Bam!

The controversy rages. If you are uninformed it all depends on where you look.There seem to be two distinct types of opinion on the Internet.
What the world thinks really doesn't matter - as anything to do with God is automatically written off as suspect, loony or fraudulent. So what we are left with is two diametrically opposed 'Christian' viewpoints.

People are either totally for The Florida Outpouring or they are quite violently opposed to it.

Those who cast aspersions and spread what is often merely 'hearsay' - [reported on the Internet as 'fact'] - will without doubt ultimately have to give account for their idle words.
There is nothing at all wrong with 'testing the spirits' - but some of the vitriolic garbage I have read goes way beyond our mandate and into the realms of judgement. Character assasination does not fall within the remit of any Christian. Regardless of whether or not one feels someone else is in error.

Despite some very obvious doctrinal errors - The Holy Spirit was clearly in evidence - inhabiting the praises of God's people - true to His word.

Many blogs and articles are being generated by people who so very obviously have never had an encounter with the Holy Spirit, let alone with Angels or other beings in God's mighty celestial army.

We began watching on God TV right at the beggining of the meetings when they were still being held in Ignited Church in Lakeland.

The miracles speak for themselves. The blind see - the deaf hear - the lame walk and to date 32 people have been raised from the dead. There are now thousands of medically verified healings and many thousands of previously 'lukewarm' Christians have taken to the streets worldwide to preach the gospel with a renewed vigour as a result of receiving a baptism of FIRE. Mathew Ch.3 v. 11
On the day of Pentecost when The Holy Spirit came, He came in the form of tongues of fire, the result being, that a previously scared and scattered bunch of men began to preach the gospel of Christ BOLDLY.

My wife Erika and I felt a clear leading to go out to Florida and see for ourselves. We have just returned from the two most blessed and best weeks of our lives! If you care to check out the rest of our site you will see that we are mature Christians. We have a ministry in Zimbabwe and look after a church with over 1,000 members now. We are in Church leadership and travel all over the world ministering. In other words we are not gullible young believers subject to 'every wind of doctrine'.
On the contrary, we are Spirit filled believers with a sound doctrine and Bible based faith.

So here's what we experienced out in Lakeland Florida.

When we initially tried to book into a Hotel in Lakeland via the internet from Wales a very strange thing happened. Three times I filled in my details on a hotel booking form, put in my card details and was about to press 'pay' - when each time The Holy Spirit said "Stop". Quite clearly. So after the third blocked attempt we prayed and said "Ok Lord, what are you telling us?"
It was then that we were led to a hotel in Tampa - which at the time didn't make sense as it is 35 mins drive from Lakeland. Nonetheless we knew God was leading us to this hotel

and so we booked it. - We arrived at Sandford Airport, Florida on 12th June. The vehicle we had pre hired was unavailable and so we were upgraded, free of charge, to a rather nice Ford Escape SUV.
This was the beggining of the real favour of God we were to subsequently experience over the next two weeks.
We left the airport in a raging tropical storm, thunder, lightning and very heavy rainfall. Whilst trying to get my brain to function the opposite way around, [ driving on the right ] and dealing with the heavy deluge which reduced visibilty to about 50 yds, I missed our turning and somehow finished up on a toll road. Next thing I know we are at an unmanned 'exact change' toll booth, and all I have is a wallet full of dollars. The barrier was down and a vehicle was coming up behind us.
  The rain suddenly stopped and I got out to speak to the person behind. She was a Christian and with a big smile on her face, gave us the 50 cents change we required.

We continued on the two hour drive to Tampa, thinking that when we got there we would stop and ask someone where the street our hotel is on was located. Big mistake! - When we finally hit the outskirts of Tampa, it was all just flyovers, underpasses and a bewildering array of signs and directions. We didn't know if we wanted Tampa North, South, East or West! There is virtually no one walking outside - it is way too hot - and there is nowhere to stop - the result was that even after pulling into three different gas stations to ask for directions - we kept getting lost and drove around Tampa for nearly 3 hours! - This of course was a bit of a nightmare after a long and tiring journey from Wales.
  Eventually I pulled up in a 'No Parking' zone and we prayed "Lord we need an Angel".
I got out of the car and a lady came round the corner. I asked her for directions and she turned out to be an off duty policewoman - and a Christian! - She took me to the police station and did a print out of a Google Map that showed us exactly where we needed to go. We arrived at our hotel tired but happy!

The next day we chilled out and then went to Lakeland in the evening. At the Linder Regional Airport where the two huge air conditioned tents are, you can feel the presence of The Holy Spirit as you approach. We registered ourselves as pastors and were in fact right at the front of the queue so that when we were let in we got right to the front.
There is a lady we had dubbed 'the modesty lady' - from watching God TV - she is the one who places the red cloths on people when they go out in the spirit - and she was dealing with seating that is reserved for various dignitaries etc. We placed our bags on an 'ordinary' seat and went to talk to her. Her name is Teresa - what a lovely sister - and it seems that I look just like her nephew! The result of this visual similarity was that Teresa really took to us, and without us asking, we had two front row seats reserved for us every evening! - Yet again the favour of God in action.

We volunteered as pastors, to work on the Ministry Team. This involved having a badge which allowed you to pray for people. Credentials were checked, and each night at 6.30 all the Ministry Team members received a special prayer annointing from Richard, Todd's head of Healing . It was quite an amazing impartation. I don't usually go down 'in the spirit' - not because I resist or anything, it just doesn't seem to happen - although I have often prayed for others who go down.

Erika and I with Richard

But with this annointing I was out in the spirit every time! Literally bowled over!
  The 'impartation' was awesome, as the healing annointing and presence of God flooded your being. After this we would go and minister to anyone in the gathering crowds who needed prayer. Sometimes we would be just moving around amongst the people, at other times Todd would call for the Ministry Team to come down to the front and pray for the huge numbers of needy folk.

The worship each evening was just so special - it transcended any previous experience we have had