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Refreshing Now?
In the early 90s a church in Toronto became the focus of intrigue: many people talked about experiencing God in a completely new way. But is there any ongoing impact? Roger Harper talks to John Arnott, pastor of the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, about the phenomenon of revival, its critics and its lasting legacy...
RT Kendall says there is, in our day, “the embryonic phase of what will eventually be seen as the greatest work of the Spirit since the days of the earliest church.” Greater than the great monastic movement which saw Christianity rescued from compromise and rooted into Western Europe? Greater than the great Reformation which liberated ordinary Christians to find faith and forgiveness in Jesus, and to serve God in their secular lives? Greater than the great Pentecostal movement which swept the globe during the 20th Century, bringing more people into the Kingdom than in all previous centuries combined? RT Kendall retired a few years ago as minister of Westminster Chapel in London. He is a respected and popular author, and a speaker at Spring Harvest. He is not known for wild exaggeration.
The ‘embryonic phase’ RT writes of is what has been called ‘The Toronto Blessing.’ For the last 13 years, the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF) has been enjoying a flow of the Holy Spirit far greater than anyone there had known before. Many people from the UK have visited Toronto, and continue to make the journey. Some churches in this country continue to be closely connected with TACF, believing that what begun there is significant for the whole Church.
Revival Fires is a small church in Dudley, planted by Trevor and Sharon Baker after they had been ‘blessed’ through their contacts with Toronto. They hold conferences hosting speakers from Toronto and connected churches. In November last year John and Carol Arnott (pictured below), the founding leaders of TACF came again to the UK, including to the ‘Living in the Supernatural’ conference in Dudley. Some 400 people came to hear them, from across the UK, from Ireland, France and Iceland.
Lying on the floor
About 10 per cent of people at the conference were there for the first time. Among them was Pam, an Anglican from the Black Country, who came along with a friend who had been to Dudley, and Toronto, before. Pam herself had heard a little about ‘the Toronto Blessing’ a few years ago, but never been to any meetings connected with TACF. “In Dudley I felt I was a spectator more than a participator,” says Pam. “I found it all quite amusing, especially the light-hearted way they sort of worked with the Holy Spirit. It was quite a fun night really. I wasn’t disturbed by any of it.”
Pam was particularly interested in what happened when people were prayed for. At the end of the meeting nearly everyone lined up to be prayed for by John and Carol Arnott. “So many people were going down in the Spirit,” Pam says with wonder. This was something she had experienced once before on a holiday break at Cefn Lea Conference Centre in Wales. In Dudley 90 per cent of the people ended up lying on the floor, smiling, laughing, crying, shouting occasionally, shaking or lying still. “It wasn’t regimented at all; it was very individual. I didn’t feel it was hyped-up. It was quite natural, what was happening, in terms of people just relaxing in God.”
Pam was prayed for – for no particular need. She did not fall over. “It was just a sense of peace and warmth, of God’s love and acceptance of me. I didn’t feel I had an experience as such. I felt quite open to that happening, but it didn’t for me. That was Okay.”
It reminded Pam of attending a conference led by John Wimber several years ago. John was an American, from a Quaker background, who became a well-known leader and teacher in the Charismatic movement in the 1970s and 80s. He learnt to welcome and work with the Holy Spirit as had George Fox and the early Quakers, combining this with the experience of more modern Pentecostal churches. Some patterns of Pentecostalism John considered unhelpful – tendency to exaggerated expectations, focus on the faith of the person in need or on the charisma of the ‘Man of God’ rather than humble reliance on the Holy Spirit working through the Body of Christ.
John founded the Vineyard fellowship of churches, and had influence across the churches. John was introduced to the UK by David Watson, a leading Anglican Evangelical of the 1970s and John passed on his teaching and approach at a number of conferences in this country. Pam had been to one of these conferences. There, too, she had seen the light-hearted working with the Holy Spirit. She had found herself one of hundreds of people all laughing together. “You didn’t know what you were laughing about but so many people were just laughing.”
Catching revival
The church in Toronto was originally a Vineyard church and John and Carol Arnott consider John Wimber a father in faith. Inspired by Wimber they kept praying “More, Holy Spirit, more!” They went to Argentina to ‘catch’ something of the Revival taking place there. They invited to Toronto a fellow Vineyard minister, Randy Clark who had had a powerful experience of the Holy Spirit in South Africa.
