Five Things We Will Learn
- The Brownsville Revival was preceded by years of hunger, prayer, surrender, and preparation.
- Pastor John Kilpatrick paid a deep personal price to pursue a genuine move of God.
- The revival touched adults, youth, schools, families, nations, and future ministers.
- Richard Crisco believed revival had to be followed by discipleship if the fruit was going to remain.
- Brownsville’s legacy includes both glory and lessons about hunger, leadership, endurance, and the cost of revival.
Before the Revival Came the Hunger
In 1995, God poured out His Spirit at Brownsville Assembly of God in Pensacola, Florida, and people came from all over the world. But Richard Crisco makes clear that the revival did not begin suddenly on Father’s Day. It was preceded by years of preparation, hunger, prayer, and surrender.
Aaron Burke opens the conversation by remembering that he was a 12-year-old boy when he experienced the Brownsville Revival. His life was transformed, and now, 30 years later, he is sitting down with Richard Crisco, one of the leaders who saw the revival from the inside.
Richard was the youth pastor during the revival. Aaron had known him not only as his youth pastor, but later as a ministry friend and mentor. Over the years, Aaron would ask Richard revival stories again and again, and finally said, “We’ve got to record this.”
Richard Crisco Did Not Want to Go to Brownsville
Richard says plainly that he did not want to go to Brownsville. He had been serving at Milton Assembly of God, in Milton, Florida, where his youth group had grown from 25 to 140 students in a church of 200. The people loved him.
He joked that in that church it was “God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, Brother Richard.”
But when Pastor John Kilpatrick offered him the youth pastor position at Brownsville, Richard knew he was supposed to go.
He came “kicking and screaming.”
Brownsville’s youth ministry had about 125 students, many of whom were homeschooled. They did not know each other well and seemed afraid of each other. The church atmosphere was quiet, low-key, and structured. Richard felt completely out of place.
He described himself as feeling “like a cat in a dog pound.”
Brownsville Before the Revival
Before the revival, Brownsville was not the kind of church Richard expected to see become the center of a worldwide move of God.
Pastor Kilpatrick was polished, structured, and organized. Richard said every service had a schedule: 10:00 this, 10:05 that, and so on.
There was very little flow of the gifts of the Spirit. Prophetic words were rare. Messages in tongues and interpretation were uncommon. Richard even joked that there were times he looked outside to see if the sign said “Baptist Church.”
Then Pastor Kilpatrick made an announcement that seemed risky.
Canceling Sunday Night Service for Prayer
In the Bible Belt, especially in Pentecostal churches, Sunday night was often considered the “Holy Ghost service.” But Pastor Kilpatrick stood before the church and announced that he was canceling Sunday night service and turning it into a prayer meeting.
He had evaluated the services and realized the church spent more time giving prayer requests than actually praying.
Richard thought, “Oh my God, this is not going to work.”
Then they had one of their first staff meetings. Richard thought Pastor Kilpatrick would explain the vision. Instead, Pastor Kilpatrick said he had no clue what he was doing. He simply knew that prayer was a huge key to a move of the Spirit.
“This Is Not It”
Pastor Kilpatrick had learned about prayer from his own pastor when he was a teenage boy. He had attended prayer meetings and witnessed supernatural experiences, including angelic visitations in the sanctuary.
As he began sharing those stories, hunger started rising in the church.
Brownsville was running about 1,700 people. The church was financially healthy, families were joining, and the staff was strong. By outward measures, it looked successful.
But Pastor Kilpatrick would say, “This is not it.”
He was one of the best Bible teachers Richard knew, but week after week he would lay out his sermon notes, then within minutes put them aside and talk about a move of God.
One Sunday, Pastor Kilpatrick said the Lord told him, “If you will allow Me to move here you will lose hundreds but you’ll gain thousands.”
That word came to pass.
Losing Hundreds and Gaining Thousands
Some of Pastor Kilpatrick’s closest friends left the church. They told him he was no longer the man they used to know and that all he talked about was foolishness.
He paid a price.
Richard later learned that Pastor Kilpatrick once came into the sanctuary in the middle of the night, laid the church keys on the altar, and told the Lord that if He would not give him a move of God there, then He should send him to a small country church because he had to have a move of God.
Pastor Kilpatrick would come into the church at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, lay on the front row, grab his stomach, and cry out to God.
