows:
For thirteen years I prayed that I might receive the Spirit. I had been led to pray by a remark of William Davies, one of the deacons: ‘Be faithful! Supposing the Spirit were to come down and you were not there. Remember Thomas, and how much he lost from not being present on the evening of the Resurrection.’
So I said to myself: ‘I want to receive the Spirit at any price.’ And I continually went to meetings despite all difficulties. Often, as I saw the other boys putting out to sea in their boats, I was tempted to turn round and join them. But no. I said to myself, ‘Remember your resolution to be faithful’, and I would go to the meeting. Prayer meeting on Monday evening at the chapel, prayer meeting for the Sunday school on Tuesday evening at ‘Pisgah’, meeting at the church on Wednesday evening, and of Hope meeting on Thursday evening. I supported all these faithfully for years. For ten or eleven years I prayed for revival. I spent whole nights reading accounts of revivals or talking about them. It was the Spirit who in this way was driving me to think about revival.
One Friday evening that spring (1904), as I was praying at my bedside before going to bed, I was taken up into a great expanse – without time or space. It was communion with God. Up to that time I had only had a God who was far off. That evening I was afraid, but that fear has never come back. I trembled so violently that the bed shook, and my brother was awakened and took hold of me, thinking I was ill.
After this experience I woke each night about one o’clock in the morning. It was the more strange, as usually I slept like a log and no noise in my room was enough to wake me. From one o’clock I was taken up into communion with God for about four hours. What it was I cannot tell you, except that it was of God. About five o’clock I was again allowed to sleep until about nine o’clock. I was then taken up again and carried away in the same experience as in the early hours of the morning, until about midday or one o’clock.
At home they questioned me, and asked why I got up so late … but these things are too holy to speak of. This experience went on for about three months.
He entered the Calvanistic Methodist Academy at Newcasle Emlyn in mid September 1904. He was convinced revival would touch all Wales and eventually he led a small band all over the country praying and preaching.
Seth Joshua held meetings at Newcastle Emlyn, following his meetings at New Quay. Students from the Methodist Academy attended. Among them was Sidney Evans a room-mate of Evan Roberts. The students, including Evan Roberts, attended the next Joshua meetings in Blaenannerch.
There on Thursday 29 September, Seth Joshua closed the 7 a.m. meeting before breakfast crying out in Welsh, “Lord … bend us.” Evan Roberts remembered, “It was the Spirit that put the emphasis for me on ‘Bend us.’ ‘That is what you need,’ said the Spirit to me. And as I went out I prayed, O Lord, bend me” (Evans 1969, 70). During the 9 a.m. meeting, Evan Roberts eventually prayed aloud after others had prayed. He knelt with his arms over the seat in front, bathed in perspiration as he agonized in prayer. He regarded that encounter with the Spirit as crucial in launching him into his revival ministry which began one month later.
A motto of the revival became “Bend the church and save the world.” Soon after the impact of the Spirit on him at Seth Joshua’s meetings, he took leave from the Academy to return home to challenge his friends, especially the young people.
Arriving home by train at his village of Loughor on the south coast of Wales on Monday, 31 October, Evan Roberts obtained permission to speak at meetings from Daniel Jones, minister at Moriah Church in Loughor and its chapel Pisgah, and from Thomas Francis minister at Moriah’s daughter church in Gorseinon. Roberts spoke after the usual Monday night prayer meeting at Moriah to 17 young people. The Holy Spirit moved on them all in that two-hour session, and they all publicly confessed Christ as their personal Saviour, including Evan Roberts’ three sisters and his brother Dan, all of whom later a took leading part in many revival meetings. Meetings followed at Pisgah and Gorseinon. He then spoke every night to increasing crowds at Moriah Church where he began emphasizing four points which became his constant theme. People were convicted as Evan Roberts repeatedly emphasised four requirements, that they must:
1. put away any unconfessed sin,
2. forsake any doubtful habit,
3. obey the Spirit promptly,
4. confess Christ publicly.
He believed that a baptism in the Spirit was the essence of revival and that the primary condition of revival is that individuals should experience such a baptism in the Spirit. By the weekend the church was packed. Roberts spoke to a crowded church on Saturday night on ‘Be filled with the Spirit’. An after-meeting with Roberts followed Sunday night service at Libanus Chapel, Gorseinon. Evan Roberts described the response on the Sunday evening, 6 November, when by midnight the congregation was overwhelmed with tears.
Then the people came down from the gallery, and sat close to one another. “Now,” said I, “we must believe that the Spirit will come; not think He will come; not hope He will come; but firmly believe that He will come.” Then I read the promises of God, and pointed out how definite they were. (Remember, I a.m. doing all under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and praise be to Him.) After this, the Spirit said that everyone was to pray. Pray now, not confess, not sing, not give experience, but pray and believe, and wait. And this is the prayer, “Send the Spirit now, for Jesus Christ’s sake.”
The people were sitting, and only closed their eyes. The prayer began with me. Then it went from seat to seat boys and girls young men and maidens. Some asking in silence, some aloud, some coldly, some with warmth, some formally, some in tears, some with difficulty, some adding to it, boys and girls, strong voices, then tender voices. Oh, wonderful! I never thought of such an effect. I felt the place beginning to be filled, and before the prayer had gone half way through the chapel, I could hear some brother weeping, sobbing, and saying, “Oh, dear! dear! well! well! Oh, dear! dear!” On went the prayer, the feeling becoming more intense; the place being filled more and more (with the Spirit’s presence).”
The crowded Monday evening meeting went till 3 a.m. Meetings continued every night. The Cardiff newspaper The Western Mail published this report on Thursday 10 November, the first of many daily reports on the progress of the revival:
GREAT CROWDS OF PEOPLE DRAWN TO LOUGHOR
Congregation Stays till 2.30 in the Morning
“A remarkable religious revival is now taking place in Loughor. For some days a young man named Evan Roberts, a native of Loughor, has been causing great surprise at Moriah Chapel. The place has been besieged by dense crowds of people unable to obtain admission. Such excitement has prevailed that the road on which the chapel is situated has been lined with people from end to end. Roberts, who speaks in Welsh, opens his discourse by saying that he does not know what he is going to say but that when he is in communion with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will speak, and he will simply be the medium of His wisdom. The preacher soon after launches into a fervent and at times impassioned oration. His statements have had the most stirring effects upon his listeners. Many who have disbelieved Christianity for years are returning to the fold of their younger days. One night, so great was the enthusiasm invoked by the young revivalist that, after his sermon which lasted two hours, the vast congregation remained praying and singing until two-thirty in the morning. Shopkeepers are closing early in order to get a place in the chapel, and tin and steel workers throng the place in working clothes.”
Revival meetings began to multiply rapidly, the early ones in South Wales being led by Evan Roberts, Sydney Evans, Seth Joshua and Joseph Jenkins with teams of young people. Rev. R. B. Jones began a ten-day mission on Tuesday, 8 November in Rhos in North Wales during which revival broke out and rapidly spread through the north as well as the south.
Many of the 800 attending the Moriah meeting on Friday, 11 November were on their knees repenting for a long time. The Western Mail report of that meeting circulated widely in Wales and throughout the rest of Britain:
Instead of the set order of proceedings … everything was left to the spontaneous impulse of the moment … at 4.25 a.m., the gathering dispersed. But even at that hour, the people did not make their way home. When I left to walk back to Llanelly, I left dozens of them about the road discussing the chief subject of their lives. … I felt that this was no ordinary gathering.
Newspaper reports generated intense interest in the meetings. Crowds arrived in Loughor on Saturday 12 November filling the streets with wagons and carts. Shops emptied of food supplies. Roberts’ college room mate preached at one chapel and Roberts at the other on Saturday, both meetings lasting till after dawn Sunday. Hundreds of coalminers and tin plate workers were converted, filled with the Spirit, and radically transformed. Swearing, drunkenness, immorality and crime began to diminish.
From Sunday 13 November Evan Roberts and his teams conducted meetings by invitation, first at Aberdare and then throughout the towns and hamlets of Wales. He usually took a small team with him to pray, witness and sing. November 1904 saw revival spread throughout Wales. Newspapers described the crowded meetings. Churches and chapels sent statistics of conversions to the papers. By the end of January 1905 the papers had reported 70,000 converted in three months.
As with other evangelists and ministers, Evan Roberts travelled the Welsh valleys, often never preaching but earnestly praying. In Neath he spent a week in prayer without leaving his rooms while the revival continued to pack the churches. Characteristics of the meetings were singing Welsh hymns in harmony for over an hour, the decline of the sermon, emphasis on baptism in the Spirit and the guidance of the Spirit, public repentance and the hywl, a half-sung, half spoken harmony ending in a hymn, or a cry of thanksgiving or repentance.
Churches filled. The revival spread. Meetings continued all day as well as each night, often late into the night or through to morning. Crowds were getting right with God and with one another in confession, repentance and restitution of wrongs done. People prayed fervently and worshipped God with great joy. Police had so little to do they joined the crowds in the churches, sometimes forming singing groups. The impact of the Spirit across the churches produced new levels of unity, joy, boldness, power to witness, changed lives, and enthusiasm explained as being “fervent in spirit”(Romans 12:11).
Roberts, prophetically gifted, was unusually sensitive to the responses in the congregation. Public criticism of Evan Roberts and some revival phenomena included the usual objections to enthusiasm or fanaticism, emotionalism and confusion. At age 27 he lacked maturity and theological balance and fell too easily into nervous exhaustion, as did other young leaders in the revival. More experienced ministers avoided these errors and contributed significantly to revival leadership. Defenders of revival phenomena pointed to thousands of changed lives and the spiritual zeal generated.
Roberts believed his unusual prophetic and intuitive charismatic abilities came from his ‘baptism in the Spirit’ and urged everyone to actively seek such a baptism. Revival historians trace a direct link from the Welsh revival to increased worldwide fervent prayer, increased expectation of revival, increased evangelism and the emergence of Pentecostalism, even though many evangelicals regarded Pentecostalism as an aberration of revival.
