Rural Virginia Churches Mark Four Months of Revival Meetings

[09.04.08] In a mostly rural Virginia community west of Washington, D.C., Christian
leaders who banded together this summer to bring revival to their region say
they are witnessing miracles, including unusual manifestations such as feathers
and gold fillings.

 

“It’s funny how it all began; I guess you could say it’s been sovereign,”
said Lee Prock, the 45-year-old senior pastor of Agape Christian Church in
Stephens City, Va., just south of Winchester, Va. “With the churches that are
now involved, we just want to see our city changed and transformed.”

 

Prock’s midsized church, along with nearby Greenway Spirit and Word
Fellowship and Crossroads Community Church, are reportedly witnessing dramatic
healings from ailments such as deafness, blindness, arthritis and fibromyalgia
after four months of meetings that have come to be known as the Winchester
Outpouring.

 

Prock told Charisma that children from his kids’ church prayed for
torn ligaments in a girl’s knee during one service, and the girl ripped off her
brace and danced about, claiming healing. Her upcoming surgery was later
cancelled.

 

Such healings can be typical in charismatic revivals, but unusual
manifestations are reportedly occurring in Winchester as well, including
feathers floating out of thin air and teeth filling with gold. In some cases the
entire tooth has turned to gold.

 

“I’m personally one of those people who wants to see things documented,”
Prock said. “I’m a very cautious [person] … until I saw gold teeth starting to
happen. We feel that God will bring [transformation to the region] when
supernatural power is being demonstrated.”

 

He said one example of such a demonstration involved an elder from Greenway
Fellowship, a former Southern Baptist church that is partnering with Agape.
Prock said the Greenway man was openly sarcastic and skeptical about reports of
unusual manifestations—until he unexpectedly received a gold filling.

 

“When it happened, he wasn’t bragging about it, he was embarrassed,” Prock
recalled. “It was kind of like eating humble pie.”

 

Prock said his church’s appetite for revival was stirred last year after
Mike and Cherrie Kaylor, co-leaders of a Florida-based ministry affiliated with
revivalist Randy Clark’s Global Awakening, began visiting the Winchester
area.

 

Prock said the outpouring began in earnest in April, after the Kaylors
visited the Lakeland, Fla., meetings led by revivalist Todd Bentley. “[The
Kaylors] had some signs and wonders happen in their meetings, but I think they
got some good fresh fire and a fresh impartation during their time [in
Lakeland],” said Prock, who traveled twice this summer to Bentley’s
meetings.

 

After continuous daily meetings in June exhausted some staff, the revival
schedule was scaled back to weekend meetings only. “It was really tiring—you
could say it was one of those educational ventures,” Prock said.

 

In addition to holding revival services, leaders of the Winchester
Outpouring are encouraging churchgoers to get out of their pews and impact the
world around them. Prock said a perfect example of this took place at an auto
shop, where a church member’s testimony triggered a gold filling inside the
mouth of a mechanic. A lapsed churchgoer, the mechanic subsequently was drawn
back to Christianity.

 

“What we want is to energize the congregants to get out there,” Prock said.
“God is healing bodies and changing lives, but the most significant thing for me
personally is the working together of [our] three congregations. The level of
support we give, and that I feel, are worth more than words can say. We have
always been on the same team. Now we are working like it.”

 

The outpouring, now in its fifth month, is scheduled to continue during
most weekend evenings this fall. —Paul Steven Ghiringhelli