Joyous Revival Predicted to Shake New England

By Paul Strand
Washington Sr. Correspondent

CBN.com – PLYMOUTH, Massachusetts - When the Pilgrims came to America almost 400 years ago, they came to establish a Gospel nation, the first country birthed in a covenant with God since ancient Israel.

But then New England grew cold, and eventually became the most unchurched region of America. Could that be about to change?

Something is shaking New England. Something's turning people to prayer. Something is making them dance for joy. It feels like the rumbles of revival.

Rev. Roberto Miranda of the Congregación León de Judá remarked, “Staid, intellectual, overly-rational New England is, I think, experiencing a visitation of the Holy Spirit."

"There are a lot of hotbeds," said Rev. Paul Taylor from the Northeast Prayer Center.

Streams Ministries International’s John Paul Jackson declared, "There is a hunger for God now, and a hunger not only to experience God, but a hunger to see God do something."

Alex Canavan, who manages three Christian radio stations, commented, "And we think something greater than the charismatic renewal is about to happen."

Author David Manuel knows about revival, having written extensively about the great ones that shook America in books he co-authored, like "The Light and the Glory."

"All of the great revivals...the awakenings...that have swept America and gone around the world,” observed Manuel, “seemed to begin in New England."

A couple of years ago, Maneul said, God put it on his heart to team up with Christian radio station owner Alex Canavan, and begin a wide-open time of prayer every week at Tremont Temple in the heart of downtown Boston -- the first church to racially integrate in America, and the church where the most famous revivalists preached.

Canavan said, "When we see a desire for people to get together to pray, we know that God's about to do something powerfully. And that's the sense that we have."

Other such gatherings are popping up all over the region.

"That's where the revival is now -- it's isolated candles, but very soon...we sense...He's going to bring the candles together, and when He does, the combined candle power is going to be brilliant, and it's going to be astonishing many people," Manuel predicted.

Pastor Paul Taylor directs the Northeast Prayer Center. He thinks New England revival would be events coming full-circle in a sweet and ironic way.

"This is where the Pilgrims did land,” Taylor declared, “this is where the Pilgrims made covenant with God to be a Gospel, covenant-keeping people."

But it is also a fact that long ago New England somehow lost its spiritual bearings, as noted by Dan Clymer, whose ministry helps start up small ethnic churches in the area.

Clymer stated, "This is the region where church-planting started, and yet it is now the most unchurched region in the United States."

John Paul Jackson heads up Streams Ministries International and three New England churches.

He noted that, "it's been 200 years since you've seen a real move of God in New England.”

Jackson and others blame the spiritual chill on the intellectual haughtiness emanating from the area's world-famous universities such as Harvard and MIT.

But Canavan tells of a prophecy that Derek Prince brought to Boston in 1972. "And in it he said that Boston is the Jericho of the United States,” Canavan observed. “And the Lord says that 'when I cause the walls of intellectualism to come tumbling down, then I shall pour out my Spirit upon this whole land'. And it's our sense that when Harvard and MIT come back to Christ, then the world's going to take note."

Jackson said, "He wants to restore a move of God at Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. I believe the Ivy League schools are going to experience -- in fact, I know just from an experience I had with the Lord -- the Ivy League schools are going to be powerfully touched."

"There is so much pride here,” Manuel said, “...intellectual pride...and so much excellence, that this might be the last place anyone would pick, and that might be why God seems to be picking it."

Miranda heads up a thriving Hispanic congregation in innercity Boston.

"Just as we see that the enemy would like to put a stop to that and kind of humiliate God if he were able to do that, by turning this into a cemetery of churches and ministries, I think God is very much interested in reclaiming this area and turning it into that beacon it was initially meant to be," Miranda said.

Taylor added that "I think that there's a sense in America [that] if it can happen in New England, it can happen anywhere.”

And it is happening: dynamic worship-filled services are springing up across the area. So are signs and wonders.

John Paul Jackson leads one of America's most cutting-edge ministries -- teaching average Christians how to interpret dreams and prophesy in everyday circumstances.

Starting just before this Halloween, Jackson's people have seen dozens of witches and Wiccans come to the Lord.

"Here's what'll happen,” Jackson explained. “They'll have a dream that God gives them, like Nebuchadnezzer. [They] don't have an answer for it, know it's God, this is supernatural, 'I've got to have an answer for this, somebody's got to tell me what that answer is.'"

Those who have been trained by Jackson in dream-interpretation give them that answer. "Then the Lord steps in, the Holy Spirit steps in, touches their heart, the spirit of conviction of sin falls upon them, and they say, 'Surely the Lord is among you! What must we do to be saved?'" Jackson said.

And here is an interesting twist -- for centuries, America has been known for sending its Christians out as missionaries all over the world. But now, Christians from all over the world are coming here to be missionaries to us. And that is especially true in the New England area.

Taylor said, "They truly believe that God has brought them from Brazil, brought them from Latin America, to Boston -- to the Boston area -- because this is where revival is going to break out."

"They come with a passion for holiness,” Miranda said, “very open to the manifestations of the Holy Spirit. So, in a sense, they have served as a contaminating...in a good sense of the word...element for the churches."

A friend of Dan Clymer's recently came upon three Africans at JFK Airport.

"And the three of them were being sent by their church in Africa as missionaries to the United States," Clymer recalled. "In 1900, the United States was the number-one sending nation of missionaries around the world, and today the United States is the 13th largest receiving nation of Christian missionaries from around the world."

Taylor said,"They're way ahead of us. They're passionate -- the Hispanics, the Brazilians, the Asians."

Things are also starting to bubble up in New Hampshire, which desperately needs it, as the most unchurched state in all the country.

Curt Nordhielm, who works with Clymer through Restoration House Ministries in Manchester, said, "Less than five percent would be in church on any given Sunday morning here."

Nordhielm and Clymer start up churches for many of those Christian foreigners coming to New England. "We have two Chinese works, a Cambodian work, a Korean work, a Liberian work, and a Haitian church started last Sunday," Clymer explained.

Some feel that the Catholic Church may have a role in this coming revival, even after the scandals that have roiled the priesthood and declining attendance that's forced it to sell many of its churches -- ironically enough, in some cases to Protestant groups thriving in this renewal.

Father Tom DiLorenzo is a charismatic priest leading an on-fire congregation near Boston.

DiLorenzo commented, "In the worship, God does mighty things. Like just a couple of weeks ago at the Eucharist at Mass, a woman who was blind was healed…There was a man with MS who was healed. But it's all during worship and people coming expecting."

His people also are taking the Good News to the streets, ministering to the homeless every week.

"And that's why we're here -- because Jesus loves us," DiLorenzo stated.

DiLorenzo says that the Lord told him in 1990 that a time of mighty shaking was coming. "He said that this would be a time of great revival, of great evangelization, and that the salvation of many would depend on us...the salvation of many. And He asked us to be ready, to get ready, and to stay ready -- and to be in His word and to be prayed up. I keep telling the people, 'Ya know, find your knees now...avoid the rush when the big shaking takes place.'"

So maybe full-blown revival has not come to New England yet, but most of the people we spoke to feel it is coming soon.

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