In 1988, John White wrote When The Spirit Comes With Power, dealing with revival and its relationship to strange behavioral manifestations, including falling to the ground, trembling, and crying out. The subject matter of this book became very timely for the revival, and it was in a sense, prophetic, since it contained a wealth of references to John Wimber and the Vineyard movement.
According to John Wimber ("Vineyard Reflections," May/June 1994, p. 1), in September of 1976, Bob Fulton, Carol Wimber, Carl Tuttle and a few other people, began to assemble at Carl Tuttle's sister's home for prayer, worship, and seeking the Lord. He wrote that by the time he became involved several months later, "the Spirit of God was already moving powerfully." During the spring of 1977, this developed into the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim, which within seventeen years had become a mother church to over 550 Vineyard churches worldwide. During those years, VCF Anaheim had what John Wimber describes as "an ongoing interaction with the Holy Spirit in which we'd have ebbs and flows" (ibid, p. 2). After a bout with cancer in 1993, Wimber said that by October of that year, the Lord had spoken to him seventeen times that this would be a "season of new beginnings" for the Vineyard churches. He brought this message of new beginning to a Vineyard Board meeting in November of 1993 at Palm Springs. At the same meeting, John Arnott, a regional overseer of Vineyard Churches in Ontario, Canada, learned from Happy Leman, Midwest Regional Overseer, "how the Holy Spirit had recently powerfully renewed and refreshed Randy Clark (VCF St. Louis) in a meeting conducted by evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne in Tulsa, Oklahoma" (ibid, p. 3). Randy began to witness similar outpourings in his home church and elsewhere, and John Arnott invited him to Toronto [or, more specifically, to Mississauga, just outside of Toronto] to minister in his church. These meetings began on January 20, 1994, and "four days of meetings turned into ...months of almost nightly meetings in numerous locations in Ontario. It has since poured out through those who have visited there into similar renewal meetings all over the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and even Europe" (ibid).
According to Charisma (June 1994, p. 53), within weeks of the meetings that began on January 20, people were coming from New York City, Dallas, Fort Wayne, and New Orleans, and returning to their own churches to hold protracted meetings in their own areas.
The March 15, 1994 issue of Christian Week, a newspaper published bi-weekly in Winnipeg, Manitoba, featured the revival on its front page in an article entitled "Holy Laughter Lifting Spirits," by Doug Koop, who wrote, "Since the outbreak of joy began in mid-January, the Airport Vineyard has been holding services six nights a week, some in rented facilities to accommodate crowds of up to a thousand people. In mid-February they reported a nightly average attendance of 800.... The phenomenon has spread throughout southern Ontario and more meetings were being held in cities including Cambridge (a reported average nightly attendance of 600), Stratford (300), Barrie (250) and Hamilton (250)." Randy Clark said that he couldn't explain his sudden involvement as a leader in a new outpouring of God's Spirit, stating that he had been "relatively unsuccessful in 23 years of ministry." However, "a major change took place in his life last summer when he attended services led by South Africa-born Pentecostal evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne." According to the article, many church leaders were beginning to experience "supernatural joy" as a result of attending weekly meetings in Toronto for Baptist, Presbyterian, Reformed, Pentecostal, Anglican, and United Church pastors. "Clark has also accepted several invitations to speak to pastors and lay leaders in denominational settings -- notably with both Convention and Fellowship Baptist groups."
In June of 1994, Daina Doucet of Toronto reported in Charisma (pp. 52-53) that the movement had spread to Presbyterians, Nazarenes, Pentecostals, Mennonite Brethren, Anglicans, and leaders of the United Church of Canada, all of whom were attending nightly meetings at the Airport Vineyard Christian Fellowship. Guy Chevreau, a pastor affiliated with the Baptist Convention of Ontario and Quebec, was quoted to the effect that the revival is "crossing denominations, and denominational barriers are coming down.... What we're talking about here is God's manifest presence, such that He is seen, felt and experienced and folks' lives are getting changed." John Arnott has described it is as a "nameless, faceless revival.... It's basically people no one has ever heard of suddenly ministering powerfully in the Lord" (ibid).