From that day forward, I went through a time of personal renewal, healing, freedom, and change in my being. The manifestations of the renewal continued in my life until mid 1998. I continued in the renewal without partaking in many of the obvious and discerning deceptions of the blessing (animal sounds, excessive holy laughter, talking in a "mnemonic code of verbage" no one but other people in revival could understand, etc). I came to realize that there is both good and bad in the revivals. However there were things in my life that were birthed as a result of receiving healing during the renewal services. Before I proceed any further, I would like to state right now that I did not receive healing from any service, teacher, minister, singing, nor any manifestations, signs, and wonders. Did the "blessing" heal me? God forbid! God did, first and foremost. Glory be to God in the highest!!!!!! The blessing and renewal was the avenue God used to administer HIS healing balm in my life. No move of God, no man, nor worship song, no ministry team member, nor myself can take credit for healing. It was God who healed. All I did was to believe that God could heal and then received the healing from God and his grace that flowed with it. I would also like to state that during the time I was in renewal, I never received any "spiritual abuse" from anyone who ministered unto me nor from the staff or members of the Vineyard I attended and experienced renewal in. I received warmth, love, and open arms from people who were willing to put up with my antics and who were willing to help me heal and be set free from "my mess" and from the Spiritual Abuse I received in the Pentecostal / Holiness and the Charismatic Word of Faith churches I previously attended. In fact, many of these people (staff, ministry teams, friends, and fellow church members) of the Vineyard bent over backwards to help me heal and progress forward into a growth and walk with Christ. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say "Thank You" (for the "umpteenth" time) to those friends and to the fellow churchgoers and staff at the Vineyard Community Church in North Carolina.

I realized also through researching online, meeting people via e-mail, forums, ICQ, and AOL Instant Messenger that there are some people who suffered cruelties and abuses during times of healing, times of vunerability, and times of inconsistencies. In fact, I have e-counseled with some who were so abused that they have a hard time trusting God and the local church again. I have seen and experienced both the good and the bad within the renewal. To those who were spiritually abused by the renewal, I would first like to say that I believe your stories. I feel your pains, your hurts, and your anguishes. I feel your betrayal of trust and I feel your sense of shame and your burnout. I realize that the abuse received has made you question whether the renewal is from God. I would like to say that Yes, many of the things brought forth by the renewal is from God, but there are some abuses, incorrect theologies, legalisms, elitisms, and other things manifested within the renewals that are not from God. I have e-counseled with some who were part of a "major" revival from a Midwestern rural town that suffered abuse, were called heretics when they questioned actions, and told that they were being sent out of the camp when this revival decided that the "cloud moved" and they moved to a major Midwestern town. I have been told about the "public press releases and how things were staged" to make revival happen from how to dance, how to fall, and how to stand in line outside the church when a videotape was filmed about the revival. I would like to say that if you have suffered abuse at the hands of "renewal", there is a Internet ministry that is devoted to you speaking out, receiving healing, and receiving support to go forward with life again and fulfill your call with God. If you need someone to talk to, you can go visit the Safechurch and the Charismatic Reform Journal for help and resources.

It was during 1995 and 1996 that I began to remember the words of Randy Clark where he discussed the words of Jesus in reference to "freely receive, freely give" and the words concerning taking this renewal outward from the four walls of the church. I had decided to start trying to freely receive and freely give the love of Jesus to my friends, my family, and people I just met. It was also at this time that other renewals occurred in London, Pensacola, Brownsville, and Australia. With these revivals taken place, the common term for these revivals became known as "the river". This was based on a book called "The River" written by a pastor named Dutch Sheets who was affiliated with the global warfare movement in Colorado. I felt like that was not necessarily the way I would be best at receiving and giving. It was also at this time where I needed to purchase a computer in order to keep up with the latest Windows developments and I was very curious about this new means of global communication called the Internet. I began looking for a computer in the summer of 1996. I spent a couple of months learning the language, the hardware, the lingo and began comparison shopping for a new computer that had Internet access. I spent one Saturday going to all the retail outlets that sold computers looking for the best hardware for the best price. I remember on that Saturday, I was going back home with my lists of hardware and prices when I was listening to National Public Radio's weekend edition when I heard a story about a public library in California that allowed children to view pornography online with no protection provided for these children while pornography in magazine forms was prohibited. The story was about a church suing the library not to keep pornography out of the library, but to remove the Internet altogether from the library. A bright light went on in my head to call my local public library to see if they had Internet access. I found the first telephone booth I could find and pulled the car over and looked up the library's phone number in the phonebook. I called the library and asked about Internet access. The librarian confirmed that they had Internet access. I then drove my car to the library to explore this internet. Life was about to change.

