17th April, 2004

TONY TOWNSEND

Known to many as the Laughing Revival, the Toronto Blessing is a spiritual movement that emerged out of the Airport Vineyard Church in Toronto, Canada, in 1994 and, according to reports, was still being experienced as recently as last year.

The Airport Vineyard Church, now known as the Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship, is pastored by John Arnott. Prior to the emergence of the movement, John was experiencing a time of spiritual dryness and longed to see a move of God again.

What happened was startling to say the least. A Christian renewal movement was sparked which has since touched thousands of lives across the world.

The leader of one Australian church which has experienced the movement - the Anglican Reverend Rob Isaachsen of Christ Church in Dingley - defines the Toronto Blessing as “a movement of God’s Spirit to renew God’s people in their faith and love for Jesus”.

“As people are open to God, God brings personal renewal, healing, encouragement and new vision,” he says in an interview with John Mark Ministries.

The Toronto Blessing has attracted widespread attention, largely as a result of the unusual behaviour that has been displayed during gatherings with reports of people roaring like lions and barking like dogs. Others were seen to be shaking violently as well as moaning, laughing uncontrollably, walking around like a chickens and shouting or falling to the ground where some remained for hours.

While for some the nature of these manifestations have been an reflection of God’s work in lives, for others they have simply been seen as a humorous spectacle .

Some people, however, have not been amused and called into question the spiritual legitimacy of such behaviour. Were they genuine workings of God in people’s lives? Could such manifestations be biblically validated? Or were they simply an emotional reaction? Some have even taken a more extreme line, suggesting that such manifestations could be demonic in nature.

Author Dr Barry Chant writing in the now defunct New Day Magazine in April 1996 says that an emotional experience is no proof in itself that God is at work.

Dr Chant says that behaviour which characterized the Toronto Movement “can be witnessed in very different contexts...” . “A psychologist or hypnotist can produce an identical response," he notes.

However he adds that God can be at work in an individuals life which can result in a physical response. Rob Issachsen agrees. “Often there is a link between outward phenomena and the way God is working in a person’s life,” he says in the interview with John Mark Ministries.

But Dr Chant stops short of endorsing such bizarre and extreme behaviour such as foaming at the mouth or making animal noises.

Author and teacher Derek Prince writes in his mid-Nineties booklet Uproar in the Church “that the fact that an experience is unconventional - or even extraordinary does not necessarily mean that it is not from God.”

Prince, who died late last year, cites a number of Biblical examples of unusual behaviour including that of Isaiah, who walked naked and barefoot for three years and of Ezekiel, who lay on his left side for 390 days and on his right side for 40 days. He also points to Jesus’ healing of a deaf mute by spitting and touching his tongue, and His healing of a blind man by making clay from his own spittle and then smearing it on the blind man’s eyes.

Prince suggests we “approach unusual manifestations with caution but not with blank, negative scepticism.”

During the spiritual revival known as the first Great Awakening in the United States in the eighteenth century strange manifestations were common. Author B.K. Kuiper says that during the ministry of preacher Jonathon Edwards, revival meetings were “attended with strong emotional and physical manifestations. Strong men fell as though shot and women became hysterical.”

In another interview published in New Day Magazine, Canadian Baptist Pastor John Freel, who’s life was impacted by the movement, describes the movement as not being about manifestations but as a “powerful, renewing work of the Spirit of God in a person’s heart and life”.

“(It’s) about ignited passions for Jesus coming back into people’s hearts and lives; it’s about healing and things that have held us back in our walk with God,” he says in the interview.

While the Toronto Blessing can be viewed as a spiritual refreshing for the church more so than a revival impacting the community, Rob Issachsen sees this move of the Spirit as giving people a new heart to reach the lost.

“People are praying more for the lost-both in the meetings, and as a result of the meetings,” he tells John Mark Ministries. “This is significant. The churches are beginning to see the fruit of evangelism.”

Weblinks:

• Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship

www.tacf.org

• For Reverend Rob Isaachsen’s interview with John Mark Ministries, see:
www.pastornet.net.au/jmm/articles/8114.htm