In North Carolina revival, God saturated one town with His presence

In North Carolina revival, God saturated one town with His presence

By Mark Ellis, Senior Correspondent for ASSIST News Service

BURLINGTON, NC (ANS -- August 10, 2016) -- Pastor Randy Hobbs has been pastoring New Hope Baptist Church in Burlington for 37 years, but he’s never seen anything like the revival that began on Mother’s Day of this year and continued until July 29th.

The church invited evangelist C.T. Townsend, 34, to visit for a week. “We had such a mighty move of God in breakthrough power on Friday evening,” Pastor Hobbs recounts. “We felt the presence and the raw power of God, with people moving to God. It’s what God did in the service.”

“We had such a great meeting we decided to continue another week,” he adds.

On Sunday, May 15th, one of “the roughest men in the county” had a dramatic conversion. “We had prayed for him for years, and he’s been coming to church, but we could never get him to move,” Pastor Hobbs says.

But God softened the man’s heart that Sunday morning and when he came forward, “the whole church erupted in praise and shouting as the power of God fell.”

When the Spirit descended, heaven broke loose. “The second week God started saving people right and left, with over 100 saved in the second week.”

Nightly services at the church grew to 700 people, and then to 1000. “People were lined up along the walls. We had to get chairs out and put them in side rooms and the vestibule,” he notes.

After four weeks, the meetings moved to a tent that could hold 3500 people.

“We met Monday through Friday every week and took the weekends off so people could be at their local church,” Pastor Hobbs says. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. The drawing power, the raw power of God was there every night.”

Photos captions: 1) The tent at night. 2) Pastor Randy Hobbs with his wife, Lisa. 3) Evangelist C.T. Townsend preaching. 4) Mark Ellis.

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About the writer: Mark Ellis is a Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News Service (www.assistnews.net), and also the founder of www.GodReports.com, a website that shares stories, testimonies and videos from the church around the world to build interest and involvement in world missions. Mark is also co-host with ANS founder, Dan Wooding, of "Windows on the World," a weekly TV show broadcast on the Holy Spirit Broadcasting Network (http://hsbn.tv), that features the top stories of week on the ASSIST News Service.

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