I briefly mentioned Todd Bentley in my previous article as I talked about Charismatic Shenanigans. In my last post, promised to write more about Todd Bentley and what I think about him. As I was getting my thoughts together, I came across a press release issued by Fresh Fire Ministries, Todd’s ministry. In this press release dated August 15th, his ministry admits that Todd Bentley entered into an unhealthy relationship with a female member of his staff.

Now, I was completely unaware of this announcement yesterday when I suggested I had some beef with Todd Bentley. In light of his admitted sin, it is very tempting to pick up an even larger rock to throw at him, but Jesus would suggest that I put it down. I agree.

Conservatives have been declaring that Todd Bentley is a false teacher and false prophet for months now. In light of Todd’s present circumstance, conservatives are cheering and proclaiming, “We told you so!” However, I do NOT include myself in that camp. I believe Todd Bentley authentically proclaimed Jesus Christ. I agree with his ministry’s statement about Todd Bentley’s sexual misconduct when they said “the enemy has found a way into our camp.” Seeing a brother fall into sin is nothing to celebrate, no matter how you personally feel about his ministry. The enemy is Satan, not the sinner.

I’m not condoning his ministry either. My original intent in writing this article was to critique his ministry. However, considering he has been removed from ministry, I really don’t see the point in giving a detailed critique. My only concern was that he openly admitted to crying out to God for a revival (that’s a good thing), and he heard from God to do a few outwardly unloving things to trigger this revival (that’s a bad thing). Feel free to search YouTube for some outrageous clips of Todd Bentley.

I believe some Charismatics accept questionable behavior and teaching from their leaders because they are so hungry for the move of God. Being hungry for God is a VERY GOOD THING! We are to taste and see that the Lord is good! (Psalm 34:8) The problem is that some Charismatics are so hungry that they’ll eat anything. Some things in life are not meant to be consumed! Get off your hands and knees and stop eating dog food! Jesus has prepared you a meal, come to the Lord’s Table to eat! He is the meal!

There is a church on the north side of Columbus called Northside Community Church. They are a charismatic/apostolic church associated with Christian International. On the 3rd Friday night of each month, they have something called “School of the Holy Spirit”. Basically, it is a night of worship, teaching, and receiving prophetic ministry. I’ve been there numerous Friday evenings and their ministry has blessed me beyond words.

But, something has been different over the past 3 months. Ever since the Lakeland Revival started in May…

The leaders of Northside Community Church have been on the Todd Bentley bandwagon and have traveled to Lakeland, and one other place where Todd Bentley has ministered, and I think they’re planning on visiting another Todd Bentley appearance in the near future. In short, the Lakeland Revival is part of a greater movement called “The Saints Movement”. This movement was prophesied by Bishop Bill Hamon several years ago and just recently he announced we are in a time of fulfillment. So what is the “Saints Movement”?

The Saints Movement is a time when the saints – that is, believers in Jesus Christ – recognize and act on the understanding that Christ has empowered and commissioned each of them to be the Church 24/7, manifesting the Kingdom of God wherever they live and work.

In other words, Bill Hamon has announced we are in a time of healing, miracles, deliverance, signs, wonders, and other manifestations of the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit. These manifestations would not be limited to an elite few, nor limited to the Charismatic groups, but rather it will spread to all Christians (the saints at large).

This prophecy excites me because it’s Biblical. Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples and he said that signs and wonders would accompany those who believe (Mark 16:15-18). These signs and wonders are manifestations of the Kingdom of God. I am all for Jesus and his Kingdom!

Now, with that said, I am not happy with how certain Charismatic circles are handling this prophecy from Bill Hamon. For decades, charismatics have been chomping at the bit for an increase in signs and wonders… and it’s like this prophecy has stirred their emotional pot too much. Let me give you an example.

I’ve been making some observations about the way Northside Community Church has been doing their School of the Holy Spirit over the past year. Right around May 2008, the start of the Lakeland Revival, the leaders of Northside Community Church have been getting REALLY hungry for God. That’s a good thing! They’ve been bringing their passion and expectancy to their church and that is a very good thing! But, from my perspective, they are increasingly forcing things to happen. In June 2008, they really didn’t force anything. In July 2008, I got a sense they were forcing things a little. In August 2008, it’s blatantly obvious that they’re forcing the move of God.