He said, “God, there’s more. There’s got to be more. I thank You Lord for the church. I thank You for the building. I thank You for my wife and children. But oh God, I’m dying inside.”
That hunger drove the church.
Learning How to Pray
The prayer meetings did not collapse. Attendance stayed strong. Brownsville had about 1,100 people returning on Sunday nights, and when the church shifted to prayer, that did not drop.
But they quickly discovered they did not know how to pray for an hour.
After five minutes, Richard said, they had “prayed for the world three times.”
So Pastor Kilpatrick developed twelve prayer banners. Each banner represented a prayer focus, such as family, healing, government, revival, and other needs. A prayer captain was assigned to each banner. After five minutes, a shofar would sound, and people would rotate to the next banner.
Twelve banners at five minutes each taught the church how to pray for an hour.
This was part of the pre-revival preparation.
Dealing With Cynicism
Another significant moment happened before the revival. Pastor Kilpatrick’s father had been harsh and had beaten his mother for taking him to church. After his parents divorced, Pastor Kilpatrick cared for his mother.
In early 1995, she became seriously ill. While driving down Pine Forest Road to see her, the Holy Spirit spoke to him and said, “If you don’t get rid of your cynical spirit, I will pass you by.”
Until then, he had been critical of nearly everything, even his own television program.
So he began dealing with cynicism.
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- Backlash: The Spiritual Newton’s Third Law That Is Destroying (or Saving) Yours and Others Life
Rejecting the Artificial Before the Real Came
During that season, the laughter movement was taking place. Pastor Kilpatrick invited a minister connected to that movement. Before the service, he told the man to preach, then give the service back to him so he could decide what to do.
Richard was in the green room and saw it happen.
During the message, about 40 people scattered throughout the sanctuary began laughing. Richard said it looked staged and felt eerie. The minister preached a solid word, but then suddenly said the Spirit of God was all over him and told people to run to the altar so he could lay hands on them.
Pastor Kilpatrick immediately took the microphone and said, “This service is over. You are dismissed.”
Richard said he had never seen 1,700 people leave a sanctuary so quickly. Only the 40 laughing people remained. They began shouting, “Ichabod! The glory of the Lord is departed from this place.” Ushers had to lock arms and push them out. Some picked up stones and threatened to throw them through the glass doors.
Richard said the lesson was twofold: before the real comes, Satan will offer a counterfeit, and Pastor Kilpatrick showed the congregation he would not settle for the counterfeit.
Their respect for him rose dramatically.
The Smell of Rain
After Pastor Kilpatrick’s mother died, his desperation increased. He was out of the pulpit for a couple of months. Prayer meetings grew longer and longer.
At times, it was 11:00 at night and people had to be pushed out the door.
Richard said there was an expectation rising. He compared it to smelling rain before it falls.
They did not know a worldwide move of God was coming. They thought perhaps they would have a week or two of good revival services. But God was preparing them.
The Youth Were Being Prepared Too
In February before the revival, Richard was preparing his usual dating series for the youth ministry when the Holy Spirit spoke one word to him: “Time.”
He began studying the Greek words chronos and kairos. Chronos refers to clock time. Kairos speaks of divine appointments and God moments.
For four weeks, he preached to the youth about time. His message was simple: when God moves, you cannot hesitate. You have to jump in.
The young people were being prepared.
A Weekend of Relentless Prayer
Right before Father’s Day 1995, Richard took two vanloads of teenagers to a youth conference in Marianna Florida and then to a For Him concert in Mobile Alabama.
Before they even got out of Pensacola, one student suggested they pray.
To Richard’s amazement, they prayed the entire hour and a half to Marianna. They wanted to keep praying. They prayed all night. They did not want breakfast. They prayed on the way to the caverns, at the caverns, on the way back, on the way to Mobile, and on the way home.
They started praying Friday afternoon and were still praying Sunday evening.
On the drive home, it became quiet. Richard turned on the dome light and saw four or five students still quietly praying.
The fear of God came over him. He sensed something big was about to happen, but he did not know what to do.
Father’s Day 1995
When Father’s Day came, the young people were ready to jump in.
Steve Hill, a missionary to Argentina, was scheduled to be at Brownsville. Brenda Kilpatrick had been to Toronto, and Steve Hill had experienced a move of God in England. At dinner Saturday night, they discussed the move of the Spirit.
