Sunday Morning Miracle

Minutes into the first Sunday morning service of the year, a Southern California church experienced a rousing miracle when one of its oldest members came back to life.

Riverdale Assembly of God was on the third verse of its opening hymn Jan. 3 when a commotion on the right side of the sanctuary seized the congregation’s attention.

One of the church’s longest attenders, 84-year-old Patsy Woods, had collapsed in her pew.

The song service came to a halt, and the 300 people in attendance began to pray as paramedics in the congregation called an ambulance and began attempting to revive the woman.

“They worked with her and moved other people to where they could lay her down on the pew, and there was absolutely no response – no pulse, no air, no anything,” says Charles Spencer, who has been the church’s senior pastor since planting Riverdale AG in 1965.

As the moments ticked on, Spencer lost hope of any signs of life. But, as a church member began to give Woods CPR, something happened.

“They gave her one mouth-to-mouth resuscitation breath, and it was just unbelievable – she sat up, and she began to rebuke the devil,” Spencer recalls. “Then she began to speak in tongues, rolled up on her knees, got up on her feet, and began to come down the aisle, dancing.”

For the next 30 minutes, Woods – typically a shy and reserved woman – danced, prayed, and prophesied in the Spirit, and the rest of the congregation began rejoicing with her. Spencer canceled his sermon plans, and the church formed a prayer line with about 20 of the church’s elders and ministers.

Worship director Jim Davis says the entire church went through the line. It lasted over an hour.

“The line stretched all the way around the church from one side to the other, all the way to the back,” Davis says. “It was a massive worship service of the people coming into the altar.”

Spencer says the ambulance arrived about 15 minutes after Woods woke up. Spencer says the first responders at the door decided the patient was OK when they learned she was inside praying in tongues and dancing.

In the following weeks, Spencer says he’s heard a handful of church members talk about being healed.

“I have no idea how many miracles might have been wrought in that service that Sunday morning,” he says. “Only eternity will reveal what happened during that service.”

Spencer says Woods, who preferred not to offer any comment, is still doing well and has been in church every Sunday since. Spencer says Woods knows a miracle occurred in her life.

Ian Richardson

Ian Richardson is a 2014 graduate of Evangel University and former intern with the Pentecostal Evangel. He is originally from Afton, Iowa, where he grew up as the son of an Assemblies of God pastor.