My Retrospective on Summer Tent Revival

Reflecting On Revival Culture in Charismatic Circles

Brandianne K
12 min readMar 28, 2024

The tent was erected in the field behind the old church every summer when I was a teenager. Guest ministers were booked, a theme was established, and posters were printed with a clear message: Come here and get “more” from God.

Spiders hid in the folds of the canvas that draped overhead. Green, mini-golf-esque carpet was underfoot. A battalion of plastic chairs were lined up across the breadth of the tent with a wide aisle down the middle. Kids’ toys and a small table with coloring books was set up in the back corner.

A makeshift stage was at the front; a music stand was likely being used for a pulpit; the dark stained wooden altar was brought from inside the church building out to the tent, ready to receive those seeking God.

A large banner was draped over the stage area proclaiming: “With God nothing is impossible.”

The ministers who were invited to speak under the tent each summer were gurus of spirituality with keys to intimacy with God. They had unlocked the “more” and those of us in the plastic chairs were hungry to learn their secrets. Those of us who belonged to the church had an expectation that, perhaps, if our faith and our obedience were pleasing to God- we would see revival.

To be clear, the Baptists down the street might advertise a revival service and mean that they’re planning to sing camp songs and preach the gospel. They are hoping to see people renew their sense of gratitude to the Lord & maybe get a couple of backsliders to come home to Jesus. The Charismatics on the other side of town have a very different thing in mind when they advertise revival meetings.

For many years I attended a Charismatic church where each summer we would erect a big tent and invite special speakers to come to stir up revival. I recently spent some time thinking about these summertime tent revivals and the revival culture associated with the Charismatic church.

This is my retrospective.

The services under the tent followed a simple formula:

Pre-service prayer.

We were priming the place with God’s presence via worship CDs and declarations that God would do great things. We prayed that everyone whom God had ordained to be at the meeting would be there. We rebuked demons and told them they couldn’t attend. We anticipated the emotional, felt presence of God to manifest as proof to people that they needed to accept Christ and seek His Kingdom. We did our best to focus our minds exclusively on God.

Worship time.

We played popular and traditional worship songs, and typically someone would hop up and begin prophesying after a few songs were played. Maybe in tongues, maybe in intelligible language. If it was a message in tongues, we waited for a second person (occasionally it was the same person) to offer their interpretation.

I had a notebook, and I would furiously work to jot down these prophecies as quickly as they were spoken. They were always similar.

Prophecies for the Church.

There would be an emphasis on the coming of Jesus, and this was followed with a call to the people to tell their loved ones and neighbors to accept Christ, lest they despair because they are left behind (i.e. the rapture of the church).

There were promises of revival from God. The prophetic picture was painted of great sessions of worship, great sessions of prayer, salvation and deliverance for the unsaved, signs and wonders, physical healings, wealth transfer, and the churches being so full that people had to stand outside to hear the preacher. (And, of course, it would start at our church!)

The prophecies would also come with rebukes at times. The church would be told that their faith was small or that they were seeking revival in ways that needed to be adjusted. Maybe we needed to pray more. Maybe we needed to outreach and give to people more. Maybe we needed to have more interactions with our neighbors. Maybe we needed to worship longer, pray longer, or stop saying things in disbelief that were stopping revival from coming.

Preaching & Personal Prophecy.

Next, the preacher would grab the microphone and say things like “Wow! That Word from God was exactly what I was going to preach about.”

The preaching would be more of the same sentiment. A call to seek revival. A call to strengthen your faith. A call to pray and worship. A lot of spiritual work needed to be done to bring revival, after all.

The most exciting times were when the preachers brought ministry teams with them. Once I recall a team from Bethel’s School of Supernatural Ministry coming to minister under the tent.

The students lined up in front of the altar and called out individuals from the crowd. If you got called, you were expected to stand from your plastic chair and receive a Word from God. Usually the words were about God being proud of you, calling you to a new opportunity, or blessing you in a new way.

Revival was always associated with God doing something new.

Altar Call.

After some ministry and some preaching, there would be an opportunity to go up front. Sometimes the main speaker would pray for each person who came up, sometimes the ministry team would do so. On the rarest of occasions, the speaker would call for everyone to pray by themselves at the altar.

