The Pensacola revival lives on only in memory as the church and leaders that hosted the phenomenon have moved on or burned out, reportsCharisma magazine (July).
The Pensacola revival, starting in 1995 and based at the Brownsville Assembly of God in that city, drew hundreds of thousands of people to its ecstatic services. The revival, which spun off of the “Toronto blessing,” is history now, with the Brownsville church shrinking to a few hundred members and millions of dollars in debt for a building that can’t be filled. J. Lee Grady writes that a large number of members now attend the local Southern Baptist church “while many others don’t go anywhere.”
The former pastor says that “People have been leaving for three or four years. Some are not in church at all, including some who were on staff. I don’t know anyone who has not been hurt.” The Brownsville Revival School of Ministry in its heyday had 1,200 students and now has 120. In May the school announced that it will relocate to Louisiana under the direction of another evangelist.
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