Pensacola, Fla. ? The nation’s longest-running Pentecostal revival — which attracted throngs of crying, singing and shaking believers at its height — is rumbling on these days, but at a slower pace than it once did and now without the preacher who had led it since the beginning.

The Brownsville Revival, also known as the Pensacola Outpouring, started on Father’s Day 1995 and initially went on four or five nights a week.

It scaled back to two nights by 1999, and then to its present one-night-a-week schedule.

“We absolutely could not physically continue,” said the Rev. John Kilpatrick, who had been senior pastor of the Brownsville Assembly of God since the revival began until his resignation in October. “Many of the services lasted all night long, until the wee hours of the morning.”

Attendance has exceeded 4.5 million in more than eight years, said Kilpatrick, who has traveled across the country to spread the revival’s message and will continue that effort with a focus on ministering to other clergy.

“I had realized for some time that Brownsville just needs an onsite pastor,” said Kilpatrick, who lives in nearby Seminole, Ala. “I feel there has been a shift in my mantle.”

The revival still goes on each Friday night — and will continue to do so, said the Rev. Randy Feldschau, who replaced Kilpatrick at the church on Pensacola’s west side.

Brownsville has eclipsed in longevity, if not influence, the Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, which began in 1906 and ran for three years.

“It’s still too early to tell whether or not Brownsville will rank among the great revivals of history,” said Steven Rabey, a religion writer based in Colorado Springs, Colo., and author of the 1998 book “Revival in Brownsville.” “The jury’s still out as to whether that impact will prove to be as broad-based and as long-lasting.”

Brownsville’s legacy includes a ministerial school and visits by hundreds of pastors who have taken its spirit of renewal to their congregations. It also caused a spike in conversions and baptisms for The Assemblies of God, Rabey said.

Kilpatrick believes the revival has had a dual effect, first by attracting unchurched sinners to repent.

Then, “the churched at the same time came in and saw the sinner being touched and it just ignited them. I mean, it was just like pouring gas on a fire,” Kilpatrick said.

The Brownsville Assembly’s congregation grew with the revival from about 2,000 to 5,000 members but has declined in the past few years with an average attendance now of 2,200 for Sunday services, Feldschau said.

He blamed the drop on the revival’s slowdown and a 2001 split with the Brownsville Revival School of Ministry, after the Rev. Michael Brown was fired as president in a dispute with Kilpatrick and the school’s board.