It was at this time that Randy approached the stage and installed the lapel microphone and started to speak. In the first moments, Randy basically confirmed what the senior pastor said about the Indiana revival being started when someone brought the Toronto revival back to that town in Indiana. It was at this point where Randy began talking about the signs, wonders, and blessings of God that he had seen manifesting in the Toronto revival. We also learned new "slang" words (which later became a new language) such as "carpet time", "renewal", "new wine", and "holy laughter". It was at this time in his sermon that Randy brought forth his testimony of experiencing this revival phenomenon at a Rodney Howard Browne meeting at Rhema in Tulsa. Randy admitted to being a skeptic at that time but was made a believer afterward and took the blessings back to his church in Missouri. Randy then talked about how he had heard about the Toronto blessing and went up there to see and experience what was going on in the services. It was from these experiences that Randy discussed more about the move of God in Toronto. From this statement, Randy went and told of the history of the "blessing" and started to discuss how the happenings in Toronto were similar to the happenings Jonathan Edwards experienced that is now know as The Great Awakening and how the Toronto blessing was The Great Awakening of the twentieth century.

I will not go further about the history of the Toronto blessing because the history is not the scope of this article. However, if you want to read a decent book documenting the history of the Toronto blessing and their references to the Great Awakening, you may want to find a copy of the book Catch The Fire, The Toronto Blessing, An Experience Of Renewal and Revival by Guy Chevreau. This book was written in 1994 during the early history of this revival and written before the church's departure from the Vineyard but is interesting reading especially in the areas of the comparisons of the Toronto Blessing to the Great Awakening.

It was while listening to Randy discuss the new wave of God's sovereign move on planet Earth, I paid close attention to the words spoken and I remember some distinct things that were discussed about revivals in general.

• Revivals are always messy: It was at this time that Randy had discussed how all the great revivals appeared to be very messy, very erratic, and very spontaneous in their actions. It was through this statement that there was an attempt to theologically deal with people who were so anti-revival who used the "God is a God of order, not confusion" to discredit the revival. We were warned about the mass "slayings in the spirit" the groans, moans, travails, and cries of people being set free and receiving healing. We were told about the increase in prophecies, new worship songs, and increased church growth that would come about because of the blessing. In fact, Randy discussed how many of these churches affected by the revival began to act in ways similar to the Jesus Freaks of the late sixties and early seventies.
• What this renewal learned from the cyclic pattern of previous revivals: Here, a brief history of revivals around the world was discussed starting with the church of Acts, Martin Luther, the Great Awakening, the Wesley's, Pentecostalism, Latter Day Rain, Shepherding, the Jesus Freaks, and the prophetic / apostolic movements. Randy discussed the controversies, the shortcomings, the good and the bad, and how the leaders of the last move of God always denied the next move of God as being "of God" and went from a powerhouse into a cemetery of past movements. Every shortcoming, extremism, sins, abuse, and failures to deal with these issues were discussed from a point of "We have learned from these mistakes and will never repeat these mistakes."
• "Freely receive, freely Give" Here, Randy quoted this piece of Scripture said by Jesus in reference to what we need to do with the healings and blessings we received from God. Building up from a point of one mistake of past revivals was to "evangelize but hoard the blessings". Randy encouraged us and warned us that the key to revival was to go the next step and take these blessings, healings, freedoms, etc that we received from God and give them away to the poor, indigent, needy, and those who want and need these deliverances, freedoms, and breakthroughs in their lives. In fact, we were warned that these poor, needy, and indigent people were no longer in our pews, they were out there in the world and ninety-five percent of then were at one time so deeply hurt by a church experience that they would never go back into the walls of the building we call church. It was here that the emphasis was placed on the Christians realizing that we are the church and we are the temple of the Holy Spirit and now, for the first time in revival history, (1): the blessings were more geared inwards towards the body to heal the broken body over thing that happened in the eighties. and (2): Instead of sinners finding us and coming in to the church, we were going to have to go out and find the sinners to give the blessings away to.
• "There is life after this move of God" Here, Randy discussed the two scenarios that will happen when the characteristics of the move of God end and God is preparing for a new move of His Spirit on earth. (1): When the new move comes, we can reject it and try to kill the new revival by "defending our faith" to the point of being spiritually dead while others experience the new move of God or we could (2): For the first time in history, see the new move in action and move with it and be the first revival in history not to die out, but instead merge into and help bring forth the next revival. There is always a brief period of time between the ending of the old move of God and the beginning of the new move of God and what happened in that time of transitioning was a time of testing God's children and preparing their hearts for the new move of God.

It was after these four main points and other points not mentioned above that the sermon was winding down and transitioning into ministry time. Randy and the senior pastor stood on the podium and asked for all people with needs in their life to come down for personal ministry. I remember the line forming and it was a long line. I, being one who never jumped into anything so quickly waited to see what was going to happen. It was during this time that I began to see people get slain in the spirit and fall out on the floor of the church. I sat there for thirty minutes and observed the happenings until I was convinced that this was from God. I remember getting up from my seat and nervously getting in the prayer line to receive prayer. It became my time to receive prayer and I was being prayed for. I remember being surrounded by people and the next thing I remember, It was hours later. I was lying down on the floor of the church showing signs of crying and light "shaking". I remember feeling many hands on my forehead and shoulders of people who were praying for me. I then started to feel the same emotions and moves of God on my life as I felt that Winter night at the Singles pastor's house and the many nights praying as I went to sleep. As more and more bottled up hurts and emotions started to both manifest and leave me. I began to feel more free and more healed to the point where I felt like the Lord was finished dealing with me at this time.

At this point, I was ready to go back to my seat and wait for the service to end. I proceeded to get up and as I was trying to get up, I started to lose my balance. I therefore got myself up to a seat on the front row and sat there for another thirty minutes until I was able to go back to the seat where my Bible and my wristwatch were. I sat there for another hour and then left and went home and experienced again the healings I was experiencing at that time in my life.

Click Here for part three of this article.