Pastor Kilpatrick told Steve he knew it was Father’s Day and the congregation expected him to speak to fathers, but he had nothing. He asked Steve to take the pulpit.
Steve preached on the wonders of the Lord and moves of the Spirit in the past. Then he gave an altar call.
The whole place came forward.
Pastor Kilpatrick thought Steve was taking too long praying for each person, so he got up to help move things along. As he walked down the steps, the Spirit of God came upon him. His ankles buckled and he fell.
He got up, grabbed the microphone, and cried, “Church, jump in! The Spirit of God is here!”
When he released that word, the people fully engaged.
The Services Continued
The first service lasted until 4:00 a.m. They returned at 6:00 p.m., and it picked right back up.
Steve Hill said he did not have an appointment the next night and offered to come back. Word spread quickly. The building was packed the next night.
Everything changed. Youth services stopped. Other ministries stopped. The church dove in completely.
Richard led worship for the first two weeks.
The revival continued for five years.
He said it was sovereign. It could not be manufactured.
What the Staff and Volunteers Carried
The staff and volunteers carried a heavy load. Many volunteers worked full-time jobs, then served every night until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Sometimes they left at 6:00 a.m.
Richard remembered driving to church night after night, crying, “God, please be there again.”
The tangible presence of God transformed their lives.
When the World Started Coming
At first, the revival was mostly local. Then people began coming from Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Michigan, New York, and eventually from all over the world.
Steve Hill was a strong promoter. The Ward sisters’ video spread widely and transformed people around the world. Brownsville already had a television program, which helped them record and share what was happening.
Steve preached the same basic message every night: “Sinner come home. Backslider come home.”
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- Jeri and Steve Hill, Brownsville Revival, Steve’s Sermon Props, Passsion4God & People, Cows (Part 2)
The Nightly Flow of Revival
A typical night included about an hour and a half of worship, an hour of preaching, an altar call, and then five or six hours of praying for people.
Prayer gathering began at 6:00 p.m.
Pastor Kilpatrick shepherded the move of God. He once said that he might not be the smartest or most gifted person in the room, but if God called him there, nobody could do it better.
“I might not be the smartest or most gifted person in the room, but if God called him there, nobody could do it better.” John Kilaptrick
What the Presence of God Felt Like
Richard described the presence of God as tangible. When you walked in, it felt like hitting a wall.
In the overflow area, the youth chapel, there were times the power of God was so strong that Richard had to run off the platform and throw up.
He described it as holy fear. It was fearful, yet more loving than anything he had ever known.
He said they thought they might die, but they did not want Him to stop.
Revival in the Schools
The power of God began touching the public schools.
The superintendent called Richard in after principals discussed what was happening. In three months, they established 32 campus ministries.
Hundreds of teenagers came to Christ. Lives were radically changed.
One principal called Richard because the power of God had fallen in a middle school between classes. Students were simply saying “Brownsville.” Richard went in, and God moved.
Restarting Youth Ministry
After three months, youth services restarted. The first service back grew from 140 students to 350.
Richard knew revival had to be followed by discipleship.
He trained students with a simple discipleship plan:
Read one chapter of the Bible a day.
Pray for 10 minutes and journal it.
Witness and record it.
Memorize one Scripture verse a week.
Meet in small groups.
Within a couple of years, 185 students could quote 50 verses from memory.
Handling Manifestations
Richard never wanted the youth ministry to be about manifestations. He told the students he did not care if they shook, fell, or spoke in tongues. He wanted to see a difference in their lives.
Anything artificial was shut down, just as Pastor Kilpatrick had done before the revival.
The fruit mattered.
Thirty Years Later
Aaron Burke and Richard Crisco reflect on the revival 30 years later. Aaron notes that the Brownsville Revival was truly a revival of repentance. He remembered Friday night baptisms and dramatic stories of life change.
Then he asked the key question: Where was discipleship?
Richard said he was excited and scared when the youth service relaunched with 350 students. He believed discipleship was the key to establishing the Kingdom. Jesus said in Matthew 28:19 (NIV 1984), “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.”
But the nightly message was repentance. Richard knew if that was all people received, there would be many spiritual babies who needed care.
So he asked the Lord for something simple, inspirational, and practical.