On Sunday, 20 November 1904, the brothers Stephen and George Jeffreys were converted in Siloh Chapel in Maesteg, their home church in the Welsh Independent (Congregational) church. Although initially opposed to Pentecostalism which emerged in Wales in 1908, they became involved from 1911. Both were powerful evangelists in Great Britain and abroad, preaching to huge crowds and seeing hundreds healed and thousands converted. They often travelled and ministered together and established many churches. George Jeffreys’ campaigns included a crusade in Birmingham with 10,000 converted and powerful ministry in Europe such as 14,000 converted in Switzerland in 1934-1936, and he became the founder and leader of the Elim Foursquare Alliance (Elim Pentecostal Church). Stephen Jeffreys also pioneered many Elim churches and worked actively with the newly formed Assemblies of God of Britain and Ireland as an independent evangelist.
The Pentecostal movement in Great Britain has direct personal and theological roots in the Welsh Revival. The Jeffrey brothers were converted in the revival. Donald Gee, the leading Pentecostal apologist, was converted through Seth Joshua. Anglican priest, Alexander A. Boddy, ‘the father of the British Pentecostal movement’ participated in the revival, worked with Evan Roberts, and was convinced that the Pentecostal movement was a direct continuation of the revival. Smith Wigglesworth, a leading healing evangelist, and Stanley Frodsham, prolific writer and leader, were baptised in the Spirit, including glossolalia, at Boddy’s Anglican Church in Sunderland.
Welsh revival phenomena, including the emphasis on being baptized in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, discerning spiritual influences, receiving prophetic insights, and encouraging spontaneous participation in the meetings and well as involving lay people including women, men and children in personal and public ministry, became widely characteristic of Pentecostalism.
The Welsh Revival emphasized the importance of a baptism in the Spirit. Specific impacts of the Spirit in New Quay, Newcastle Emlyn, Blaenannerch and Moriah both prepared the way for revival in those involved and set the pattern of seeking and responding to the Spirit in the revival. Reports of the ‘influx’ of the Spirit, and the testimony of thousands involved, generated new interest in Spirit movements, in revival, and eventually in the emerging Pentecostal and charismatic movements.
Honoured with the title Pandita by the Sanskrit scholars of Calcutta University, Ramabai (1858-1922), became a Christian by the turn of the century, mastered seven languages, translated the Bible into Marathi and published books including A Life of Christ. The Indian government issued a postage stamp in her honour in 1989, recognising her social impact on the nation, especially in rescuing young widows from death or degradation.
She established a compound for widows and orphan girls during severe famine in her area near Pune (Poona) just south of Bombay, and called it Mukti (salvation). By 1901 she had 2,000 girls and women and from January 1905 she began teaching about the need for revival. Soon over 500 people met twice daily to pray for revival, mostly women and girls.
Ramabai heard about early moves of the Spirit in north-east India and challenged her women to leave secular studies for a time to go into the villages to preach in teams. Thirty volunteered. They met daily to pray for the endowment of the Holy Spirit. Then on Thursday, 29 June the Spirit moved on many of the girls. The girls saw flames engulfing one of the girls, so another girl raced to get a bucket of water, only to discover she was not being burned.
Then on Friday, 30 June while Ramabai taught from John 8, the Holy Spirit fell on them all suddenly with great power. Everyone there began to weep and pray aloud, crying out to be baptised with the Holy Spirit and fire. One twelve-year-old girl, though very plain, became radiantly beautiful and laughed constantly. Others had visions of Jesus.
Revival spread through their mission, and into many surrounding areas. Regular school activities gave way to confession, repentance, and great joy with much praise and dancing. Many were baptised in the Spirit, spoke in tongues, and were filled with zeal for evangelism and social care. A missionary, Albert Norton, visited the mission where Minnie Abrams, a teacher, invited him to observe a revival prayer group in the school. He reported,
One week ago I visited the Mukti Mission. Miss Abrams asked me if I should like to go into a room where about twenty girls were praying. After entering, I knelt with closed eyes by a table on one side. Presently I heard someone praying near me very distinctly in English. Among the petitions were, “O Lord, open the mouth; O Lord, open the mouth; O Lord, open the heart; O Lord, open the eyes! O Lord, open the eyes! Oh, the blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus! Oh, give complete victory! Oh, such a blessing! Oh, such glory!”
I was struck with astonishment, as I knew that there was no one in the room who could speak English, beside Miss Abrams. I opened my eyes and within three feet of me, on her knees, with closed eyes and raised hands was a woman, whom I had baptised at Kedgaon in 1899, and whom my wife and I had known intimately since as a devoted Christian worker. Her mother tongue was Marathi, and she could speak a little Hindustani. But she was unable to speak or understand English such as she was using. But when I heard her speak English idiomatically, distinctly, and fluently, I was impressed as I should have been had I seen one, whom I knew to be dead, raised to life. A few other illiterate Marathi women and girls were speaking in English and some were speaking in other languages with none at Kedagaon understood. This was not gibberish, but it closely resembled the speaking of foreign languages to which I had listened but did not understand. …
I have an idea that it is in mercy to us poor missionaries from Europe and America who, as a class, seem to be Doubting Thomases, in regard to gifts and workings of the Spirit, and not receiving the power of the Spirit as we ought.
That powerful revival spread throughout many areas of India, with Christians and unbelievers repenting in large numbers and being filled with the Holy Spirit and the fire of God. It provides another example of the poor and despised discovering propagating the immeasurable grace of God especially among the ‘common people’. Back to top
1905 – October: Dohnavur, South India (Amy Carmichael)
Revival spread to south India where Amy Carmichael (1867-1951) at Dohnavur among the Tamils had been praying and longing for a visitation of the Spirit of God. In October the Spirit moved upon them so powerfully they could neither preach nor pray aloud. They broke down weeping.
It was so startling and so awful. I can use no other word … It was at the close of the morning service that the break came. The one who was speaking was obliged to stop, overwhelmed by the sudden realization of the inner force of things. It was impossible even to pray. One of the older lads in the boys’ school began to try to pray, but he broke down, then another, then all together, the older lads chiefly at first. Soon many among the younger ones began to cry bitterly, and pray for forgiveness. It spread to the women … Soon the whole upper half of the church was on its face on the floor crying to God, each boy and girl, man and woman, oblivious of all others. The sound was like the sound of waves of strong wind in the trees. No separate voice could be heard. I had never heard of such a thing as this among Tamil people. Up in the north, of course, one knew that it had happened, but our Tamils are so stolid, so unemotional I had never imagined such a thing as this occurring. Nothing disturbed those who were praying, and that hurricane of prayer continued with one short break of a few minutes for over four hours.
Effects during the next seven months in particular included the professed conversion of all the school pupils, revival among the Christians, restoration among the lapsed, successful evangelism in the surrounding areas, and a remarkable spirit of unity among everyone. That unity transcended personal and doctrinal differences among Christians, another sign of the Spirit’s transforming presence. Back to top
1906 – March: Assam, North East India (Nokseng)
Revival stirred in Assam before the Mukti revival, but took much longer to ignite and did not spread with the intensity of the western fires. The song ‘I have decided to follow Jesus‘ was is based on the last words of Nokseng, a man from Garo tribe of Assam, an early martyr. From the beginning of 1905 the Khasi hill tribe Christians met every night to pray for revival for over eighteen months. Their Welsh Presbyterian missionaries brought news of revival in Wales which stirred them to earnest prayer. Those nightly meetings often went past 10 p.m.
The Bible teaching on Sunday 4 March 1906 concerning the baptism of the Spirit stirred the prayers deeply. The Christians felt an unusual sense of the Spirit’s presence which produced prolonged prayer, weeping and praise. Gradually revival spread through the presbytery with powerful messages from Khasi preachers and widespread repentance.
The Baptists also reported remarkable awakenings along the wide Brahmaputra River valley. Revival spread throughout 1907 into all the churches of the Brahmaputra, then south into the Naga hills and then on to the Mizo people further south. A pagan anti revival movement flared in 1911 12, but when a plague of rats invaded the area demolishing their food, the people suffered terribly. Refugees poured down into the plains where Christians shared their food and cared for them. So the pagan revival died out and in 1913 and then again in 1919 greater revivals of Christianity ignited the hills again.
The Spirit’s movement in revival and the teaching on baptism in the Spirit had transcended denominational, national and racial boundaries, and continued to spread rapidly among the humble and spiritually hungry. Back to top
1906 – April: Los Angeles, North America (William Seymour)
Early in 1906 William J. Seymour (1870-1922), the Negro Holiness pastor, studied briefly at Charles Parham’s short term Bible School in Houston, Texas. Segregation laws in that state prohibited Negoes from joining the classes. Most reports indicate that he sat in the hall and listened through the doorway.
Julia Hutchins, the pastor of a small holiness church in Los Angeles, heard of Seymour from a friend, Luci Farrow, who had visited Houston. Hutchins invited William Seymour to preach in her church with the possibility of becoming pastor of the church. His first sermon there, from Acts 2:4, emphasized being filled with the Spirit and speaking in tongues. He soon found himself locked out of the building.
Seymour then began cottage meetings in the home of Richard Asbery at 214 Bonnie Brae Street, which still exists as a Pentecostal landmark. Many there, including Seymour, fell to the floor and began speaking in tongues at the prayer meeting on Monday, April 9. Numbers grew until the weight of the crowd broke the front verandah, so they had to move. They found an old two-story weatherboard stable and warehouse at 312 Azusa Street which had previously been an African Episcopal Methodist church.
So Seymour, now leader of The Apostolic Faith Mission, began meetings there on Easter Saturday, April 14, 1906. About 100 attended including blacks and whites. The Spirit of God moved powerfully on that little mission. Many were baptized in the Spirit with speaking in tongues and prophecies. Four days later on Wednesday, April 18, the day of the San Fanscisco earthquake, the Los Angeles Times began carrying articles about the weird babble of tongues and wild scenes at Azusa Street.
Not only was the racial mixture unusual, but the newspaper reports, usually critical of those noisy Pentecostal meetings, drew both Christians and unbelievers, poor and rich, to investigate. Soon crowds crammed into the building to investigate or mock. Hundreds were saved, baptized in the Spirit and ignited for apostolic style mission which included prayers for healing and outreach in evangelism and overseas mission.
