Toronto Blessing

Background

The Toronto Blessing emerged within the Vineyard Movement, which John Wimber led in the United States during the 1980s. The Vineyard Movement belongs to the charismatic stream, which holds that gifts of the Holy Spirit such as healing and prophecy continue today, and it is sometimes associated with the Third Wave. John and Carol Arnott, a married pastoral couple in Toronto, Canada, founded a church around 1988. After the church joined the Vineyard Movement, it became known as the Toronto Airport Vineyard.

Around 1993, John Arnott reportedly received prayer from Pastor Claudio Freidzon in Argentina. Randy Clark, a Vineyard pastor from St. Louis, Missouri, is said to have had a powerful experience at a meeting led by the revivalist Rodney Howard-Browne.

Development

• January 20, 1994: At Arnott's invitation, Clark began a series of testimony meetings at the Toronto Airport Vineyard. About 120 people attended the first night, and many reportedly fell to the floor. The meetings continued after Clark left.
• Reported phenomena at the meetings included weeping, trembling, uncontrollable laughter, lying on the floor for hours, and making animal noises. Participants called this the "Father's Blessing" or the "renewal"; the name "Toronto Blessing" was coined by the British press and churches.
• 1994–1995: Visitors came from many countries. The phenomenon spread beyond the Vineyard to churches of various denominations, particularly in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.
• December 1995: The Association of Vineyard Churches withdrew its endorsement of the church, stating that it could not accept providing theological justification for exotic phenomena not found in Scripture, and the Toronto church left the association. Wimber explained that the association had withdrawn its endorsement and that the Toronto church had chosen to leave. Some thirty Vineyard churches reportedly sided with the Toronto church and left the association at that time.
• The church subsequently renamed itself Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship and, together with like-minded churches, formed the network Partners in Harvest. It later adopted the name Catch the Fire.

Outcomes and Influence

Arnott estimated that about 2.5 million people visited during the first five years of the meetings, which were still being held six nights a week at that time. Steve Hill, who led revival meetings in Pensacola, Florida, is said to have been influenced by the movement in England. Some also claim that the movement provided the impetus for a mission in Mozambique that planted thousands of churches.

In Korea, too, some churches held meetings in the mid-1990s under the name "Toronto Blessing." At these meetings, people who had attended the Toronto meetings sometimes practiced the laying on of hands on the congregation. Korean Christian media reported that when the Vineyard headquarters and the Toronto church parted ways, those involved in Korea also divided according to whose meetings they had attended. Some in Korean church circles regard the movement as one of the roots of the New Apostolic Reformation.

Assessment

Supporters regard the Toronto Blessing as a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit and an experience of the love of God the Father. Many within Pentecostalism hold that, as with speaking in tongues in the early church, the work of the Holy Spirit may be accompanied by outward manifestations.

Critics argue that the movement focused excessively on sensation and experience and accepted phenomena lacking scriptural basis as works of the Holy Spirit. They also contend that it lacked the pattern of hearing the Word, repenting of sin, and conversion seen in revivals such as the Northampton revival in the time of Jonathan Edwards. In Korea, critical works such as Park Young-ho's An Evaluation of the Vineyard Movement were published. The controversy is also connected to the broader cessationism and continuationism debate over whether the spiritual gifts continue today.