Randy came for four special meetings beginning on Thursday 20 January 1994. All involved were literally bowled over by the Holy Spirit, in a way similar to what John Wimber had taught people to expect, but with greater intensity. John and Carol Arnott wondered how long this would last and were worried they might ‘quench the Spirit’ as they had on a similar occasion a few years before. Delighted and bemused, they continued to welcome what was happening, trusting that it was of the Holy Spirit. People continued to be dramatically touched. Randy stayed for longer, and then finally went home. The movement continued. It was picked up by the Press on both sides of the Atlantic. Ellie Mumford, the wife of a Vineyard leader in London, visited Toronto and spoke at a meeting at Holy Trinity Brompton. There, too, people began to be dramatically touched by the Holy Spirit, laughing, shaking, shouting, dancing.
Purists would call this the ‘Argentinean / South African renewal spreading through Toronto.’ The Press called it ‘The Toronto Blessing.’ It continued to spread wherever it was welcome. Today, in places as far apart as the Ukraine, Mozambique and Dudley, the renewal continues.
Tensions arise
John Wimber, however, was concerned and expressed his concern. It is hard to say exactly what was in Wimber’s mind, as he has since died. It seems Wimber first voiced criticisms that have since been repeated by others. John Wimber and John and Carol Arnott parted company. David Hilborn of the Evangelical Alliance called it “this very public and somewhat messy divorce.”
In the UK, leaders suddenly had to choose between John Wimber and Toronto. Most chose Wimber whom they had known much longer. Churches like Holy Trinity Brompton no longer welcomed all that was happening in Toronto, and, as Sandy Millar the vicar of Holy Trinity at the time says, they “moved on.” Sandy is grateful for their link with Toronto for a while, without which, he says, their prisons’ ministry would not have developed. “It was a wonderful outpouring of God’s grace,” Sandy says. “I can’t see how anyone can say it can’t be God.” But he and many others have chosen to ‘move on’ or ‘move away.’ One view widespread in British churches today is that the Toronto Blessing is something that happened a few years go, rather than a movement continuing today. Other leaders are less positive than Sandy Millar. There have been three main criticisms:
1. Not all strange behaviour should simply be welcomed as part of what the Holy Spirit is doing.
John Arnott is today slightly more careful when he talks of ‘manifestations’: shaking, or shouting in strange ways. He describes manifestations as a reaction to the powerful collision of humanity and Holy Spirit. They may originate more in humanity than in the Holy Spirit, as the critics say. But for John Arnott, this does not mean that manifestations should be discouraged or quietened down. He trusts that the Holy Spirit can cope with these strange reactions and continue to do what He wants to do. To those who are anxious about what other people find themselves doing when touched by the Holy Spirit, John says, “Go get yourself a bigger God.”
In one meeting in Dudley a woman in the congregation kept making loud ‘cuckoo clock’ noises during the notices and sermon. Eventually John invited her to come to the front. It turned out that he knew her from a visit to Scotland and trusted her as a secure Christian through whom God had been working. John’s experience is that the people who have been jerking or shouting strange noises, say that they are aware of the Holy Spirit flowing in them, leaving them feeling more peaceful, more confident, more in love with Jesus, than before. “The feature has always been the Holy Spirit taking people deep into a healing in their hearts and a revelation of the Father’s love. That’s the big deal. Anything else is an added feature.”
2. There should not be exaggerated expectations, especially of Revival.
In the early days some people understood the Toronto Blessing as the beginning of a great Revival. Christians have been led to sing that they ‘hear the thunder in the distance,’ the thunder of Revival (words from a song by worship leader Robin Mark). This expectation that God will soon do in our age what He did in the Welsh Revival 100 years ago has been a feature of the British Charismatic movement for many years.
In reality, the tide of secularism has increased and the Church has steadily grown weaker. Tom Smail, a leader in the Charismatic Fountain Trust of the 1960s, has heard too much of such expectation. He sees it like the prophets in Jerusalem who said that God would soon deliver the people from the rising tide of the Babylonian Empire. In reality the nation was to be handed over to Babylon, as Jeremiah prophesied. Exaggerated talk of Revival is called ‘Revivalism.’ John Peters in The Story of Toronto is clear that what is happening in Toronto does not fulfil all the hallmarks of ‘a Revival. Rather it is “a source of refreshment to the church…”’ Reviewing Peters’ book, Roger Welch of Merland Rise Church, Tadworth, writes “if it isn’t revival then it really is revivalism.”