I would be remiss to exclude the catchers from my memories of tent revival. While being prayed for, it was common to have a person behind you, standing by with arms ready to catch you if you fell under the power. This is commonly called being “slain in the Spirit.” Our catchers even had purple blankets to drape over those who laid slain, lest navels or other immodest parts might be seen.

Generally these altar calls were to re-dedicate yourself to God. You had to accept that you weren’t doing enough to see God’s blessings manifest in your life. Now, dedicate yourself to do more. You had to accept that you weren’t spiritual enough to yet be walking in your God-ordained destiny. Now, dedicate yourself to be more spiritual. On the rarest occasion, you would have a genuinely unsaved person accepting Christ for the first time.

Photo by Thomas John on Unsplash

The Dissension that Ended It All

The last summer that the tent was ever erected for revival services at the little church I used to frequent was the summer that my family went camping instead of attending the revival.

In an unusual twist, there was only one speaker invited to the tent revival that year. The speaker wasn’t well known to our church, but he did come highly recommended as a man who really heard from God.

The man apparently received revelation from God that my church’s senior pastor was blocking revival, and the associate ministers needed to either topple him from leadership or leave to do their own thing.

As the story was recounted to my family later, the associate and some others confronted the pastor in the tent, with the congregation gathered for a Sunday morning meeting. The cowardly guest speaker was nowhere in sight that day.

Awful names were called, dirty laundry was aired, and people went their separate ways. All in the name of progressing revival.

It hurts me to recall that this really happened. The men who were supposed to be feeding the sheep turned and devoured one another instead. The church hemorrhaged people. The opposite of the prophecies. No one was standing outside because the place was so full. The place was empty. It didn’t take long for the church to disappear completely.

I am grateful that I didn’t have to be there to see the dissension in all of its glory.

A strange thing that stands out in my mind about that last summer, is the novel I was reading at the time. One thing I savor about camping trips are the lazy, long days that provide so much uninterrupted time to delve into a good book.

This particular summer I was reading Frank Peretti’s novel The Visitation. This novel has a broad theme about questioning and discerning the genuine from the counterfeit. In the novel, a false messiah arrives in a town and begins providing people with miracles. The people, blinded by the excitement and freedom of the healings and blessings, fully give themselves over to this enigmatic messiah figure.

The local pastors have their doubts, as their congregations dwindle down and they see everyone gathering to the meetings of this supposed messiah.

The concept of false christs and false revival was presented to me in the palatable form of a very entertaining novel. Meanwhile (back at the farm), there was a huge division happening at my church. People were abandoning their brothers and sisters for promises of revival.

The irony and the surrealness of this juxtaposition still gives me chills.

Revival Culture & (Supposed) Prophecy

I have said before that Revival became an idol to people that I loved. I think that this story of the tent revival culture which culminated in dissension is only a microcosm of something going on in the church today.

There is a large swath of Christianity today that has its heart set on an end time revival. There have been prophecies about this great revival and harvest that is to come before Christ’s return that feel like scripture, because they are so often referred to in these circles.

Some well-known ideas that go along with the end time revival eschatological view are the following:

The Sleeping Giant

There have been many prophecies about the church being akin to a sleeping giant who is going to wake up prior to Christ’s return. The church, once awake (or revived), will be a force in culture to bring many into salvation and to bring the culture of Christ to the earth before Jesus Himself comes back to the earth.

In the 60s, a man named Timothy Hicks had a vision about this concept. In his vision, the church received a great anointing from Jesus for signs and wonders- they were commanding things to happen on the earth and revival ensued. The vision also contains a warning about Christians who would deny this anointing and go into darkness. The world, likewise, would quickly come under God’s wrathful judgment in this vision.

The outworking of this vision is what happened practically in my home church- The separation of those who were “accepting the anointing” from those who were not. The division of churches. The seeking of revival before the wrath and/or return of Christ on the earth.

