Lakeland Revival

The Lakeland Revival, or Florida Healing Outpouring, was a Pentecostal revival which took place from April until October 2008 in Lakeland, Florida, United States. The revival began on April 2, 2008, when evangelist Todd Bentley of Fresh Fire Ministries Canada was invited by Stephen Strader, pastor of Lakeland's Ignited Church, to lead a one-week revival, but remained there for over four months.

Ignited Church took a multimedia approach to publicizing the event, posting webcasts online. The revival streamed live via Ustream and received over 1 million hits in the first five weeks of transmissions. After the initial weeks, GOD TV, a Christian satellite channel, pre-empted its primetime programming and broadcast the Lakeland meetings nightly.[1] The revival attracted up to 10,000 attendees nightly and around 30,000 over the week.[2] Through its airing on GOD TV, the revival became well known by Pentecostals and Charismatics worldwide.[3] By May 29, Bentley's ministry estimated that over 140,000 people from over forty nations had visited, and 1.2 million had watched via the Internet.[4] By June 30, over 400,000 people from over 100 nations had attended.[5]

In June 2008, ABC's Nightline carried out an investigative report on Bentley, specifically scrutinizing his finances and his divine healing claims. Some days after the broadcast, Fresh Fire Ministries released a statement announcing that Bentley was taking time off "to refresh and to rest" and their Lakeland broadcasts on GOD TV were put on hold. One week later, GOD TV announced Bentley would resume the Lakeland meetings and the broadcasts continued on July 18.[6] Bentley's and Fresh Fire's leadership of the revival ended on August 11, but the revival continued until its last service on October 12, 2008, at Ignited Church.[7]

The Lakeland Revival was in many ways similar to revivals that occurred in the 1990s, notably the Toronto Blessing in Canada and the Brownsville Revival in Pensacola, Florida. However, the Lakeland Revival had a greater focus on divine healing, was much shorter than the previous two revivals, and was nearly inseparable from Bentley.[8] The revival displayed many "ecstatic manifestations" and some participants claimed "esoteric experiences", such as divinely inspired visions and prophecies. In addition to claims of numerous miraculous healings, "leaders' claims that at least 25"[2] cases of resurrection of the dead took place away from the stage.[9]

  1. ^ McMullen, Cary (May 15, 2008). "Florida Outpouring: Internet Draws Thousands to Lakeland Revival". The Ledger. Archived from the original on November 22, 2015. Retrieved December 13, 2015.
  2. ^ a b "Leaving Lakeland". Christianity Today. 2008-08-12. Retrieved 2018-04-03.
  3. ^ "Faith-Healing 'Outpouring' Overflows Venue". TheLedger.com. April 25, 2008. Retrieved July 14, 2008.
  4. ^ Rhee, Alice (May 29, 2008). "Revivalist Claims Hundreds of Healings". MSNBC. Archived from the original on June 1, 2008. Retrieved June 10, 2008.
  5. ^ Lake, Thomas (June 30, 2008). "Todd Bentley's revival in Lakeland draws 400,000 and counting". St. Petersburg Times. Archived from the original on July 4, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  6. ^ "Thousands Flock to Revival in Search of Miracles". ABC News. 2008-06-09. Retrieved 2008-06-09.
  7. ^ Ghiringhelli, Paul Steven (2008-10-13). "Lakeland Revival Officially Ends". Charisma Magazine. Archived from the original on 2009-03-02. Retrieved 2008-11-11.{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference Reed was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Hunt, Stephen (2009), "The Florida 'Outpouring' Revival: A Melting Pot for Contemporary Pentecostal Prophecy and Eschatology?", PentecoStudies, 8 (1): 38, doi:10.1558/ptcs.v8i1.37