Lakeland Revival

The Lakeland Revival or Florida Healing Outpouring was a Christian revival which began on April 2, 2008, when Evangelist Todd Bentley of Fresh Fire Ministries Canada was invited by Stephen Strader, pastor of Ignited Church, Lakeland, Florida, to lead a one-week revival but remained there for over four months. The 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. The revival attracted up to 10,000 attendees nightly and around 30,000 over the week. Through its airing on GOD TV, the revival became well known by Pentecostals and Charismatics worldwide. By May 29, Bentley's ministry estimated that over 140,000 people from over 40 nations had visited, and 1.2 million had watched via the Internet. By June 30, over 400,000 people from over 100 nations had attended.

In June 2008, Nightline carried out an investigative report on Bentley. 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 2008. 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.

The Florida Outpouring 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, and was much shorter than these two revivals, and was nearly inseparable from Bentley. 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" cases of resurrection of the dead took place away from the stage.

...
Wikipedia