Frank Bartleman, an independent holiness preacher, reported regularly on ‘Azusa Street’ for holiness periodicals. He gathered his autobiographical accounts into his 1925 book How Pentecost Came to Los Angeles: How it was in the Beginning, reprinted in 1980. He wrote:
In the beginning in “Azusa” we had no musical instruments. In fact we felt no need of them. There was no place for them in our worship. All was spontaneous. We did not even sing from hymn books. All the old well-known hymns were sung from memory, quickened by the Spirit of God. …But the “new song” was altogether different, not of human composition. It cannot be successfully counterfeited. The crow cannot imitate the dove. But they finally began to despise this “gift,” when the human spirit asserted itself again. They drove it out by hymn books and selected songs by leaders. It was like murdering the Spirit … The spirit of song given from God in the beginning was like the Aeolian harp, in its spontaneity and sweetness. In fact it was the very breath of God, playing on human heart-strings, or human vocal chords. The notes were wonderful in sweetness, volume and duration. If fact they were oftentimes humanly impossible. It was “singing in the Spirit.”
Brother Seymour was recognized as the nominal leader in charge. But we had no pope or hierarchy. We were “brethren.” We had no human programme. The Lord Himself was leading. We had no priest class, nor priest craft. These things have come in later, with the apostatizing of the movement. We did not even have a platform or pulpit in the beginning. All were on a level. The ministers were servants, according to the true meaning of the word. We did not honor men for their advantage, in means or education, but rather for their God-given “gifts.” He set the members in the “body.” …
Brother Seymour generally sat behind two empty shoe boxes, one on top of the other. He usually kept his head inside the top one during the meeting, in prayer. There was no pride there. The services ran almost continuously. Seeking souls could be found under the power almost any hour, night and day. The place was never closed nor empty. The people came to meet God. He was always there. Hence a continuous meeting. The meeting did not depend on the human leader. God’s presence became more and more wonderful. In that old building, with its low rafters and bare floors, God took strong men and women to pieces, and put them together again, for His glory. It was a tremendous overhauling process. Pride and self-assertion, self-importance and self-esteem, could not survive there. The religious ego preached its own funeral sermon quickly.
No subjects or sermons were announced ahead of time, and no special speakers for such an hour. No one knew what might be coming, what God would do. All was spontaneous, ordered of the Spirit. We wanted to hear from God, through whoever he might speak. We had no “respect of persons.” The rich and educated were the same as the poor and ignorant, and found a much harder death to die. We only recognized God. All were equal. No flesh might glory in His presence. He could not use the self-opinionated. Those were Holy Ghost meetings, led of the Lord. It had to start in poor surroundings, to keep out the selfish, human element. All came down in humility together, at His feet. They all looked alike, and had all things in common in that sense at least. The rafters were low, the tall must come down. By the time they got to “Azusa” they were humbled, ready for the blessing. The fodder was thus placed for the lambs, not for giraffes. All could reach it.
We were delivered right there from ecclesiastical hierarchism and abuse. We wanted God. When we first reached the meeting we avoided as much as possible human contact and greeting. We wanted to meet God first. We got our head under some bench in the corner in prayer, and met men only in the Spirit, knowing them “after the flesh” no more. The meetings started themselves, spontaneously, in testimony, praise and worship. The testimonies were never hurried by a call for “popcorn.” We had no prearranged programme to be jammed through on time. Our time was the Lord’s. We had real testimonies, from fresh heart-experience. Otherwise, the shorter the testimonies, the better. A dozen might be on their feet at one time, trembling under the mighty power of God. We did not have to get our cue from some leader. And we were free from lawlessness. We were shut up to God in prayer in the meetings, our minds on Him. All obeyed God, in meekness and humility. In honor we “preferred one another.” The Lord was liable to burst through any one. We prayed for this continually. Some one would finally get up anointed for the message. All seemed to recognize this and gave way. It might be a child, a woman, or a man. It might be from the back seat, or from the front. It made no difference. We rejoiced that God was working. No one wished to show himself. We thought only of obeying God. In fact there was an atmosphere of God there that forbade any one but a fool attempting to put himself forward without the real anointing. And such did not last long. The meetings were controlled by the Spirit, from the throne. Those were truly wonderful days. I often said that I would rather live six months at that time than fifty years of ordinary life. But God is just the same today. Only we have changed.
Some one might be speaking. Suddenly the Spirit would fall upon the congregation. God himself would give the altar call. Men would fall all over the house, like the slain in battle, or rush for the altar en masse, to seek God. The scene often resembled a forest of fallen trees. Such a scene cannot be imitated. I never saw an altar call given in those early days. God himself would call them. And the preacher knew when to quit. When He spoke we all obeyed. It seemed a fearful thing to hinder or grieve the Spirit. The whole place was steeped in prayer. God was in His holy temple. It was for man to keep silent. The Shekinah glory rested there. In fact some claim to have seen the glory by night over the building. I do not doubt it. I have stopped more than once within two blocks of the place and prayed for strength before I dared go on. The presence of the Lord was so real.
Presumptuous men would sometimes come among us. Especially preachers who would try to spread themselves, in self-opinionation. But their effort was short lived. The breath would be taken from them. Their minds would wander, their brains reel. Things would turn black before their eyes. They could not go on. I never saw one get by with it in those days. They were up against God. No one cut them off. We simply prayed. The Holy Spirit did the rest. We wanted the Spirit to control. He wound them up in short order. They were carried out dead, spiritually speaking. They generally bit the dust in humility, going through the process we had all gone through. In other words they died out, came to see themselves in all their weakness, then in childlike humility and confession were taken up of God, transformed through the mighty “baptism” in the Spirit. The “old man” died with all his pride, arrogancy and good works. In my own case I came to abhor myself. I begged the Lord to drop a curtain so close behind me on my past that it would hit my heels. He told me to forget every good deed as though it had never occurred, as soon as it was accomplished, and go forward again as though I had never accomplished anything for Him, lest my good works become a snare to me. We saw some wonderful things in those days. Even very good men came to abhor themselves in the clearer light of God. The preachers died the hardest. They had so much to die to. So much reputation and good works. But when God got through with them they gladly turned a new page and chapter. That was one reason they fought so hard. Death is not at all a pleasant experience. And strong men die hard.
Bartleman’s account, before the benefit of hindsight through the twentieth century, identified many of the key elements of strong impacts of the Spirit. These included spontaneous Spirit-inspired worship mingled with prayer and current testimony; acknowledged leadership which facilitated response to the Spirit; repentance and humility in the awesome present of God; mutual honour and respect for everyone whether poor or rich, black or white, female or male, unknown or known; constant use of spiritual gifts including the controversial glossolalia, prayer for the sick and testimonies of answered prayer; large numbers of locals and visitors ‘baptized in the Spirit’ and taking that blessing across America and the globe with a strong, humbling anointing.
The exploding Pentecostal movement around the world traces its origins to Azusa Street, from which fire spread across the globe. For example, John G. Lake had visited the mission at Azusa Street. In 1908 he pioneered Pentecostal missions in South Africa where, after five years he had established 500 black and 125 white congregations. Later he established healing rooms where thousands were healed through medicine and prayer at Spokane, Washington, which soon became known as the healthiest city in America at that time.
Cox, quoting Bartleman, begins his chapter on Azusa Street announcing, “Pentecost has come to Los Angeles, the American Jerusalem. Every sect, creed and doctrine under heaven … as well as every nation is represented.” He argues that Los Angeles provided a place of new hopes and dreams, and for Seymour in segregated Jim Crow America, God was assembling and pouring his inclusive Spirit on a radically inclusive people. A southern white preacher, at first offended, then inspired, noted that at Azusa Street “the colour line was washed away by the blood.”
Press hostility to this radical, racial mixture and its ‘wild scenes’ drew crowds, many of whom “came to scorn and stayed to pray.” The San Franscisco earthquake and fire, in which 10,000 died, sent geological and spiritual tremors through Los Angeles, provoking many apocalyptic interpretations and warnings.
Perhaps the most significant reason the impact of the Spirit in Azusa Street ignited such powerful global mission was its literal fulfilment of the messianic charter announced in Nazareth. These despised and rejected people were also powerfully anointed by the Spirit as the beneficiaries and heralds of the new era of the Spirit.
Bartleman prophetically concluded his book on Azusa Street with his final chapter being “A Plea for Unity.” Looking beyond the fragmenting Holiness and Pentecostal churches a decade after the Azusa Street revival, and sensing that doctrinal unity is neither possible nor desirable, he wrote:
The Spirit is labouring for the unity of believers today, for the “one body” that the prayer of Jesus may be answered, “that they may all be one, that the world may believe.” But the saints are ever too ready to serve a system or party, to contend for religious, selfish, party interests. … “Error always leads to militant exclusion. Truth evermore stoops to wash the saints’ feet.” One feels even in visiting many Pentecostal missions today that they do not belong there, simply because they have not lined up officially with that particular brand or variety. These things ought not to be. “In one Spirit are we all baptized, into one body.” – 1 Cor. 12:13. We should be as one family, which we are, at home in God’s house anywhere.
We belong to the whole body of Christ, both in Heaven and on earth. God’s church is one.
Cox concludes his chapter on Azusa Street noting the absence of a physical memorial to Seymour’s mission in Azusa Street today, he declares that, “the Azusa Street memorial is something they could never have foreseen. It is a spiritual hurricane that has already touched nearly half a billion people, and an alternative vision of the human future whose impact may only be in its earliest stages today.”
Revival in Korea broke in the nation in 1907. Samuel Park made this report:
Pyongyang is the capital of North Korea but when Pyongyang Revival happened in 1907, it was not the capital. The capital of Korea was then Seoul, which is the capital of South Lorea.
North American missionaries brought revival first to Wonsan in 1903 then Pyongyang in 1907. North American Methodists missionaries in Wonsan led ecumeical prayer meetings where Presbyterian and Baptist missionaries and Korean believers would also join inviting M.C. White, a female missionary to China. Then, R. A. Hardie, a Canadian medical missionary belonging to Southern Methodist were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to repent his pride, White Supremacist attitude, and lack of faith in front of the congregation, then the Spirit spread to others. In this Wonsan revival, the evangelism of L. H. McCully, a Canadian Presbyterian missionary who was the fiance of W. J. McKenzie, a Canadian missionary who died while doing mission in Korea.
