The Fathers Blessing

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Biblical Christianity

Why we must acquire and maintain

Continual vibrancy in Christian practice

On January 20, 1994 a historic restored Apostolic paradigm shift occurred in a little Charismatic Canadian congregation named the "Toronto Airport Vineyard Fellowship." The Holy Spirits descent on this day was not to dissimilar to the day of Pentecost or the many other occasions God chose to come down and visit His children. This occasion was not to dissimilar to any of these prior events of restoration, refreshing, renewal, healing, equipping, refreshing, reminding, etc… God was reminding His people that His word is eternal and that He wants to abide with them not just visit them. Gods hand came down to remind the church of whom He is and what we are to do, to Love the Lord and the lost with all we have in all ways possible every where we can. This small Canadian congregation had a membership of 350 people with only room for another 75 people if necessary yet there was about to be a surge in attendance that has not abated to this very day. This is a comparatively good compared to the average church size in America is a church with approximately 100-200 members. This church was not in need of acquiring the normal state of affairs and this church did not need to aspire to any church norms. This church was of good size. The entire world has not yet been saved so no church leader should be satisfied with their church growth or evangelistic effort until Jesus returns for His bride. However this was not an ordinary church the leadership wanted more of God and was avidly seeking His face.

The leadership of this church, John and Carol Arnott were desperate for a move of God and had went on a few pilgrimages to experience true biblical revival themselves. They were in search of a deeper encounter with God, which would bring a more intimate and personal with their Savior, Friend, Healer, Comforter, King, Sanctifier, Kinsman Redeemer and Father, Jesus. This couple had encountered God mightily during a Benny Hinn Crusade and at a Pastors Conference with Claudio Friedzon of the longest running revival in the history of Christian religion the Argentina Revival, which has been going on since 1983 to present and is still running strong. They wanted to immulate, model and receive an impartation that would give them the victorious power of the cross for that would bring the breakthrough in their ministry needed. These pilgrimages brought some fruit and left and impact upon their hearts however God dealt with them on having daily devotions and this was key to them experiencing personal revival before the could allow God to manifest through them in a corporate church body revival. There intent was to bring Gods glory to Canada for their church bodies vitality and ministry not know that God wanted to use them to impact there nation and the globe. They wanted to see God move as He did in the past today so that men and women may see and fear and put their trust in the real true and living God not just the idea of a God. Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship could be Canadas first mega church.

On the historic day of January 20 1994, the pastor of a Vineyard church in St. Louis by the name of Randy Clark was scheduled to preach. He was only scheduled to stay for few nights yet he ended up preaching the first few months of the revival. Randy Clark is now in full time Crusade Evangelism ministry stirring the body of Christ up for Global Awakening. Carol and her husband were not ready for nor did they expected a full blown global visitation of the Holy Spirit o come through this humble congregation and simple pastorate. These were a people who loved God and were seeking Jesus for more of Him, to encounter Him, to be changed by Him, and to know Him more. On the day that the glory of God fell there were only 120 believers in attendance. It interesting to note that this is prophetically the same number as met together on the day of Pentecost and even then on the first day of Pentecost many thought that revivalism was a little to fanatical the spectators thought they looked drunk. As a parallel to the day of Pentecost this move of God in Toronto Canada looked as unruly as the day of Pentecost or the dedication of Solomon’s temple or any of the accounts of God glory manifesting in the Old Testament. Through this revival and the many other God so conveniently reminds us that God has rent the veil that kept the glory of God from manifesting on only special occasions.

The manifest glory, the weightiness of God, the Kavodth and Shekinah glory of God is for all who want to experience it and is a pre-requisite to New Testament ministry. New Testament Signs and Wonders ministry is wrought by intimate personal communion with God and personal power encounters with God. This is established in the hearts, souls and spirits of people through the Gods spirits ministry of empowering so that Gods servants will get active in effective power ministry through total obedience to the moving and leading of Gods spirit. The key to this revival is not any special preacher but the humblness of the Holy Spirit the many ministers and lay laborers who are part of this nameless faceless move of God. The intense worship times, the testimonies, simple Christ meets you need based messages and the hours of soaking prayer are what characterize this revival. It is not the big time ministers but the lay workers who work the prayer lines that make this revival. Worship, testimonies and prayer are central in this revival in a laid back, care free, we except everybody environment. The message is one of Gods love, grace and mercy not hell and condemnation. The story of this revival is one of many being changed nightly for the past five years this revival has run none stop without any sort of abatement it is growing in intensity as we grow nearer to God and Christ's return is nearer than ever.