The Nameless, Faceless Generation

I heard this quite a bit in youth meetings. God is raising up a generation of believers who don’t have superstars among themselves. Everyone is so powerful, exhibiting signs and wonders, bringing the message of Christ to the masses, that nobody will be able to attribute the advancement of the Kingdom to a particular person, but the entire generation.

This nameless, faceless generation was a prophecy from Paul Cain. A companion to this prophecy is a prophecy often cited, spoken by Bob Jones. He predicted a “billion soul harvest” that would precede the coming of the Lord. Both of these men went on to have scandal and disgrace associated with their names.

The Latter Rain

The Latter Rain movement is the predecessor of the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) as we know it today. The latter rain of Joel is looked at as a metaphor for the end times refreshing of the Lord. The revival meetings held at the height of the Latter Rain movement’s greatest visibility, in the 1950s, included teaching that Christians would display miraculous powers and unmatched holiness (sinless perfectionism) as a way to announce to the world that Christ was returning.

One of the most infamous leaders in the revivals of that time is William Branham. His legacy is coveted by many modern NAR leaders, like Kris Vallotton of Bethel Church in Redding, California, who asked God for Branham’s mantle. William Branham’s legacy lives on through the Branhamite cult.

What’s the Problem?

The problem is that this end time revival idea is predicated on the dreams, visions, and prophecies of men. Not the Bible.

This, of course, isn’t much of an issue for those who believe in progressive revelation. But that’s another conversation, and a topic that most people in these circles haven’t fully considered. (I know I hadn’t!)

The End Times According to the Bible

Of course there will always be exciting periods of time where we see people renewing their dedication to Christ, getting saved, and experiencing what some recognize as revival.

But the great, end time revival that spreads like wildfire all across the earth and shows all mankind the power of God through perfected, powerful believers before Christ’s coming? That revival isn’t biblical.

The idea that pressing in to the presence of God in order to attain greater gifts, in order to perform miraculous works in the name of Christ, in order to bring more people out of skepticism and into faith, in order to spread the message of the gospel, in order to usher in the return of the Lord, is the destiny of the end time church is the motivation for things like summer tent revival.

This is the formula for bringing the consummation of all things into being, according to the modern day prophets and apostles of this modern age.

The Prophets and Apostles who penned Scripture seem to differ with this idea.

We’re told that the time leading up to the Second Coming will be like the days of Moses. Things seem to go on as they always have, until the rain comes. Jesus said this:

““But concerning that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son but the Father only. For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.””

Matthew 24:37–39, ESV

Likewise, we are given the picture of a thief who comes in the night as imagery to explain the Second Coming of Christ. It’s unexpected.

“Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober.”

1 Thessalonians 5:1–6, ESV

In researching this topic further, I found a couple of resources that help lay things out according to scripture without taking too long to go over.

This article from Got Questions specifically addresses the great end time revival narrative:

The clip linked below is from an interview with Dr. David Jeremiah, which interestingly starts off with Dr. Jeremiah saying that he hears “all the time” that there will be a great revival before Christ’s return, but that “the exact opposite is in the Bible.”

Dr. Jeremiah then makes the distinction that the Bible does seem to point to a great revival that will occur after the return of Christ, during the Great Tribulation. Of course, this is all part of his view that we will experience a rapture of the saints at Christ’s return, followed by a period of darkness on the earth before the saints and Christ return, which is a popular view, but is not the only Christian idea about the return of Christ. It is interesting to note his thoughts on end time revival though, considering his eschatology lines up with the majority viewpoint of folks in the Charismatic camp.

My Takeaway

In the end, I will sit in retrospect and be grateful for the summer tent revivals. I will also be disappointed and grieved by them.

I grew and learned a lot in my private moments of prayer in those meetings. I learned to be satisfied with the presence of God which resides within. I learned to not depend on a word from a prophet to bring me hope.

I also received a lot of false words. I learned to focus on experiences & prophecies & signs, instead of Scripture. I learned what the ugly side of revival looks like when people turn on one another. I also learned how to forgive and move on.

I don’t think that I could ever feel at home in a Charismatic revival meeting ever again.

I don’t think that I want to.

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Brandianne K

Ex-Charismatic looking for biblical grounding after years of living in the clouds.