The Pyongyang Revival of 1907 was led by Hardie, McKenzie, J.S. Gale, M.C. Fenwick who were influenced by the Second Great Awakening Movement led by D. L. Moody. The revival meetings held in Jangdaehyon Church were ecumenical meetings jointly held by Methodist and Presbyterian missionaries and indigenous leaders including Kil Sun-Joo. They had Bible study in the morning, prayer meeting in the afternoon, and revival meetings, public speech, and discussion on current issues in the evening inviting W. N. Blair, W. M. Baird, Graham Lee who were missionaries in Korea, and Kil Sun-Joo as speakers. A week-long meeting seemed to pass by, then on the last day before they went back to their own church, after Graham Lee and Blair gave fiery sermons, as Graham Lee suggested prayer for the Holy Spirit, they all began to pray together and Kil Sunjoo came out and started repenting his sin. Then, the wall of oppression broke open and all started repenting their sins and the Holy Spirit came.
It was the time when Japanese Imperialism began to occupy Korea and Protestantism brought by American missionaries was regarded not only as a religion but also as an ideology for freedom and equality. The Pyongyang Revival was an independent act of the Holy Spirit in the Spirit’s revival of the worldwide Church in the early 20th century independent from Welsh or Azusa revival. Those missionaries may not have heard of contemporary revivals in Wales or Azusa.
Other reports included these.
From Wednesday 2 January church representatives gathered for ten days at the annual New Year Bible study course at Pyongyang. A spirit of prayer broke out. The meetings carried on day after day, with confessions of sins, weeping and trembling.
Then on Monday night 7 January, so many wanted to pray that the leaders called all 1500 of them to pray aloud together. Their prayers mingled with public confession, much weeping, and many dropping prostrate on the floor in agonies of repentance.
It astounded observers. The delegates of the New Year gathering returned to their churches taking with them this spirit of prayer which strongly impacted the churches of the nation with revival. That pattern of simultaneous prayer became a feature of Korean church life. Everywhere conviction of sin, confession and restitution were common. Within two months 2,000 were converted, and 30,000 had become Christians by the middle of 1907.
Persecution at the hands of the Japanese and then the Russian and Chinese communists saw thousands killed, but still the church grew in fervent prayer. Prior to the Russian invasion, thousands of North Koreans gathered every morning at 5 am. Sometimes 10,000 were gathered in one place for prayer each morning.
Early morning daily prayer meetings became common, as did nights of prayer throughout Korea. Now over a million gather every morning around 5 a.m. for prayer in the churches. Prayer and fasting is normal. Churches have over 100 prayer retreats in the hills called Prayer Mountains to which thousands go to pray, often with fasting. Healings and supernatural manifestations continue. Koreans have sent over 10,000 missionaries into other Asian countries. Korea now has the largest Presbyterian and Methodist churches in the world, and has four of the world’s seven largest Sunday church attendances.
David Yonggi Cho has amazing growth in Seoul where he is senior pastor of a Full Gospel church of 800,000 with over 25,000 home cell groups, and sustained church growth. During the week over 3,000 a day and over 5,000 at weekends pray at their prayer mountain.
Political developments in North Korea remind us that revival is often accompanied by increased persecution, as in the early church in the Book of Acts and persecution in the Roman Empire.
“You must go forward on your knees,” Hudson Taylor advised a young Canadian missionary named Jonathan Goforth (1859-1936). While a student at Knox College in Toronto, Canada, Goforth was profoundly moved during three days of meetings with D L Moody in 1988 just before he and his wife Rosalyn left for north Henan province in China that year. Yet, after thirteen years of faithful praying and preaching, and what most would consider a very successful ministry, Goforth became restless and dissatisfied.
In 1900, the Goforths had to excape across China during the Boxer Rebellion. Jonathan was attacked and injured with a sword, but they both survived and escaped to the safety a “Treaty Port” and went back to Canada for a year. After returning to Henan in 1901, Jonathan Goforth felt increasingly restless. In 1904 and 1905 he was inspired by news of the great Welsh Revival and read Finney’s “Lectures on Revivals”. People from England began sending him pamphlets on the Welsh revival of 1904. Goforth was deeply stirred as he read these accounts. “A new thought, a new conception seemed to come to him of God the Holy Spirit.” He then gave himself to much more prayer and Bible study. Goforth now found himself being driven by a fresh vision, a vision for a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Soon he began to meet daily with other missionaries to pray for revival. These men vowed to God and to one another that they would pray until revival came to China. In 1907 he witnessed revival in Korea. As he returned to China through Manchuria from February 1908, the Manchurian Revival broke out. In 1908 Jonathan Goforth’s prayers and dreams began to be realized.
Goforth began going to different missionary stations and simply led his fellow missionaries in prayer. Then suddenly earnest prayer gave way to the open confession of sin. As the Christians confessed and forsook their secret sin the Holy Spirit rushed in like a mighty wind. This open and honest confession of sin was the most striking feature of the revival. Everywhere Goforth went revival would spread, and almost always in the same way.
First prayer was encouraged among the Christians, which then spontaneously led to heart- breaking confessions of sin. And then like a flood, the lost were brought into the kingdom by the thousands. One after another broken-hearted believers emptied themselves through the uncovering of all secret sin. Goforth clearly identified unconfessed sin among Christians as a major hindrance to God-sent revival.
Walter Phillips describes one of Goforth’s revival meetings:
“At once, on entering the church one was conscious of something unusual. The place was crowded to the door and tense, reverent attention sat on every face. The people knelt for prayer, silent at first, but soon one here and another there began to pray aloud. The voices grew and gathered volume and blended into a great wave of united supplication that swelled until it was almost a roar. Now I understood why the floor was so wet – the very air was electric and strange thrills coursed up and down ones body.”
When Goforth preached, “The cross burned like a living fire in the heart of every address.” The person of Jesus Christ was exalted throughout the entire revival as a King and Saviour who must be reckoned with. In this great revival Jonathan Goforth clearly saw that all of his previous sweating and striving had reaped only frustration. He came to the firm conviction that revival is only born through humility, faith, prayer and the power of the Holy Spirit. Goforth writes,
“If revival is being withheld from us it is because some idol remains still enthroned; because we still insist in placing our reliance in human schemes; because we still refuse to face the unchangeable truth that ‘It is not by might, but by My Spirit.’” Back to top
1909 – July: Valparaiso, Chile (Willis Hoover)
Minnie Abrams, who worked at Mukti in India during the 1905 revival there, sent an account of it in 1907 to her friend Mary Hoover, wife of Willis Hoover (1856-1936), Methodist missionaries in Chile. They began praying with their congregation for a similar revival in Chile. Often groups prayed all night. Many confessed sins openly and made restitution for wrongs done. That prepared the way for the revival which burst on them on Sunday July 4. Willis Hoover wrote:
Saturday night was an all night of prayer, during which four vain young ladies (three of them were in the choir) fell to the floor under the power of the Spirit. One of them, after praying a long time, began to exhort saying, “The Lord is coming soon and commands us to get ready.” The effect produced was indescribable. The following morning in Sunday School, at ten o’clock, a daze seemed to rest upon the people. Some were unable to rise after the opening prayer which had been like ‘the sound of many waters,’ and all were filled with wonder. From that time on the atmosphere seemed charged by the Holy Spirit, and people fell on the floor, or broke out in other tongues, or singing in the Spirit, in a way impossible in their natural condition. On one occasion a woman, a young lady, and a girl of twelve were lying on the floor in different parts of the prayer room, with eyes closed and silent. Suddenly, as with one voice, they burst forth into a song in a familiar tune but in unknown tongues, all speaking the same words. After a verse or two they became silent; then again suddenly, another tune, a verse or two, and silence. This was repeated until they had sung ten tunes, always using the same words and keeping in perfect time together as if led by some invisible chorister.
Within two months the congregation grew from 300 to 1,000 and the revival spread to other cities. Willis Hoover had to leave the denomination, but established the Pentecostal Methodist Church which now has over 600,000 members in Chile. Back to top
1914: Belgian Congo, Africa (Charles T Studd)
Africa has seen many powerful revivals, such as the Belgian Congo outpouring with C T Studd (1860-1931) in 1914. Charles T Studd played cricket for England in the famous 1882 match won by Australia which was the beginning of the Ashes. He was one of the famous “Cambridge Seven” who served God in pioneering mission work in China from 1885 in Hudson Taylor’s China Inland Mission. He wrote, “Some want to live within the sound of church or chapel bell; I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.”
He was a pastor in India (1900-1906) and then from 1910 pioneered mission in Africa, founding the Heart of Africa Mission which later became the Worldwide Evangelical Crusade (WEC). His daughter married Norman Grubb who led WEC after Studd died in Africa. He saw revival in the Congo in 1914.
“The whole place was charged as if with an electric current. Men were falling, jumping, laughing, crying, singing, confessing and some shaking terribly,” he reported. “As I led in prayer the Spirit came down in mighty power sweeping the congregation. My whole body trembled with the power. We saw a marvellous sight, people literally filled and drunk with the Spirit.”
Accounts like that are typical of the continuing moves of God’s Spirit in Africa this century. Early this century an estimated 10% of the population was Christian. The Christian population reached 50% of Africa south of the Sahara. By the end of the twentieth century the number of African Christians exceeded 400 million. The majority of this growth is with the African independent churches characterised by strong Spirit movements
Local revivals are a continuing characteristic of revivals in Africa and of the worldwide growth of the church this century. Back to top
1915 – October: Gazaland, South Africa (Rees Howells)
A further example of strong Spirit movements spreading in revival from Wales is told by Rees Howells (1879-1950) who founded the Bible College of Wales following his return from missionary work in South Africa. Converted while working in America in 1904 for three years, he returned to Wales and participated actively in the revival. In 1906 at the Llandrindod Convention he made a total surrender of his life to God and was filled with the Spirit. This led him to offer for missionary work in Africa.
In 1915 he joined the South Africa General Mission founded by Andrew Murray, which then had 170 European and African worker in 25 stations, north as far as Belgian Congo. He was sent to Rusity Mission Station in Gazaland near the border of Portugese East Africa. There he reported on the Welsh Revival.