A Simple Discipleship Plan
Richard asked: If discipleship is required of everybody, what should everybody be doing?
He concluded that every believer should be reading the Bible, praying, witnessing, memorizing Scripture, and growing with others.
He asked students to read one chapter a day, pray 10 minutes and journal it, share their faith, memorize one verse each week, and meet with a leader.
One leader was assigned to every six students. Since everyone was already at revival every night, students could choose which night to come an hour early for discipleship.
Everyone memorized the same verse and read the same passages. When they gathered, they quoted their verse, discussed what they read, and learned to express what God was teaching them.
Richard wanted them to leave wanting more.
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The Discipleship That Kept the Fruit
Richard said the discipleship plan became brilliant because it was simple and sustainable.
The students maintained previous memory verses while adding new ones. Within a couple of years, 185 students could quote 50 verses.
The power of God transformed their hearts, but discipleship helped keep those hearts transformed.
That was the fruit that remained after the revival, as they defined it, had ceased.
Where Adults Needed More Discipleship
Aaron asked whether adults who got saved had the same kind of discipleship process.
Richard said not really.
He acknowledged that the youth department did well with discipleship, but the broader church lacked a stronger next-step process for adults.
Cleansing Stream was eventually offered. It was a ministry that helped people with deliverance and deeper personal issues. It included a 13-week class and a weekend retreat for activation and cleansing.
But Richard still believed more discipleship was needed.
The Birth of BRSM
Richard saw the need for deeper training and discipleship. He approached Pastor Kilpatrick and said, “Pastor, we’ve got to train.”
Most of those conversations happened organically before services in the green room or occasionally late at night at IHOP around 3:00 a.m.
Richard had the burden, but he did not feel he had the educational tools to build what was needed.
Later, Dr. Michael Brown came to Brownsville through his connection with Steve Hill. Dr. Brown had the training and skills, and he became the one who started the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry, known as BRSM.
BRSM began around 1997 or 1998. Richard taught discipleship and youth ministry classes there.
The first semester had about 120 students. By the next year, there were about 1,200 students from around the world.
The World Came Without Social Media
Richard emphasized that all of this happened before social media.
People came from Germany, Korea, South Africa, and many other nations. Every night, Brownsville would have hundreds of internationals in attendance, sometimes 300 to 500. Interpreters were eventually provided for 10 or 12 languages.
Pastor Kilpatrick would often ask international visitors to stand and share what country they were from.
Richard was not as impressed by the global attention as he was by the presence of the Lord. The presence of God was the center.
From Nobody to Worldwide Invitations
Richard said speaking invitations came immediately. He went from being unknown to being invited to some of the largest platforms in the world.
It was head-spinning.
But he said it was hard to be prideful in the presence of the Lord. The team was humbled to have a front-row seat to such a move of the Spirit.
Revival and Opposition
Richard said everywhere Jesus went, there was both revival and riots. A move of God often comes with an ugly side.
A few years in, national media began covering Brownsville, including Rolling Stone, Nightline, ABC, CBS, and [New York Times, Newsweek, Spin Magazine, Christianity Today]. Some coverage was positive, some was critical.
Richard quoted Benny Hinn’s observation: “Great light attracts a lot of bugs.”
People with their own agendas wanted to attach themselves to the revival, and when negative press came, some wanted to detach from it.
Leadership, Media, and Honor
Richard said the team was not formally coached on what to say to the media. He avoided media interviews because he did not want to be misquoted.
The leadership team was very different: Steve Hill, John Kilpatrick, Lindel Cooley, Dr. Brown, and others. But Richard said there was deep honor and respect among them.
When criticism came, Pastor Kilpatrick would often say, “Let the dogs bark, the caravan’s moving on.”
They stayed focused.
Seizing the Opportunity
One phrase that marked the revival was from Leonard Ravenhill: “The opportunity of a lifetime must be seized during the lifetime of the opportunity.”
Richard commended Steve Hill and John Kilpatrick for keeping the focus on what God was doing.
They understood that a divine moment had to be stewarded while it was available.
Families in the Revival
Aaron asked how the leaders, staff, volunteers, and families survived the intense pace.
Richard said it was taxing, but his children loved it. His son was five or six, and his daughter was eight or nine. They were there every night and loved revival.
He said these were not merely great services. This was the tangible presence of God, and humans were created for His presence.
