I used to live in Lakeland, Florida, and honestly, all the good stuff happened after I left: housing prices doubled (as in – I could have sold my house for double of what I did sell it for even 3 years later)…GirlFights on YouTube (No, that’s not “good stuff.” I know, I know)…and now…
The Florida Outpouring!
Over the past month, during our occasional forays through the channels, we’ve noticed that one of the religious channels has frequently been broadcasting some kind of revival live from Lakeland. Last Sunday night I stopped and watched for a while – the broadcast was coming from Joker Marchant Stadium, spring training home of the Detroit Tigers and the rest of the time the single-A Lakeland Tigers.
(Christopher’s first employer. He worked in concessions for about a month, occasionally coming home afterwards with boxes of leftover hot dogs. Pleasant.)
The preacher was short, stocky and tatooed. He was on fire in typical Pentecostal fashion. At one point he was informed that a woman who’d come out to see him from California had brought a bag of charcoal, and she wanted to take it back to California to distribute to everyone, so she could spread the fire. The revival preacher then prayed over the bag of coals for a while, praying that through the coals, the fire of the Spirit would spread..
…and at this point, I’m thinking, like I always seem to… yup..you can run but you can’t hide from sacramentalism. Keep running. Just keep running…
I finally got curious enough to wonder what was going on and found out that this is being hailed as a new Pentecost event, categorized by some in the same mode as the Toronto Blessing and its various manifestations in Brownsville, Pensacola, and other places.
The evangelist’s name is Todd Bentley, a Canadian who has a dramatic conversion story and interesting things to say about his present spiritual life. He is apparently tied into a bunch of prophetic types associated with Kansas City, the complexities of which are sort of beyond me. His has his very strong critics – those from evangelicalism who are cautious or even more than cautious about Pentecostal/Charismatic Christianity, and those with specific criticisms of the visions he claims to have, conversations and encounters with angels and Jesus himself, the purported “signs” of the Spirit’s presence, which include gold and silver dust, and so on.
So, you’re saying, why Lakeland, that small city in between Orlando and Tampa? Well, Lakeland has been a center of charismatic Christianity for a while, both in itself – with the old Carpenters’ Home Church – and its proximity to various manifestations in Orlando and Tampa.  From the news stories I’ve read, this revival, which has been going on for a month, has moved around, beginning in churches, then to the baseball stadium or Civic Center when available, and even to the airport grounds.
Here’s an article from the Tampa Bay paper about it
Mark Byron- a long-time Christian blogger who lived in the Lakeland area for a while, has several posts here.
If you do a blog search you can find lots of blunt critiques and views of what’s going on. I’d be really interested in hearing from anyone who lives down there for some perspective on what’s going on, how the other Christian churches are responding, if anyone is actually noticing this, if it’s being ignored, and so on.
There are a number of different ways to talk about this style of religion, but what always interests me the most are the ghosts of ancient historical Christianity within these great-great-great grandchildren of the Reformation (some might say third cousins thrice removed, since it’s a sure bet neither Luther nor Calvin would claim them).
* The persistence of a sacramental sensibility,  both through using objects as vehicles to touch God – or let God touch you and as signs of God’s presence.
The other night, I watched my old friend Paula White for a few minutes. She was on her knees praying and behind her was a huge cross with hundreds of papers – prayer petitions – pinned to it. Her assistants were facing the cross as Paula prayed, waving their hands up and down and around this cross laden with prayers, as if seeking to draw God’s power, to direct it.
* The individual minister as a conduit for God’s grace. In a tradition founded on the priesthood of all believers, it is impossible, apparently, to escape the scandal of particularity – that this guy, this person, is the agent, somehow, of God’s presence.
My internet meanderings on this topic took me to this video, of part of a service presided over by one Dr. Cindy Timms. I think what interested me even more than the mass slaying in the Spirit was what she was saying during all of this – which seemed to go further than say, commanding spirits to leave in Jesus’ name (a Biblical practice, after all). She uses the phrase “I decree” – as in “I decree that every invisible barrier is now destroyed” “I decree that the kingdom of heaven comes with force” – she says, “I assign angels to your ministries…” and so on. Now maybe I just don’t get the lingo – maybe what they’d say was happening was that her words represent what God was saying through her.
Even then.
Well, anyway, it’s all pretty interesting, and I’d like to hear more from anyone who has encountered this or anything related personally, especially anyone who’s living in the area and has insight as to how churches down there are responding or saying.