Brownsville revisited

National | Allegations of impropriety and wrongdoing surrounding the five-year Florida Pentecostal revival don't pan out-but its leaders have tidied up a bit, anyway | Edward E. Plowman

Pastor John Kilpatrick was feeling exhausted physically and emotionally on Father's Day Sunday. So, he asked the guest evangelist who was preaching at several evening meetings that week to take the Sunday morning service as well. What happened next on June 18, 1995, and afterward became known throughout the world as the "Brownsville Revival."

The 1995 Father's Day evangelist, Steve Hill, 45, a former Assemblies of God foreign missionary, stayed on, preaching several nights a week for four years at the Brownsville Assembly of God church on the west side of Pensacola, Fla., but only on Friday during the past year. Others took over the pulpit on other nights. Reports of "manifestations" (swooning, deep bowing, jerking, groaning) drew many. Total attendance over the past five years at the 2,200-seat sanctuary is said to be over 3 million.