I  am the senior pastor  and founder of The Cathedral of Praise in Austin Texas since 1984. Our Church has always believed and prayed for a great out pouring of the Holy Spirit upon our region and nation.

Over the years we have seen some amazing manifestations of God’s presence in our congregation and city. In 2007 Jeremy Lippe one of our members went to work with and to be mentored by Todd Bentley.

In April 2008 Jeremy called me and informed me that there was an unusual move of God taking place in Lakeland Fl. At first I was not that impressed and just said Well that’s great I hope it goes well for you guys.

Jeremy kept calling and I began to hear others reporting about a move of God in Lakeland. After hearing the Lords voice for me to go to Lakeland I arrived in April for the last service that was held at Ignited Church, walking in that night about an hour before the service was to began I soon realized that every thing that I was hearing was true. The Spirit of the Lord came upon me in a mighty way and I began to weep. I heard in my spirit the Lord say
"I have brought you to this place to give you the anointing to fulfill your destiny”. As the worship began I again began to weep with joy as I began to experience a renewed hunger in my spirit that I had not felt for years.

I went back to Austin and reported what I had seen and heard. Our whole church began to seek the Lord in a renewed passion for revival. We began to show the Lakeland out pouring on our big screen at least 5 nights a week and we continued doing that well into July. In June we had a conference called Joel’s army the merging of the generations, every service was packed with hungry people and by far it was the best conference we had ever seen in our church and city.
During the summer of 2008 our church grew like it had never grown before with many others coming and going and taking the fire to other places. I was spoke at a conference in Iowa in July and almost 1000 in attendance received the fire on a Thursday morning service. From Iowa it spread to Los Angelas and even to Brazil. All of this was from the fire that had set my heart ablaze from the Lakeland out pouring.

In August of 2008 we started a Friday night service called Austin Outpouring that continues to this day, with people of many different churches coming to receive a fresh anointing. Its been over a year since I set foot in that first service in Lakeland but I can say the fire is still burning in Austin and I believe that it will never go out, but will grow even stronger as continue to press into His presence. I think the Lord for Todd Bentley and his team for paying the price to ignite a new passion for Jesus. The devil didn’t take this lying down, he has done his best to discredit everything that happened in Lakeland. We continue to pray for Todd and believe that the God of restoration with fully restore and pour out even more of the Lord in the coming days. Were looking forward to round 2.

Bill Hart
Senior Pastor
The Cathedral Of Praise
Austin, Texas
www.copaustin.com