I went into the library and found the four computers that were connected to the Internet. I went to the reference desk to get some instructions and permission to use the computer to explore the Internet. The librarian then took me over to the computer and gave me a lesson on how to use the Internet Explorer Browser and a speech of the benefits of the Internet. After the talk and the confidence in basic browsing skills, I began to explore the Internet. I began to realize that I was experiencing the world's largest global library and communications tool at my fingertips. The obnoxious Disney song "It's a Small World After All" became real. I was sold on the Internet. Later on that night, I tool all the information of hardware and prices I had from the retail stores and magazines and compared the offerings. I then decided to order my computer with Windows 95 and a Internet ready modem in August of 1996. I waited the three weeks based on the ship date and received my computer in September of 1996. I assembled the computer and signed up with an Internet service and now I was able to surf the Internet from my house. Along with going to my favorite newspapers, sports magazines, online libraries, etc. I decided to start looking for Christian related webpages online. I was very disappointed at the lack of quality Christian webpages that could be used for evangelism, research, study, etc. I was very disturbed that the home pages of many famous televangelists (and very few of them were online at that time) did not have a plan of salvation on their pages, but instead attempted to make their Internet webpages like their TV shows by begging for more money to more mismanage by selling books and tapes. However, many of the personal pages I saw did have a plan of Salvation on their webpages. Chat rooms of Christian nature were hard to find. In fact, many within Christianity were debating whether the Internet was the Antichrist conspiracy or not.

It was in early 1997 that one of my friends called me up and told me that he had figured out how to write basic webpages. I went over to his house and we went online to his webpage at a host called Geocities. He had developed a page devoted to his hobby of antique radio restoration. I asked him how did he do it and he briefly explained to me the concepts of hosting, FTP, basic HTML, etc. He printed up a couple of pages of basic HTML tutorials online and gave it to me and gave me sample code that we broke apart and figured out what part of the code did what function. It was doing this code analysis with my friend that I became motivated and saw the vision of the Internet being the newest and latest open harvest field ever in the history of the world but saw that the opportunities to glean and bring in the harvest was being squandered by the pages of the televangelists and the bickering of whether this was the Antichrist or not. After this, I went to the local bookstore and bought me a book on how to write HTML. It was with this book that I learned how to view HTML script within a browser and further understand what the script was doing in order to write script. Through the gift of God and some reverse engineering, Bob got some webhosting space at Geocities and launched AVAILABLE LIGHT on the Internet April 1, 1997 with one article and a links page.

It was through this webpage, going into chatrooms, and conversing via e-mail that I felt the anointing of "freely receiving, freely giving" the blessing to those Christians and non-Christians in need. Like I stated, finding Christians online was difficult and when I found a Christian chatroom and began speaking with people, the avenues and opportunities opened up. I saw the blessings on my life and the healings, blessings, and freedoms go unto other people for I discovered that the Internet became a haven for those hurt and abused to share their pain and receive healing without the fear of men and the fear of their churches. I kept going trying to take the love of Jesus out of the four walls of the church and into the electronic superhighway called the Internet via e-mail chatroom, the webpage, and ICQ. I was able to have words of knowledge of people's physical ailments and pray for them to receive healing. People were being set free from past abuse via chatroom conversations, webpage articles, and e-mails. People read the Salvation plan on the webpage and decided to give their life to Jesus and I found them churches in their area and pastors to disciple them. This continued and still continues until this day.

Click Here for part four of this article.