To care for his family, Richard made adjustments. He took his children out of private school and homeschooled them. [The very thing Richard thought was strange when he first arrived at Brownsville, that the youth group consisted mostly of “homeschooled students”, he now understood. If he was going to pursue God as a family, he realized he too needed to begin homeschooling his own children.] He intentionally came home in the afternoon to spend time with them. He rebounded basketball with his son and made sure he had time with his daughter.
He also took naps.
A Supernatural Pace
Richard challenged the young people to meet him every morning at 7:00 in the prayer chapel before school.
He would leave church at 3:00 a.m. and return at 7:00 a.m.
Was it sustainable?
Richard said, “Only with the supernatural.”
Eventually, they began taking two weeks off in December during the five years.
When the Revival Began to Wane
Richard believes the revival began to wane around the year 2000. Steve Hill left in 2000 to go to Texas [where Steve started Heart Land Family Church, also known as Heartland World Ministries], and Richard thinks Steve realized the end was coming.
Richard said the very thing that invited the presence of the Lord was the thing that also allowed it to exit: hunger.
Early on, Steve Hill warned them, “Do not get used to this.”
A couple years in, Richard had to remind himself not to get used to it. But eventually, hunger diminished. They were riding on the hunger of visitors, but after 1999 and 2000, there were more repeat visitors and fewer new people.
Trying to Sustain What Could Not Be Sustained
After Steve left, other speakers came, including Damon Thompson and Jentezen Franklin.
Richard said they did not want to admit the revival was over. They began trying to sustain something that was unsustainable.
That is when people began getting hurt. Offenses and divisions grew.
The split happened in 2002. The school split, and about half went with Dr. Brown starting FIRE School of Ministry (F.I.R.E. stands for Fellowship for International Revival and Evangelism). Pastor Kilpatrick asked Richard to become interim president.
At that time, Richard was pastoring 1,200 teenagers, traveling to preach at conferences, and running the school. For two and a half years, he averaged preaching nine times a week.
Pastor Kilpatrick’s Resignation
Pastor Kilpatrick resigned in 2003 on Pastor Appreciation Day. Richard was on the road when it happened. No one knew beforehand. Pastor Kilpatrick told his wife right before walking up to resign.
Richard said that was John Kilpatrick. He was willing to throw caution to the wind.
Richard had tried to resign twice before, but Pastor Kilpatrick would not let him.
When Richard finally left in 2004, there were some offenses. But God gave him powerful moments that helped him work through them.
Lessons From the Pain
Looking back, Richard said it is difficult to criticize because few moves of God have lasted five years.
Still, he believes they missed it in not developing better overall discipleship for everyone. The youth department did well, but the broader church needed more.
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He also would have recommended break times to recuperate physically, emotionally, and relationally.
But at the time, people were taking vacations to come to Brownsville, so they felt they could not stop.
“Do It Again, Lord”
Even with the exhaustion and pain, Richard said everyone would do it again.
When he left in 2004, he was a shell of a person. But he still would not trade what God did.
To those hurt by revival or ministry, Richard’s counsel is clear: remember what Jesus did for you, not what people did to you. Remember the presence of the Lord, the freedom, the joy, and the life. Do not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
To churches that want revival, he says: count the cost. Define revival well. Revival is growing in intimate relationship with Jesus and seeing others do the same.
It may look different for this generation.
The Legacy of Brownsville
The legacy of the Brownsville Revival is not merely the meetings, the crowds, the media attention, or the manifestations.
The legacy is the people who still love Jesus and are actively involved in ministry.
Richard said that in 1999, their youth ministry had 99 high school graduates, and 75 of them went into full-time ministry. Almost all of them were still in full-time ministry.
That is fruit.
When asked about his own legacy, Richard said he hoped it would be defined by his sons and daughters who love Jesus. He said he never wanted his name engraved in concrete. He wanted his spirit engraved in the heart of the next generation.
Hunger for God and Follow Jesus Fully
The Brownsville Revival reminds us that God responds to hunger, prayer, repentance, humility, and surrender. But it also reminds us that revival must lead to discipleship.
Do not merely admire what God did in the past. Ask Him to awaken fresh hunger in your own heart. Return to prayer. Return to repentance. Return to the Word. Share your faith. Make disciples. Let the presence of God transform you, and let the commands of Jesus shape the way you live.
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