John Arnott himself doesn’t talk of Revival to come. He talks of what is happening with them now as Revival, but more like the Asuza Street Revival that gave birth to the Pentecostal churches, than the Welsh Revival. He deflects people from thinking of what they hope God will do in the future to welcoming what God is doing now, even if it does not fit in with their expectations. CS Lewis wrote that one prayer that God never answers yes to is, “same again please.” He is the God of new things.
3. The focus should ultimately be on the work of the Kingdom, rather than selfish addiction to spiritual experiences.
This criticism has been expressed in different ways, depending on what the critic thinks is the chief work of the Kingdom – evangelising, teaching Bible truths, feeding the hungry. The common theme is that the main purpose of the Christian life is to work for God. The Toronto Blessing seems to be deflecting people away from this purpose. “Hang on,” says John Arnott, “It’s the Great Commandment first and then the Great Commission. So we’ve got to get the heart right.” Where the Vineyard churches still have as one of their purposes ‘to serve the Father,’ the Toronto church talks of ‘walking in God’s love and giving it away.’ If God is truly a Father, then He is looking for children to love Him, not servants to serve Him. Toronto emphasises the love of the Father with Christians as His children.
John Arnott stresses being ‘heart focused,’ rather than ‘task focused.’ In order to love God more, we have to experience God’s love more. “You cannot give away what you have never first received. You need to be full of Christ before you can share Christ, to drink from Him so that His living waters can flow from your heart.”
Healed hearts
In Dudley John Arnott emphasised the need to receive more of God’s healing in our hearts. As a man with godly ambitions, he himself once argued that all this ‘inner healing stuff’ was a distraction. But having received a greater understanding of the love of the Father, through the ministry of Jack Winter (one of the founders of Father Heart Ministries) John was more open to recognise the imperfections in his own life. John argues that Christians with healed hearts bear far more fruit. “The extent of the outer journey depends on the extent of the inner journey,” repeated John in Dudley. Healing of hearts is a main part of what the Holy Spirit is doing in Toronto. Dispirited church leaders are given a fresh love for God and people. Bullied girls are given new confidence. Traumatised men are given a new gentleness. Half of this happens as people lie on the floor after receiving prayer. Half of it needs to be received through brothers and sisters in Jesus, maybe using tools such as ‘Restoring the Foundations’, a resource that John Arnott recommends.
John’s responses have not so far won over many of the critics. As John Peters makes clear in his book, no-one has criticised John and Carol personally. But it hurts John that more people do not welcome what is happening with the Toronto church. Though there are plenty of people who are welcoming it. John and Carol now travel extensively, continuing to pray for themselves and for others, “More, Holy Spirit, more!” The hurt of the break with Wimber was particularly sharp, but John has been encouraged by John Paul Jackson, a prominent American church leader.
John Paul says that 10 days before Wimber died, he called John Paul in for a private meeting, during which he said about Toronto: “If he had it to do all over again, he would have handled it so differently.” Unfortunately as this was a private meeting, it cannot be confirmed by anyone else.
In the end, John Arnott and his critics agree that it is not what happens in the Conferences that is important, but how it works out in people’s lives. The sense of peace that Pam received at Dudley stayed with her for a while. “And I think we always retain part of it,” she says. Shortly afterwards her new-born grandson was discovered to have a growth in his brain, possibly cancer. It wasn’t cancer but Pam felt the peace she had received helped her through that time.
Only the beginning
“And God’s really sorted me out, and that night was part of it, in my money situation.” The first difference was that Pam felt less anxious about telling her husband she had overdrawn on her own account – again. “And I’ve lost a lot of the desire to go shopping.” Her mother had encouraged young Pam to buy whatever she wanted and owe it to her. As an adult Christian, Pam had controlled her urge to shop by directing it to charity shops. This also fitted in with her low self-worth. She couldn’t leave the town centre without having done all the charity shops. “That night in Dudley was part of a process; it was one of the steps forward. So much so that when my husband has suggested going into a charity shop, I’ve been surprised by feeling ‘I really don’t want to go in here,’ with my stomach sort of turning. Not an uptight ‘Ooh I mustn’t’, almost a dislike. So there has been quite a healing really. And it’s been not just forgiveness, with God telling me to sort myself out, but blessing as well and extra in my account for the future. I think it’s seeing things differently somehow. I just feel different.”
Pam has a new sense of God as her Father and herself as His daughter, a sense that this is the beginning of a whole new chapter in her Christian life. If what happened to Pam is repeated across the world wherever this movement touches people, this could well be a great work of the Holy Spirit. “It’s bigger and better than ever,” says John Arnott, “wider and wider.” RT Kendall writes, “It is only the beginning.”
