B
LAKE had not put up
a revival tent since
Fulfillment Fest 2012
in Magnolia, North
Carolina. His first one
was erected in 2006
in a pasture on his 60-acre Moravian
Falls horse farm.
“Back in the ’90s, the Lord said I
want you to get a tent for the celebra-tion
times — the feasts — three times
a year. He said they needed to be
restored to the Christian church, that
the church had lost their Christian
perspective of where they came from
and why we do what we do as Chris-tians,”
he says. “I try to always put up
a tent to celebrate Passover, Pentecost,
Tabernacles. They are not just Jewish
— they are God’s appointed times.”
The first Fulfillment Fest went 24/7
for 21 days.
Two years later, Blake’s 4,000-
5,000 people tent went up in Jerusa-lem
on the Mount of Olives during
Pentecost. The following year (2009)
three Fulfillment Fest tents went up,
including on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C.
One definition of revival is an improvement in the condition
or strength of something. Another says Christian revivalism is
increased spiritual interest or a renewal in the life of a church
congregation or society with a local, national or global effect.
Christian author and evangelist Robert Coleman says revival is
“The awakening or quickening of God’s people to their true nature
and purpose.” For Blake, revival has been times of pouring out of
the Holy Spirit.
The term revival is also used to describe an evangelistic meeting
or series of meetings.
One month into the ongoing meeting in Wilmington, Blake saw
it as a cleaning out of wells and a cultural shift.
“What we are doing here now, we are clearing out a spiritual
well,” he says. “The church is clogged up, it’s filled up. We’re here
releasing God’s Spirit. I think it will come to a tipping point, a reset
of the church for the nation in general. I call it a return to what the
early church was like.”
Blake and his nondenominational One in Christ Ministries
had previously always made use of neutral ground for the events he
hosted.
“I have never set up a tent on church grounds until now,” he says.
He felt Global River had the structure and the people to speak or
take leadership roles. And they did step forward, from volunteers
hauling away the trash or setting out parking cones, to speaking and
drawing a revivalist to preach who has 25,000 Instagram followers.
Global River was no stranger to tent revivals, having partnered
with Ignite Ministry for the 10-day Wilmington Jesus Tent in
September 2015. Five more in other cities followed in the next two
years.
The tent in September 2021 was modeled after the tents of the
Feast of Tabernacles, which begins five days after the Jewish Yom
Kippur or Day of Atonement. Once a year the people of Israel would
leave their homes to set up huts or booths and meet with God.
With the Biblical King David’s Tabernacle in mind, Hauser-
Bonnett lined up worship teams. The formula was to offer up
Davidic worship around the clock 24/7 for nine straight days and
nights, interspersed with a speaker three or four times throughout
the day and night.
Hauser-Bonnett and Blake invited local and eastern North
Carolina pastors, and prophets and evangelists including such
internationally known ministers as Kirk Bennett, Kansas City’s
International House of Prayer senior leader, missionary to America
from Cameroon, Africa, Edward Akwa, as well as revivalist Jessi
Green, who had just relocated to the north Wilmington area with
her family. Green was the final scheduled speaker of the initial
nine-day Tent of Meeting.
22 december 2021
WBM