Within six weeks the Spirit began to move upon the Christians. On a Friday evening the Spirit moved on the group meeting in the Howell’s home as they sang, and they continued the singing the next days in their gardens and elsewhere. Howells recognized a sound he had heard in the Welsh Revival. “You know it when you hear it,” he said, “but you can’t make it; and by the following Thursday, I was singing it too. There was something about it which changed you, and brought you into the stillness of God.” The following Sunday revival broke out as the Spirit moved on them all. Rees Howells reported:
The Sunday was October 10 – my birthday – and as I preached in the morning, you could feel the Spirit coming on the congregation. In the evening, down He came. I shall never forget it. He came upon a young girl, Kufase by name, who had fasted for three days under conviction that she was not ready for the Lord’s coming. As she prayed she broke down crying, and within five minutes the whole congregation were on their faces crying to God. Like lightning and thunder the power came down. I had never seen this, even in the Welsh Revival. I had only heard about it with Finney and others. Heaven had opened, and there was no room to contain the blessing.
I lost myself in the Spirit and prayed as much as they did. All I could say was, “He has come!” We went on until late in the night; we couldn’t stop the meeting. What He told me before I went to Africa was actually taking place, and that within six weeks. You can never describe those meetings when the Holy Spirit comes down. I shall never forget the sound in the district that night – praying in every kraal.
The next day He came again, and people were on their knees till 6 p.m. This went on for six days and people began to confess their sins and come free as the Holy Spirit brought them through. They had forgiveness of sins, and met the Savior as only the Holy Spirit can reveal Him. Everyone who came near would go under the power of the Spirit. People stood up to give their testimonies, and it was nothing to see twenty-five on their feet at the same time.
At the end of one week nearly all were through. We had two revival meetings every day for fifteen months without a single break, and meetings all day on Fridays. Hundreds were converted – but we were looking for more – for the ten thousand, upon whom He had told us we had a claim.
The revival spread through all the mission stations within a year. The Howells visited many of the stations and spoke at the annual conference. The mission reported over 10,000 converts during the three year revival, which included a lot of public confession and great joy. Back to top
1921 – March: Lowestoft, England (Douglas Brown)
Douglas Brown, a Baptist minister in South London, saw conversions in his church every Sunday until he began he began itinerant evangelism in 1921. Within eighteen months he then addressed over 1700 meetings, and saw revival in his evangelistic ministry. The Lord had convicted him about leaving his pastorate for mission work. Although reluctant, he finally surrendered. He described it this way:
God laid hold of me in the midst of a Sunday evening service, and he nearly broke my heart while I was preaching. I went back to my vestry and locked the door, and threw myself down on the hearthrug in front of the vestry fireplace broken hearted. Why? I do not know. My church was filled. I loved my people, and I believe my people loved me. I do not say they ought to, but they did. I was as happy there as I could be. I had never known a Sunday there for fifteen years without conversions. That night I went home and went straight up to my study. … I had no supper that night. Christ laid his hand on a proud minister, and told him that he had not gone far enough, that there were reservations in his surrender, and he wanted him to do a piece of work that he had been trying to evade. I knew what he meant. All November that struggle went on, but I would not give way; I knew God was right, and I knew I was wrong. I knew what it would mean for me, and I was not prepared to pay the price. …
All through January God wrestled with me. There is a love that will not let us go. Glory be to God! …
It was in February 1921, after four months of struggle that there came the crisis. Oh, how patient God is! On the Saturday night I wrote out my resignation to my church, and it was marked with my own tears. I loved the church, but I felt that if I could not be holy I would be honest; I felt that I could not go on preaching while I had a contention with God. That night the resignation lay on my blotter, and I went to bed but not to sleep. As I went out of my bedroom door in the early hours of the morning I stumbled over my dog. If ever I thanked God for my dog I did that night. As I knelt at my study table, the dog licked his master’s face; he thought I was ill; when Mike was doing that I felt I did not deserve anybody to love me; I felt an outcast.
Then something happened. I found myself in the loving embrace of Christ for ever and ever; and all power and joy and blessedness rolled in like a deluge. How did it come? I cannot tell you. Perhaps I may when I get to heaven. All explanations are there, but the experience is here. That was two o’clock in the morning. God had waited four months for a man like me; and I said, “Lord Jesus, I know what you want; You want me to go into mission work. I love Thee more than I dislike that.” I did not hear any rustling of angels’ wings. I did not see any sudden light.
Hugh Ferguson, the Baptist minister at London Road Baptist Church in Lowestoft on the East Anglia coast had invited Douglas Brown to preach at a mission there from Monday 7th to Friday 11th March. The missioner arrived by train, ill. However, he spoke on Monday night and at meetings on Tuesday morning, afternoon and night. The power of the Holy Spirit moved among the people from the beginning. On Wednesday night ‘inquirers’ packed the adjacent schoolroom for counselling and prayer. Sixty to seventy young people were converted that night, along with older people. Each night more packed the ‘inquiry room’ after the service. So the mission was extended indefinitely. Douglas Brown returned to his church for the weekend and continued with the mission the next Monday. By the end of March the meetings were moved from the 700 seating Baptist Church and other nearby churches to the 1100 seating capacity of St John’s Anglican Church.
March saw the beginning of revival in the area. Although Douglas Brown was the main speaker in many places, ministers of most denominations found they too were evangelizing. Revival meetings multiplied in the fishing centre of Yarmouth as well in Ipswich, Norwich, Cambridge and elsewhere. Scottish fishermen working out of Yarmouth in the winter were strongly impacted, and took revival fire to Scottish fishing towns and villages in the summer. Jock Troup, a Scottish evangelist, has visited East Anglia during the revival and ministered powerfully in Scotland.
At the same time, the spirit of God moved strongly in Ireland, especially in Ulster in 1921 through the work of W. P. (William Patteson) Nicholson a fiery Irish evangelist. This was at the time when Northern Ireland received parliamentary autonomy accompanied by tension and bloodshed. Edwin Orr was converted then, although not through W. P. Nicholson. Orr reported that “Nicholson’s missions were the evangelistic focus of the movement: 12,409 people were counselled in the inquiry rooms; many churches gained additions, some a hundred, some double; … prayer meetings, Bible classes and missionary meetings all increased in strength. … Ministerial candidates doubled.”
John Sung (1901-1944), from Hinghwa of the Fukien province in southeast China, son of a Methodist minister, was converted at nine and studied in America from 1920 at Wesleyan University of Ohio, Ohio State University, where he gained his Doctor of Philosophy degree in chemistry, and at Union Theological Seminary.
On 10 February, 1927, when a decade of revival was starting to break out in China, John Sung recommitted himself to Christ after a period of scepticism and was suddenly filled with the Holy Spirit and an inexpressible joy. Seminary authorities, concerned at his sudden fanaticism had him committed to an asylum where he had only his Bible and a fountain pen for six months. During that time he read the Bible forty times.
He returned to China in October, 1927, married, and soon became the field evangelist of the Bethel Bible School of Shanghai. He allied himself with Andrew Gih and other graduates from the school to form the Bethel Evangelistic Band. This apostolic team spread revival all over China. Although reserved, when preaching Sung was fervent with an intense emotion, denouncing sin and emphasizing repentance and restitution. His prophetic gifting often revealed specific sins or obstructions to faith. He laid hands on the sick and hundreds were healed in his meetings. Like other revivalists, he prayed long and earnestly.
God used this apostolic team mightily to spread the fires of revival all over China as they went out preaching and singing the gospel. When John Sung was not behind the pulpit, he was reserved and even subdued. However, when preaching he was a man of fervency and intense emotions.
He always emphasized repentance and the need for complete restitution where it was at all possible. He fearlessly denounced all sin and hypocrisy wherever he found it, especially among hardened ministers. Yet he also moved audiences with the message of Christ’s tender and unfailing love, as few others could. Sung’s meetings were always accompanied by a tremendous amount of conviction and brokenness over sin. It was not uncommon for hundreds of people to be seen with tears streaming down their faces and crying out for mercy. Convicted sinners frequently would rush forward to openly confess their sins before the whole congregation. On several occasions he pointed out the sins of some backslidden pastor with incredible and fearful accuracy.
When John Sung was not actively preaching or organizing a new evangelistic team, he usually could be found writing in his diary or adding to his ever-growing prayer list. He carefully prayed over an extensive list of people’s needs, with dozens of small photographs. John Sung was a faithful intercessor and always requested a small picture of those desiring prayer in order to help him intercede with a deeper burden. Everywhere he went, he urged the people to give themselves to prayer.
John Sung made it his regular habit to be up every morning at 5 a.m. to pray for two or three hours. He believed that prayer was the most important work of the believer. He defined faith as watching God work while on your knees.
Because it was evident that John Sung was a man of great power in prayer, the sick and crippled increasingly came to him to receive prayer for their bodies. John Sung always made time to tenderly pray for their needs. Sometimes he would personally lay hands on and pray for as many as 500-600 people at one time. In spite of the fact that so many marvellous healings followed his ministry, he suffered for years from intestinal tuberculosis. This disease consistently plagued him with painful and infected bleeding ulcers in his colon. Nevertheless he still continued to fervently preach, sometimes in a kneeling position to lessen the terrible pain. Finally, after years of suffering with this affliction, he died at only 43, on August 18, 1944.
Estimates of conversions in that decade of revival run to hundreds of thousands in China and South East Asia, with thousands of churches established throughout the whole region.
Evangelical Anglican missionaries of the Church Missionary Society working in the east-central Africa countries of Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda, emphasized the Keswick teaching of new birth, being filled with the Holy Spirit and living in victory. This teaching undergirded the East African Revival which continued for fifty years from the 1930s. Roy Hession’s famous book, The Calvary Road, came out of his experience of the East African Revival.
The Rwanda mission, founded in 1920, experienced local revivals in the late 1920s and early 1930s. Increasingly people prayed. By 1936 thousands were praying.
Then powerful revival broke out at the mission station at Ghini in Rwanda on Wednesday 24 June 1936. “It seemed as though the Holy Spirit with His unseen hand gathered together the hospital staff, men from the nearby village, and others in a room with the hospital. They prayed and sang, and some were smitten down under a tremendous conviction of sin. Revival swept into the girl’s school, and similar manifestations came from five different centers across the mission. Everywhere the mysterious power of the Holy Spirit was at work.”
The revival spread to the theological college where 50 students caught fire. During the mid-year holiday period 70 evangelists travelled in revival teams of two or three into the villages.
The African Rwanda Mission had 20,000 converts by 1942 in 700 village congregations with 1,400 trained workers including five ordained priests.