Qoute from Melinda Fish's book, "The River Is Here," "Margaret Poloma, a respected sociologist from the University of Akron (Ohio), recently completed what may be the first scientific study of the effects of revival. She questioned more than 1,000 people who have attended services at TACF and found that: 50 percent said they were experiencing "spiritual dryness and great discouragement" when they first came to Toronto. 89 percent confirmed that they were now more in love with Jesus than they'd ever been. 71 percent said their church had experienced "positive benefits" from their visit. Of the 1,000 respondents, 18 percent were pastors, and 30 percent were church leaders. Only 2 percent thought they had been manipulated in any way. An explosion of evangelism. 'Are people being saved?' some are asking. To many evangelicals, the principle evidence of revival is not phenomena, but the conversion of souls to Christ. Historically, when the power of the Holy Spirit falls, He makes His presence known by drawing people to Jesus. In fact, in the last 2-1/2 years, more than 10,000 people have made commitments to the Lord at the altar of TACF, comprising both first-time converts and returning backsliders."

I have heard many against revival-spread lies, rumors, and cause dissension. If you read the passages on the end times deception that many anti-revivalist quote they talk of Lies, dissension, back biting, ones who will cause dissention etc... According to the text of scripture they like to use this make them fit the description of a false prophet to the T. No questions. They use fear, paranoia, and hypocrisy to draw believers away from the true church into you inner circle and segregate themselves from the rest of the body of Christ basically calling themselves the messiah the only way to God but those in this Revival acknowledge only Jesus as the way to God. I challenge people like that to check their salvation. How you can come against what GOD IS Doing let me restate it WHAT GOD IS DOING. Over 300,000 souls have come to Jesus since 1995 at Brownsville AOG alone. It is correct to say that statements like Alter states of consciousness, psychological manipulation, mass hypnosis, peer pressure, etc... hold no ground in any Christian discussion if you know the truth. First they come from the secular world and the church is only to use scripture to evaluate a move of God not whether it is esoteric they may claim revival is leaving out how eisogetic there interpretation of the passages on false prophecy pertaining to the end-time anti-Christ, the spirit of the deceiver manifesting. Many times you will see that there is a bending of the light of scripture to fit their doctrine not acknowledging the fact that those who appose them in this revival are doing the opposite trying to show them truth which their opponents deny through errant doctrine. One is trying to use scripture to establish a doctrine on manifestations and one is trying to establish a doctrine against when there is none for or against only scriptures like you mentioned on discernment of spirits. Secondly Altered states of Consciousness if anyone has ever take a basic level Psychology class you will find out that the world and the realm of psychology calls prayer, altered states of consciousness and esoteric experience. Do you pray as the word of God tells us to, this is considered as much an altered state of consciousness as a Buddhist mantra. People holding to this kind of litmus test need to repent from this filthy Gnostic doctrine. This is completely Gnostic "I can understand God and His many levels, I put Him in my mental box and understand God completely there is no room for error." They are flesh and blood as anyone else and do not have all the truth in one little Gnostic box. The Gnostics believed that there knowledge was salvation. This is un-true the word of God leads to true salvation and discernment in Jesus by the power of His spirit. I ran across a anti-revival web page that said that a prayer meeting is not of God and that they are Gnostic! what? What devil has he been talking to! God commands us to pray and together, do they ever read their bible and pray together or are they a form the truth, white washed graves denying the power of God, full of dead men's bones? It is sick that the same arguments that are used to say that Christianity is "The Opium of the People" is being used to divide Christianity. These arguments prove nothing in an actual discussion other than a lack of knowledge and manipulation is being used by the exponent of this to get a participator in such religious events to stop. You can prove any organized religion false with those statements even yours. We must stop arguing and picking bones, we are not perfect. You can look at any ministry and see its faults. The scary thing about people attacking is that the devil attacks peoples character. We must keep it biblical instead of getting personal. Billions of people are going to hell right now and many in the church would rather argue about how that someone is being used of God to bring people to Jesus rather than try to help them win more people to Jesus. The same types of errors we try to find in any ministry we could find in our own ministry. We can look at the problems forever they will always be there. Lets stop being hypocrites and fix it, stop yapping and do something good instead of slandering your brother. The one thing that bugs me is that these same Brothers would not witness to a Jehovah's Witness how they cut down people in Toronto, Brownsville, or Argentina revivals. Let us the church unit church and evangelize the world were ever God calls you to do you part. Jonathan Edwards said that slander and divisions one of the down falls of the revival in his time. I saw a web-site of a few young Christians who would go to revival meetings namely at the Anaheim Vineyard church to catalog and gawk at the manifestations of Gods spirit. They did this just so they could say it was not of God because of the shaking which Hanks Hennegraph says is "bad for your nerves" not because the spirit of God told him it was wrong or because a false spirit was there. They judged the revival in their flesh on whether they saw manifestations or not. I guess shaking would hurt someone and do damage to their nerves unless God really does it then it will not hurt or leave damage. God will not hurt you if you are shaking and ir is God He most likely will not leave you in pain if God can shake your body like that He can heal and protect it. Seeing Jesus die on the cross would have made Him fell bad and watching Dan shake in chapter 10 would have made him feel bad. God is real and alive today. I do not like hearing all this hypocrisy. People in and out of revival are wrong in debate if it is a devil cast it out don't talk about it do something about it. If someone has a devil cast it out of them. Let us join together in love and decide to do something positive about the lost condition of this world. Jesus is coming again soon let us prepare to take as many to heaven as we can before we go. I was healed of two torn rotator cuffs, physical and emotional abuse slowly over a period of time in Brownsville and Toronto type meetings. There have been documented healings of blind eyes, AIDS, scholiosis of the back, cancer etc... If Jesus name is lifted up in this How is the devil at work. The word of God my source says that if (if a choice) I ask God for the Holy Ghost that He will give it to me, and if you being evil know how to give good gifts know how much more or heavenly father. I am thankful for the good gifts.

