Catch the Fire

Soaking Prayer and Charismatic Renewal

By: Michael Wilkinson, Peter Althouse

Narrated by: Scot Wilcox

Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

A recent phenomenon of charismatic renewal took place in Toronto in the mid-1990s. Commonly known as the "Toronto Blessing" and operated by the former Vineyard Church leaders John and Carol Arnott, the renewal was defined by reports of uncontrollable laughter, weeping, speaking in tongues, animal noises, and falling on the floor during worship. Sympathetic Christians embraced these practices while others who believed that this form of worship boarded on spectacle rejected them.

By the end of the 1990s most people thought that the renewal was over. Yet, in the first decade of the 21st century, the authors, a sociologist and a theologian, heard rumors that the Toronto church, now known as "Catch the Fire", was still holding mass meetings with upwards of 2,000 people in attendance. They also learned of an emerging practice of "soaking prayer", an adaption of Pentecostal-charismatic prayer that, participants and leaders claim, facilitates and expands the reception of divine love in order to give it away in acts of forgiveness, reconciliation, compassion, and benevolence.

Soaking, the authors reveal, is a metaphor for practices like resting in the Spirit, prayer for spiritual gifts, healing, prophecy, impartation, and supports overall charismatic spirituality. Attending "Catch the Fire" conferences, churches, and house meetings in the United States, Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, Wilkinson and Althouse observed firsthand how people soak, what it means to soak, and why soaking is considered an important practice among charismatics.

The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2014 Northern Illinois University Press (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks

Pretty Dense in Parts, But Worth It

This is a scholarly book on soaking prayer and spirituality in charismatic Christianity, and how that leads to acts of altruism. It was denser than I expected - it was just like reading a scientific article in an academic journal! I really appreciated the fairness and objectiveness of it, though. It left me feeling like there really is a power beyond ourselves that we can tap into for love, and that charismatic Christianity, for all its faults, understands that and puts that understanding into practice.