The famous East African revival which began in Rwanda in June 1936 rapidly spread to the neighbouring countries of Burundi, Uganda and the Congo, then further around. The Holy Spirit moved upon mission schools, spread to churches and to whole communities, producing deep repentance and changed lives. Anglican Archdeacon Arthur Pitt Pitts wrote in September, “I have been to all the stations where this Revival is going on, and they all have the same story to tell. The fire was alight in all of them before the middle of June, but during the last week in June, it burst into a wild flame which, like the African grass fire before the wind, cannot be put out.”
That East African revival continued for forty to fifty years and helped to establish a new zeal for enthusiastic holiness in African Christianity. It confronted demonic strongholds, and began to prepare churches to cope with the horrors of massacres and warfare of later years.
Now revival is again transforming whole communities in East Africa.
The Pinnacle Pocket (near Cairns) revival occurred primarily among the Aboriginal people and the Kanakas (South Sea islanders) in a remote part of the Atherton Tablelands, North Queensland in the 1930’s. Interestingly the Pinnacle Pocket Revival had a direct connection to the 1904 Welsh Revival when a convert from that revival came to Australia to live there. He invited his workers to pray with him in his home and the revival began there.
Many of those Aboriginal Christian leaders saw thousands come to Christ, many churches were planted and many extraordinary miracles occurred under their ministry.
Aboriginal Elder and Leader Ps Peter Morgan was deeply touched through the heritage of the Pinnacle Pocket Revival. Peter Morgan preached the gospel all over Australia and even in Parliament House. He saw many signs and wonders as he preached the good news of Christ’s love and prayed for people. In his ministry, mainly in remote aboriginal communities in northern Australia, he saw six people raised from the dead.
See John Blackett’s in-depth video to get the full story.
In the mid-1990s, a spiritual transformation took place in Goiania, Brazil, a city of 1.2 million. Evangelicals grew from seven percent to over 45 percent in seven years. The movement was very much characterized by prayer, especially among women who formed bands of intercessors.
Around 1990, five women began praying together for the city. Elizabeth Cornelio, a mother and housewife, one of the leaders of the prayer group, was told by her pastor not to pray with Christians from other churches. But, four years later, she began inviting other Christians from various churches to pray in unison for the city. For this, she was expelled from her church.
Eight hundred and fifty came together for the first combined prayer meeting. The movement grew rapidly with nearly 200,000 women praying every morning for the city. Elizabeth Cornelio’s daily radio broadcast brought targeted reports on criminal trends to intercessors. Together they prayed, and a city was changed. After prayer, women went out in the marketplace to pray, simply blessing those around them. When the program was cancelled for three months, the crime rate rose 40 percent. The mayor and chief of police asked that the program be reinstated. The crime rate receded. It was commonly said that the intercessors were ruling the city, not the mayor! Mobile prayer teams went door to door. Most weekends around 150 people would be saved, and a new church would begin.
As thousands prayed, every church in the city grew and new churches were planted. Christians from one denomination prayed and fasted for 40 days at the end of 1998, and planted 372 new churches in January 1999 alone. As 90 local denominations worked together, thousands of prayer leaders were trained, and the flames of a prayer revival spread to other parts of Brazil. Ultimately, prayer cells were established throughout Brazil.
Today the church in Goiania is known as a place where “revival is a lifestyle.” Churches have experienced phenomenal growth. One congregation in the city, the Universal Church of God’s Kingdom, has 80,000 members, seven million nationwide and ten million worldwide. A 24-hour Mountain of Prayer draws many, and miracles are often reported.
What began by prayer is still spreading. Just as natural cells multiply, the prayer cell movement is rapidly growing beyond Brazil and Latin America to other parts of the world.
Carlos Oliveira of PrayerNet International is a revival preacher who comes out of a Goiania church of over 60,000 members. Now based in California, he works with Elizabeth Cornelio as prayer director of the National Intercession Network. Oliveira, who helps establish prayer cells worldwide, says:
God has been doing awesome things, especially in Brazil. Many pastors are coming from different parts of the country to hear about and participate in what God is doing — prayer cells. They are embracing this vision and taking it to their cities.
“We have been now establishing an average of one prayer cell a day in Brazil and around the world. Amazingly, God has directed us to also establish prayer cells in schools and government agencies. So far we have started one cell in a private elementary school and one in the treasury department of the state.
“In Nigeria there’s a church that started a children’s prayer cell. We have started church prayer cells in Nigeria, Kenya, and Pakistan, and are in the process of starting cells also in Taiwan, Togo, Zimbabwe, Ghana, and Angola. Soon, we will have church prayer cells in Hong Kong and Germany.”
Unlike private prayer groups, the prayer cells cover each other in prayer and pray for the whole network. They may be city prayer cells or church prayer cells, but all are encouraged to meet once a week to pray for revival and for their area’s specific needs.
Firmly convinced that prayer makes the difference, Oliveira says, “The most successful churches/ministries in the whole world are those that have ongoing prayer covering.”
Have You Thought?
What began as a small group of women gathering to pray has changed a city, a nation, and the world. Allow God to grow the “small beginnings” in your life.
Transformation Moment
In all our prayer let us remember the lesson the Saviour would teach us this day, that if there is one thing on earth we can be sure of, it is this, that the Father desires to have us filled with His Spirit, that He delights to give us His Spirit.
“And when once we have learned thus to believe for ourselves, and each day to take out of the treasure we hold in heaven, what liberty and power to pray for the outpouring of the Spirit on the Church of God, on all flesh, on individuals, or on special efforts! He that has once learned to know the Father in prayer for himself, learns to pray most confidently for others too. The Father gives the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him, not least, but most, when they ask for others” (Andrew Murray in Lord, Teach Us to Pray)
Article by: Inger J. Logelin Sentinel Group Email, April 16, 2014
God did it then – is doing it now – and will again
“The president was so impressed that he loaned the young 19 year old evangelist his presidential jet to travel to meetings through the entire country, giving him the use of stadiums and asking mayors to declare a holiday when the young evangelist arrived in their cities to preach.”
How a genuine revival impacted Bolivia
In 1995, Julio Ruibal, a prominent charismatic evangelist from Bolivia who lived and worked in Cali, Colombia, was martyred for his faith. The story of his courageous ministry of unity and opposition against Cali’s drug cartels is chronicled in the well-known Transformations video, produced by The Sentinel Group. However, less known internationally is his role in a genuine revival that impacted Bolivia in the 1970s.
In the early 1970s, after his conversion in Los Angeles, Julio returned to the city of La Paz, Bolivia and began to share Christ. After a core group of young people came to the Lord and started gathering in homes, conversions began to multiply exponentially until there were more than 5,000 new Christians.
After word of this spiritual outbreak spread in the predominantly Catholic country, Ruibal found himself in a meeting with Bolivia’s president, Hugo Bánzer Suárez. The president was so impressed that he loaned the young evangelist his presidential jet to travel to meetings through the entire country, giving him the use of stadiums and asking mayors to declare a holiday when the young evangelist arrived in their cities to preach.
During the next several years, hundreds of thousands of people were converted to Christ. Today the evangelical population of Bolivia has grown to more than 11 percent.
“As repentance was his lifestyle, it became a fruit of the revival.” Looking back to those days, Ruibal’s widow Ruth says the Bolivian revival was marked by repentance and simple obedience to Jesus.
“Julio’s conversion was dramatic and his repentance was deep. He would lie on the living room floor saying, ‘Jesus I have found You; I have found everything.’
Up until then, Julio was supporting himself by running a yoga academy. He told all his students about his conversion, and half the students were saved while half left. He closed down the academy and from that day, for the rest of his life, he lived by faith. Most people would have tried to save the academy or wait until they had something else to do. But Julio was drastic in obeying. As repentance was his lifestyle, it became a fruit of the revival. People were getting right with others, making restoration for prior wrongs and dramatically stepping out from sin.”
The Bolivian revival affected the nation and the culture. “This was a sovereign move of God over a nation, not just one church being revived,” says Ruibal. “Up until that time, Bolivia had had more presidents than years of independence. There had been so many coups. At one point there were four presidents in one day. However, when President Bánzer opened the country to the gospel, he stayed in power for eight years. That was a first for Bolivia. Bolivia experienced its first economic boom. Churches sprang up everywhere and poverty was diminished.”
“God had replaced the bone eaten away by cancer!” There were also many miracles. “The miracles were so remarkable and abundant that it is hard to adequately describe,” says Ruibal. “One of the outstanding miracles involved a woman who was dying of bone cancer. She was bed-ridden and her upper leg could not be moved for lack of bone. Her sons asked Julio to pray for her. He led her to the Lord and then prayed for healing. Then Julio felt the Lord telling him to lift the lady to her feet. He helped pull her up and she stood. God had replaced the bone eaten away by cancer! There were other types of miracles, too. Food was multiplied supernaturally. At a dinner, fish appeared on a plate in front of several elders. Once, money multiplied so that we could feed some leaders who had cometo minister.”
The revival was marked by sweeping conversions that sparked church growth. Before the revival the largest evangelical church in La Paz had about 90 members. Missionaries from many denominations had labored for decades with little results. What Julio, then only 19 years old, brought in was a commitment to prayer.
“When we started the church in 1974 we would teach the young people and then in the evenings they would go to home groups to teach what they had learned,” says Ruibal. “We would then reunite after the meetings and pray for the people in the meetings. This meant we prayed from 10 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. or 3 a.m. every night. There was a lot of prayer.”
“From then on the stadiums were too small to hold the crowds.” The stadium meetings had their own challenges. “It started in the stadium in La Paz, with thousands attending. But one day when the meeting was to start at 10 a.m., the police called Julio to ask for his advice. The crowds had come around 5 a.m. to get seats in the stadium, but when they arrived they found the stadium was already filled. People had spent the night there, and the overflow crowd was now at 40,000. The police feared a riot. That day Julio preached to the crowd within the stadium and then from the wall of the stadium to the overflow. Miracles took place as people repented and came to Jesus.”
“From then on the stadiums were too small to hold the crowds. The meetings were held on mountainsides and in plazas. There was no PA system at that time large enough to reach the tens of thousands of people, so they were encouraged to bring their transistor radios and turn them up as loud as possible. Since the meetings were being broadcast, everyone could hear the preaching. The Assemblies of God sold 33,000 Bibles and New Testaments in only two weeks. In fact, the Bible Society of Argentina and other outlets had to send them their stock of Bibles as well.”