The political corporate Supra-structure Church government theology which is extra-biblical and false-prophetic in nature that is used in the church today was adopted by a prideful man in the 3rd centure A.C. God did not change church structure man did study church History. The office of Apostle has never been done away with or abolished. Pridefully, it was made into a position of control. No one under the unction of the Holy Spirit or by the direction of the Holy Ghost instituted a monarchial bishop until the 3rd century. Let us look at the catholic denominations for one. The Pope has his direct claim to authority of Apostleship and they never said God took it out of the church. Now I do not believe in Apostolic Succession. The Pope means father an apostle is a spiritual father. I do not agree with the way the political institution of the Pope - bishop of bishop and apostle of apostles. The catholic church still believes in apostles today and not as missionaries as some say. The manifestations of the Holy Ghost in church was lessened over the years because quote (Tertulian - the Pentecostal of Carthage, Origen, Iranius) "a lack of holiness and because an ecclesiastic structure was established by prideful man." If you study church history you will see there were those who were still operating in the gifts and unction of the Holy Ghost mainlines people such as Origen, Tertulien, Iranius, and others. They all contribute the demise of the Christian church to the resurrection of prideful man wanting recognition and power and taking sectarian ecclesiastical authority.

¹ "Paradoxically, although charisma has long been recognized as a factor in the rise and revitalization of religious movements, it seems to depart quickly once it has completed the task of institution-building. Now it is more fragile than ever, for modern institutions are prone to favor efficiency and pragmatism rather than charisma's illusive spirit. Charisma and institutionalization thus appear to be at odds, with charisma quick to take on routine forms that stem its free flow... The outpouring of the Holy Spirit that North America has witnessed since the beginning of this century may be characterized as a social movement struggling against the forces of institutionalization. From its Azusa Street days to the present time, the pressing need for institutional norms, structures, and resources have quickly controlled charismatic fires. Although those who experienced the outpouring of the Holy Spirit during the first decade of this century seemed to have intuited the dangers of institutional forces for charisma, by the end of the second decade institutional frameworks had been hammered into place that threatened this fragile force. The Latter Rain Movement of 1948 (Riss 1987) and its aftermath provided brief showers to revive a Pentecostalism that seemingly had been reduced to 'evangelical tenets plus tongues,' but the forces of organized Pentecostalism contributed to restricting the impact of this short-lived downpour. It was the move of the Spirit in the mainline churches during the 1960s and 1970s [which Richard Riss (1987) has suggested was the beneficiary of the Latter Rain Movement] that earned the designation of the 'second wave' of the Spirit movement."

"The Fathers Blessing"

A Revitalization of

Biblical Christianity