Revival Hits Baltimore

Is it the latest instance of revival in America? If it is, it is a bit different. Many who come find themselves nearly passed out on the floor, and they say they feel drawn away into God's actual presence. CBN News correspondent Paul Strand headed off to Baltimore to check it out.

"We wind up on the floor, and we wind up in tears," says Pastor John Monk of Living Tabernacle.

"I just want to grovel, and it's just like I cannot repent enough," says church singer Julie Tabb. I have cried more in these past 20 months than I knew a human being could cry."

It started on January 19th, 1997. What Pastor Bart Pierce and visiting evangelist Tommy Tenney found at Rock Church that day floored them -- literally.

"God showed up," says Tenney.

"There was already people everywhere in the sanctuary crying, weeping, people laying on the floor, people just everywhere, crawling, trying to get to the front of the church," says Rock Church pastor Bart Pierce.

"People just broke into tears," says Tabb. We were just crumbling on the floor. The presence of God was just so heavy.

"I didn't do anything but lay on the floor and cry, and I got up once or twice and just found myself back down on the floor again," says Pastor Pierce.

Tenney says it was like in the Old Testament. "At the dedication of Solomon's Temple, when it says the priests and the ministers couldn't minister, that's literally true," he says. "They were on their faces."

An excited Pierce called his worship leader, Don Mark, who happened to be at a distant airport, and Mark says the Spirit leapt through the phone line and knocked him down.

"Now here I am, hundreds of people at this gate, and I'm on the floor,on my knees, and I'm crying," says worship leader Don Mark. "I knew my whole life was about to change."

One odd manifestation of this move of God: people who didn't even know Rock Church existed suddenly found God commanding them to go there.

"And they would say to us things like, `I was sitting at the dinner table and I know the Lord spoke to me to get up and come to your church,' or `I was driving down the Beltway and I just felt compelled," says Pastor Pierce. "I had to come into that building.'"

Those who come say such constant, close contact with God's holy presence makes them repent deeply and yearn to be more like him.

"What have I been doing all these years?" says Tabb. "You know, I say that I'm a Christian, but I am nowhere near where God would have me be."

"I want me to be changed," says Mark. "More than anything else, I knew that I had to change."

This looks like the latest ripple of revival in the land. We've already seen hundreds of thousands of Promise Keepers gather at events like Stand in the Gap here on the Washington Mall. The Holy Spirit's descended on Smithton, Missouri, and in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Revivals come with great laughter in Toronto, with hundreds charging the altar at once to repent in Pensacola.

But in Baltimore, according to Pastor Monk, "it's not like Pensacola -- it's not like Toronto." At Rock Church, God's presence is driving people to the floor, to weeping and quiet moaning.

"You know that the presence of God is in the room, and you're just overcome," says Tabb. "You just kind of like sink."

"When that weight comes on your shoulders, you just go down," says sound engineer David Jehl..

"Even though you've got several hundred people, they are all kind of off in their own world with God," says pianist Ashley Thompson.

"These are what we call `goners,'" says Jehl. "They've gone to be with the Lord."

"They're on the floor, they're in a corner," says Thompson. "They hide behind the back curtain."

Why is this move of God happening here? Those involved feel there's no formula, but there are clues. Rock Church for years has been immersed in good works, networking with Baltimore's other churches, caring for the homeless and feeding the poor.

"We move about eight million or nine million pounds of food," says Pierce.

They also work with each other to weave their congregations together to form, really, citywide, the church of Baltimore.

"We're learning to pastor the city, not just our own local congregation," says Pastor John Crock of Church on the Rock..

Other pastors, like John Crock and John Monk, have flocked to Rock's Monday and Tuesday services, often bringing dozens of their own church members.

"This is bigger than a Rock Church thing," says Crock. "This is a God thing."

"Something precious is going on, drawing us here like honey draws a bee," says Pastor Monk.

They say God's presence is having an effect on individuals and the city.

"He's breaking down the denominational wall, and you can see such a harmony between people coming from other churches," says Tabb.

"And people have walked in and been healed," says Pierce. "No one prayed for them."

"There was one service where someone just, in the middle of Tommy Tenney preaching -- just walked down and said, `I want to get saved,'" says Thompson.

Pierce says now, some 150 area pastors have united with 400 intercessors to actually take Baltimore for God.

"It's bringing the body of Christ together," says Pierce.

"And if other churches will take what's happening in Baltimore, and if other preachers will begin to get together and see God for their city, we can see a move of God in this nation," says Crock. "It needs revival."

Meanwhile, at Rock Church, people keep going off to be in the presence of the Lord.

"They're just off with God, who knows where," says Thompson.

"I just can't wait to go in there and worship for them," says Mark. "I can't wait to come to church every day to be in the presence of God."