As a result of the revival many new churches were planted in Bolivia. “Ekklesía, the church we started in La Paz, has more than 23,000 members today,” says Ruibal. “Daughter churches were started in every state in Bolivia and also in Colombia and Argentina.” Also other churches benefited. “There were about 15 churches started in the city of La Paz alone as a result of the revival.”
Source: Ruth Ruibal, interviewed for Charisma Magazine
Someone once said that everything is true somewhere, at some time in China.
This statement couldn’t be more true in today’s China. Somewhere in China there are still believers being persecuted for their faith, but for all the people that are being persecuted, many are able to worship freely. In fact, some companies prefer to hire Christians rather than unbelievers because of their integrity and ethics. In one city alone, it is believed that the Christians amount to 10% of the population and many businessmen are strong believers.
In some areas in China there is bitter animosity between the house and registered churches but for each place where there is bitterness, there are thousands of house churches that are being allowed to continue. In fact, house church leaders have open discussions with local government officials and are permitted to rent and even purchase office space to hold their meetings. Also, there are cities where both the house and Three-Self Churches work together, and some house churches meet in Three-Self Churches!
In China there are certain versions of the Bible that are not printed and are not permitted in the country but for all the versions of the Bible that are not printed or permitted here, there are several versions that people can freely purchase in bookstores and online to send to their friends. In fact, the Three-Self Church has printed millions of Bibles in the country and made them available at their bookstores.
It’s a new day for China, for the Church in China, and for the World. We thank the Lord for the harvest that was brought in the past, the maturation of the Chinese church, and for the economic strides that have made China the second-largest economy in the world. However, if all this is to continue China needs to go to the next level of its maturation and reach the next generation, the 4/14ers! Now is the time for the Church of China to come together to preserve the harvest so it will last many more generations.
At the recent Asian Church Leaders Forum, over 100 Chinese church leaders signed a pledge to “commit ourselves to raising up younger leaders of the next generation” and to “pass the vision of evangelization onto the younger generation and proclaim the salvation message of the old rugged cross with creative methods.” We are excited that the church in China has embraced reaching the next generation so that a new chapter in China’s great harvest history can be written.
Bougainville Revival – South Pacific
Royree Jensen (Sons of Thunder, 2009) tells the story of powerful revival in Bougainville, east of Papua New Guinea, during the decade of war from 1988, sparked by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army (BRA) to defend their land and culture from devastation caused by mining. Spiritual leaders worried about the western evils that arrived with the mining: pornography, alcohol abuse, drugs, smoking and immorality. Here are selections from Royree’s story.
Friday, November 6, 1987 marked the first supernatural revival event. It was at this time that the crisis was about to boil over. The stories of that day and the period of time that followed have been told to me by Papa Luke, a genteel man – white haired, 73 years of age, a school teacher, world-travelled. He lives on Saposa Island, 30 minutes by banana boat from Buka Island. He was a small boy during World War II and can remember the time when the Japanese invaded his island. Having lived through so much turbulence, Papa Luke now spends most of his days sitting with God. When we finally found him, he was sitting by the ocean reading his Bible.
Both teacher and story-weaver, he began to talk, vividly recalling the day the revival began, in the circular story-telling style of the Melanesian people.
“Before revival came up, I wrote a drama about God that mixed the culture with the Word of God. We had a drama group of young people who travelled around Buka area.
Around this time, nine people got sick from black magic. Out of the nine, five died and four were left.
“My cousin Salome was one of the four people who didn’t die. She was brought to the hospital in Buka but she didn’t recover, so she was referred to Arawa General Hospital. She didn’t recover there. The Indian doctor told her and her husband that he had seen witchcraft in India and knew that this poison came from the witchcraft. The doctor discharged her and she came home.
“They had a ritual ceremony where they asked for the sorcerers to release her by making a sacrifice to free her. She was meant to get better but didn’t improve. After black magic failed, her brother, the chief, requested for the drama group to come back to our village and pray.
“By Sunday morning, my cousin was still sick. My family brought her to the Lotu (church service). They prayed for deliverance and healing. She got healed immediately along with the other three who were still sick. Five dead. Four healed. On that Sunday, many spiritual gifts fell. Everyone received a spiritual gift – all different kinds of gifts.
“Now the group went to the island where Salome and the others got sick. They were going to heal the island of the witchcraft that had killed the people. They put their hands into the ground without having to dig and they pulled out the poison. Their hands went through the ground to the exact spot of the bones or whatever artifacts had been used for the witchcraft. Their eyes were closed but the Holy Spirit led them to these places.” (As he told me this, he shaped his hand as they had shaped theirs – like a rigid blade extending straight from the arm.)
Walking on water
“Now things became wild, exciting and interesting. Supernatural things began to happen. By the power of the Holy Spirit, my cousin Salome discerned that there was some witchcraft poison on another nearby island (a burial site) that was put there by a sorcerer. We began to pray. While we prayed, fifteen people stood with their eyes shut. Still with their eyes shut, they began walking on the water from our island to the nearby island. The Holy Spirit led them while they walked. When they reached the other island, they put their hands into the ground and pulled out small parcels of scraped human bone. This powder was being used by sorcerers in their witchcraft rituals. They brought these parcels of scraped bones back to our island, still walking on top of the water with their eyes still shut. They did not swim.
“We prayed over the parcels and threw them away into salt water. This broke the power of witchcraft. We don’t know how they did the walking on the water except by the power of God. Plenty of people saw them walking on the water. There were plenty of eye witnesses. The distance between the two islands is one kilometre.
“The effect that this had on the island was that we became very excited about God. Many became Christians and worshipped God. It didn’t stop there. Some of our school boys and girls, including my son, visited another island. All the mothers prepared food for them to share out. My son climbed a tree leaving his plate of food for a friend. The friend ate the food and died, along with eight other children and their teacher. My pikinini only got sick.
“This was not the only group to visit that island and die so we were waking up to the fact that the island had something no good on it. We notified all the ministries around us. For one week, we fasted, prayed and read the Bible.
“First we went back to the island where our 15 people had walked. We found more black magic – enough to fill a 10kg bag of rice. We prayed over it and threw it in the water. A big flying fox with legs like a man settled on top of the house where I was staying with another pastor. We could feel the wind from his wings. We rebuked this evil, black magic. It was powerful and even those who were praying fell down. This battle went on for quite a while but the people in our church were skilled in deliverance and intercession and eventually we started to win over this black magic.
“Two days later, we visited the island where the school children had died. We circled the island in a small boat worshipping God. We were all a little bit afraid. First people who could discern black magic went ashore. Then those who could fight black magic went ashore. Then we all went ashore.
“We stood together and worshipped God. Then we split into two groups, heading around the island in opposite directions. Just before we joined up, one team stood under a tree and looked up. They saw a live bird that they knew was part of black magic. They said, ‘In the name of Jesus come down.’ The bird died and began to fall. By the time it hit the ground, only the skeleton of the bird was left.
“One month before, some plantation workers had been on the island. A man had sat under that tree to rest. He took sick, went to hospital and died. However, after we fought the black magic, it was okay. Even today, 20 years later, people live there and no one gets sick. There is good food, good fish and everything grows. It is no longer a witchcraft island.
“These things marked the beginning of the revival. Demonic spirits were being chased out of our land.”
More miracles
Albert was a young Christian during the crisis. He adds: “I now see, feel and walk on the power of God. I didn’t know these things when I was a young Christian but I saw it in others. There were those who were operating on the high voltage power of God. These were people who would walk through a hail of bullets and not get hit. I would say that the host of heaven caught some of the bullets for me.
“There was one instance in 1993 when I was leading a group of chiefs from up in the mountains to sign a peace agreement. I was not doing this job of my own accord but because it was my job to do. I prayed to my God, “The fighting is all around us and I am a Christian. If You are going to go with me, talk with me tonight, Papa God. I don’t want to lead them through the bullets.
“At 2 a.m., my elder son who was three spoke in English. He did not know English. He said, ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, you can go.’ He was fast asleep. Fifteen years later, the memory still brings tears to my eyes and a reverent awe of God. This was not the time of meetings, conferences, mobile phones or encouragement. This was a hard time and we only had God.
“I woke up in the morning with peace. That day, 15 of the chiefs started to run back to the mountains. I told them that God was with us and that not one single man must run away even if there is gunfire. I told them that, if one runs, then the guns will get us but that if no one runs, we will all be safe.
“There was a place called Ambush Corner always maintained by BRA. They knew where I was taking these chiefs and why. They didn’t want anyone to sign peace papers. I was in the front of the line. The Holy Spirit stopped me and I heard a voice tell me to take the chiefs to one side. I stopped them and said, ‘We are about to enter Ambush Corner and I am afraid that there are people ready to kill us. However, last night, I felt the peace of God. Don’t run but stand strong beside me.’ We walked ahead and the BRA descended upon us. I said to them, ‘In Jesus’ name, I am a servant of God.’
“They pointed their weapons to the sky and fired them off, then they pointed their guns at us but the guns wouldn’t fire. The chiefs kept following me saying that the peace must come from God. The peace we enjoy today in Bougainville is because of that document.
“One time, I was holding my son on my shoulders going for a tramp. We came to a flooded river which was odd because there had been no rain so we took another route. Later I found out that there was an ambush waiting to kill us. The unnatural flood changed our direction.”
During the late 1980s when war erupted, life was going on in its exotic daily routines in the jungle. Yet there was one clan leader who decided to stay in his village, 2 kms from the coastline and about 80 kms from Panguna Mine. Such villages were caught between flying bullets. Pastor Ezekiel made a home there he made called Aero Centre. Here are just a few stories that have been told directly to me some ten years since the guns were laid down.
A boy’s story: “During the crisis, PNGDF men entered the little house I lived in with my mother. I was 12 years old. They demanded kerosene and food at gunpoint. My mother was a Christian and so she began to pray. They held a gun to her head but she said, ‘No’. Kerosene was more valuable than gold for us. Without it, we couldn’t run our home. The soldier pulled the trigger. The gun didn’t go off. All this time, I watched my mother. They pulled the trigger a second time. The gun didn’t go off. The soldier went outside our hut, pulled the trigger and it went off. The gun was loaded and it exploded. These soldiers realised that God was with my mother. They quickly ran away. We kept our kerosene.”
By the time that 12 year old boy told me this story, he was a young man, yet the awe of God was still on him. He had witnessed his mother’s faith in God and he is still walking in the fear of God.
Ruth, a vivacious school teacher recalls her experiences of being a woman during the crisis and the revival: “In the time of the crisis, God helped my family in a big way. We had no money to buy clothes, food and soap. God showed us how to use coconut and lemon to wash our clothes to make them white as snow. He showed us how to use coconut oil from our own coconut trees for our lamps. Before the crisis, we used to buy kerosene for our lamps. Now there was no money and no kerosene. Salt was also not available so He showed us how to cook our food in salt water from the ocean, adding grated coconut for our flavours. Sometimes we would boil the ocean water until all we had left was the powdery salt. In these ways, God showed me that He loved women in their domestic situation; that even in a crisis He could provide all we needed by looking after our clothes and our bodies.
“God also blessed the ground during the crisis. Food that we hadn’t planted appeared – sweet potato, yam, taro, casava, chinese taro, banana and other fruit. This didn’t just happen in one place. It happened all over the island. In fact, there is now a category of sweet potato called crisis kaukau!”
Jane: “When the crisis came, people ran away to the mountains leaving their chickens behind. It seemed that those chickens found their way to our village so we had plenty of meat for a long time during the crisis.”
10 years after the surrender of guns, young men and women – some married with children – are going to great lengths to complete primary and secondary education. Schools are being built or re-built but teachers are few and often minimally qualified. Because of the crisis, those who should now be teaching are themselves still in formal education. Those educated before the crisis are helping those who are now studying. Those who are uneducated are making their living from working the cocoa plantations.
With no help from the neighbouring giant, Australia, and with the confusion and betrayal of brother fighting brother, they turned to God, sometimes praying from 6 in the morning to 6 at night. As the saying goes, “When God is all you have you find that He is enough.”
Another leader, Pastor Ezekiel, had been a United Church pastor since his training for the ministry. He had received the spiritual experience known as the Baptism in the Holy Spirit at the time of his salvation. This experience turns knowledge into spiritual energy and liturgy into dynamic power. Knowing about God is exchanged for knowing Him personally. Icy religion is melted by joy and hope. It was not surprising, therefore, that he became a key player in the revival in Bougainville.
Pastor Ezekiel was told to close down his Bible School. Because of the crisis, all of the schools on the island had been closed down and he was to comply. He refused. He said that it was not his place to close it down. God had opened it and God would have to shut it. He was viciously beaten as a result of this decision, and on a number of other occasions. Over 500 people, including many women, have graduated from his Bible School. Many are now missionaries in other countries.
Another extraordinary side effect of the crisis was the subsistence diet. Many times I have heard it said that they came out of the crisis 10 years younger than they used to be because all the refined food was taken out of their diet. They ate from the soil. “Our bodies got healthy and strong.
Prayer Mountain
A Prayer Mountain emerged deep into the crisis years. Its origins were mysterious and its role in the crisis and in the revival was equally other-world.
A contributing factor to the glory of God over Bougainville and to the revival has to have been this Prayer Mountain. In Bougainville and in other parts of the world, it is not uncommon for a geographical site to be set aside as a prayer mountain. However, when I began to hear stories of this one particular Prayer Mountain, I knew that God had met with this people in a rare manner, not unique, but certainly rare.
Pastor Ezekiel’s strength and focus on God encouraged others to become giants in faith also. David Gagaso is one such giant. This strong and good looking young man with a soft, melodic voice was the one who received the word from God about this mountain.
David made a choice as a young man to live an uncompromising life of faith in Jesus Christ. He was diligent in his pursuit of spiritual things leading him to a series of miraculous experiences. Phenomena in the night sky, visions, and voices helped him locate a certain mountain on which he, his brother and friends built a bush house for prayer. This became known as Prayer Mountain. In the context of the chronology of the crisis, the Prayer Mountain phenomenon was most intense just prior to the final attempts by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army and Papua New Guinea to bring peace to the island.
He said, “In that bush house, the presence of God came down. The place was totally covered and filled with thick fog and smoke. We could hardly see other people in this little house. Pastor began using Prayer Mountain, hosting prayer seminars and prayer programs.
“We began to see manifestations of God. People began to receive songs and others saw angels. We were lost in prayer and fasting.
“If Pastor was going out to speak at a crusade, we would first go up the mountain to pray. Then, while he was speaking, people would stay on the mountain praying. My older brother saw an angel dressed in white.
“When people were disobedient, lightning would appear and wrap itself around the people. For instance, God had showed us how to build the house on Prayer Mountain. It was hard work. We cut the trees down the mountain and then carried the wood up the mountain to the place where we were building. One day, three men decided to go hunting instead of doing this hard work. The lightning appeared and wrapped itself around them. They nearly died. They smelt bad and could hardly speak. They were out of their senses. After an hour, they began to talk to each other, asking how they felt about the lightning. My brother told them the reason for the lightning – that they didn’t follow instructions.
“In 1999, we replaced the bush house with one that had a tin roof. At the opening service for that house, I felt the presence of Jesus Christ as we were worshipping. Everyone was flat on the ground, face down. Even the musicians were on the ground with their instruments. It was an awesome incredible experience for me that I will never forget. We had to stop the whole service because we enjoyed God’s presence so much. It took us a very long time to come back to the rest of the service. We could not pray or dance or sing but could only be flat on the ground before the presence of God.
“Normally before people set foot on Prayer Mountain, the sky would be clear. When people entered the prayer house, cloud would cover up the whole place even though there were no other clouds in the sky.
“We never slept at Prayer Mountain, but would always come back to the foot of the mountain to sleep. …
David paused and then continued. “Our experience in the crisis produced people who can be involved in missions. We are not scared about any situation. We learn language easily; we eat anything or nothing; we sleep anywhere; we need nothing; we carry fire.
“I personally believe that God is going to raise up very aggressive missionaries from our island. One of the things I believe is that the Church should be involved in mission. Our Church in Bougainville is now reaping what we were planting up there in Prayer Mountain. We prayed for Africa and now we have missionaries there. Same with Indonesia. We are becoming the answer to our own prayers. I myself am about to go to a place that is not safe for Christians.”
Jane took up the story. “Prayer Mountain was where the Spirit of God fell. Things happened that are foreign to the western mind.
“It started when we took Bible School students up to Prayer Mountain for a retreat. We planned to be there for two weeks, praying and fasting, before sending them out on a ministry trip.
“At the time of this two week stay on Prayer Mountain with the students, we were not thinking in terms of a revival. We were just being obedient to why we believed God had established Prayer Mountain.
“Soon, people were lifted up off the ground during worship and prayer. One girl was lifted up, flew past me and landed outside the building. Other students went through the wall, breaking it on their flight, landing outside.
“We tried to stop them; to quiet them down; to bring them back inside the building. But there was a fear of God and a fear of the unknown. We were afraid that if we stopped it, we would be touching something that was God.
“One time Ezekiel was up Prayer Mountain. On his way back to Aero Centre, he met two ‘white men’ who were glowing. They asked him where he was going. He said, ‘Home’ and then passed them. He turned around. They were gone.
“Another time a group was cleaning the building at the top of Prayer Mountain. They arrived to find footprints all around the house. You must understand that this is not a place where anyone lived and those on cleaning duty would have seen anyone leave the house on their way up the mountain. They knew straight away that these were the footprints of angels.
“I have to say that, even though we do not now go up the Prayer Mountain, the impact still remains. When we meet for worship, we don’t need to be gee-ed up. Rather, we begin to worship God from the start. We are aware of the danger of following a routine or a program.”
There is no doubt that this mountain played a crucial part in both the revival and in the beginning of the end of the crisis. Ezekiel’s adds:
“Before Prayer Mountain, and into the second year of the crisis, people were singing worship songs to God. The sound of the singing was heard around the mountains.
“When it was time to be in church, people would run to the front of the church, casting themselves down on the smooth rocks that were alongside the front of the church. There were times when the dirt floor of the church was indented by the banging of heads in repentance and worship.
“Then came Prayer Mountain. We stopped at the bottom of the mountain to confess our sins and if we didn’t do this well enough on the first stop, such conviction would come on us that we would stop again. Finally we would reach the prayer house at the top of the mountain and the presence of God would come down. We wouldn’t talk but could only whisper because of the awareness of the Holy Spirit. The day came, after the building was completed, for its dedication. I put a big ceremony on the doors and then we went inside. When we were about to sing the first song we found that we couldn’t stand. We were prostrate on the floor before God. Prophecy after prophecy came.
“We had not expected this. The prophecies spoke against the war. In fact, when the Peace-Keeping Forces arrived in Bougainville, God reminded us of the prophecies from that meeting. What is more, we were praying on Prayer Mountain when they arrived in Bougainville.
“Another time, the Holy Spirit showed Himself by thunder and lightning. I became aware that we needed to keep ourselves holy while on Prayer Mountain. Twice, lightning came and hit the ground. People tried to run away but a lightning bolt picked them up and rolled them all over Prayer Mountain. Seeing these things increased the fear of God. …
Pastor Ezekiel told me of its final days. “By 1999, a prophetic message came that we had to leave the mountain. God began to speak from John 4:21-24. The message of those verses came to me as,“I am no longer just in that mountain. Meet Me here as you met Me on the mountain.”
“This process of obedience gave us further understanding of the holiness and presence of God. “We began to question God. “Why are we not experiencing what we experienced before?”
“Then God began to give us the understanding that Prayer Mountain was not just for ourselves but was for taking the Gospel to other people. He spoke to us about mission. Now we were to plant churches and experience things that used to only happen on Prayer Mountain. We have done this. For instance, we now even have missionaries in Africa.
“We had to learn about the omnipresence of God. Some young people went back to Prayer Mountain to try to get back what we had experienced but nothing happened. It was a time and a season and a place for a specific purpose.
“In 2000, we launched Christian Missionary Fellowship in Bougainville. We are now sending missionaries into PNG and to the rest of world.”
More of this story is told in South Pacific Revivals