Each of these three months, Northside Community Church has made space during their monthly meetings to impart the Spirit and “give it away” (that is a huge thing right now with this present revival). Impartation is basically the laying of hands and the transference of an anointing. Their impartation in June 2008 was relatively low key and there weren’t many outward manifestations of the Spirit. Their impartation in July 2008 got a little bit more emotional and some people were falling on the ground after an impartation. Their impartation in August 2008 was way more emotional and it felt forced. Let me explain…

On August 15th I invited my wife to join me to School of the Holy Spirit at Northside Community Church (not to be confused with our August 1st visit to Marion Christian Center). After the time of singing songs, NCC had an extra-extra-extra long time of speaking/singing in tongues. It probably lasted about 7 minutes (an increase from the usual 2 minutes). During that time, they kept telling us to “Stir up the Holy Spirit! Stir up the Holy Spirit!” After that, they had their impartation time. They invited people to come up and probably 75% of the people in the room came forward for an impartation. While they laid hands on people, my wife noticed that almost everyone who came up for an impartation were swaying and falling backward. She took interest in this and began to watch more closely.

As she began to observe, she noticed something that concerned her. She nudged my arm and said, “Do you see what they’re doing?”

I said, “Yeah, they’re imparting the Spirit and some people are getting emotional.”

[Someone falls over]

She said, “He just pushed her!”

I said, “You’re right, I did see his hand push her a little, maybe a few inches.”

[Someone else falls over]

She said, “He just pushed over another one!”

I said, “You’re right, that did look like a small push.”

[Someone else falls over]

She said, “What the heck! Why is he pushing people???”

I said, “I don’t know, they’ve never done this before.”

She said, “And why does he keep laughing really weird? It’s kind of scary.”

I said, “I don’t know. I think he’s full of the joy from the Lord.”

[Someone keeps teetering, but doesn't quite fall over]

She said, “Why does he keep pushing her? She doesn’t want to fall over!”

I said, “You’re right, he doesn’t know when to stop.”

She said, “I don’t trust him anymore.”

She continues, “…and If he pushes me, I’m pushing him back!”

I burst out laughing! That was the funniest most random thing I’ve heard my wife say in a long time. Watch out all you Charismatics! If you push my wife, she WILL push you back!

On a serious note, what they were doing up there with pushing is wrong. Even though it’s a harmless nudge, and no one is getting hurt, it’s still not an authentic move of God. God doesn’t need your help making people fall under the power of his Spirit!

If you’re pushing people to give the impression that a sign or wonder has taken place, stop it! Just because someone falls, doesn’t mean that God’s power was at work. And if someone doesn’t fall, that doesn’t mean God wasn’t at work.

Stop the Charismatic shenanigans!

One of my friends from Vineyard Leadership Institute came to me a few months ago with a casual business proposition. Her name is Sylvia and she is the owner of a court reporting firm here in Columbus, Ohio. She knows I am good at creating web sites, so she asked me if I would be interested in revamping her current web site. Since I was going to be graduating from VLI in June, I figured it would be a fun way to spend some of the free time I would have during the summer. So I agreed to help her out and we’ve met a few times to learn about her website needs and to develop a scope for this project.

As I defined the scope, it became apparent that a content management system would be a requirement for this site. So I spent a couple hours evaluating a few products and I was extremely impressed with Drupal! I’m quite familiar with .NET-based CMS systems such as DotNetNuke, RainbowPortal, SharePoint, ektron, etc. I have well versed in Mambo, Joomla, and other PHP-based content management system. So, I thought I had seen it all when it came to CMS. Not so! The more I began to tinker with Drupal, the more I realized that this platform was on track to completely obliterate all PHP-based CMS systems AND make some of the enterprise-level content management systems cry for their mommy. OK, that was a hyperbole, but you get the idea.

So back to what I was talking about…. so I was picking out a CMS and Drupal was clearly the winner. I’ve been spending the last 3 weeks as a student of my self-concocted Drupal boot camp. Basically, I’ve been spending anywhere from 1-4 hours each day learning the system. Learning EVERYTHING I can possibly learn. The documentation for Drupal is surprising good considering the fact that it’s not a commercial product. I’ve bought a 2 books about Drupal to get me started. So far, the first one on the list has been a good resource to get me going with Drupal:

1. Building powerful and robust websites with Drupal 6

2. Learning Drupal 6 Module Development

And I will be buying two more books when they are released by the end of August:

1. Pro Drupal Development, Second Edition (Beginning from Novice to Professional)

2. Practical Drupal: Evaluating and Using a Web Content Management System

So anyway, if you’re considering a CMS for a web site, test drive Drupal and check out some of the Drupal modules and Drupal themes available from the Drupal developer community. It’s quite an active community of developers, which is a very important selling point for me.

On Friday, August 1st, Tanya and I drove 1 hour and 15 minutes north to a church called the Marion Christian Center. It was my second time there and Tanya’s first time there. On the first Friday of the month, they have an evening called the School of the Holy Spirit. It’s a time of charismatic-style worship with about 45 minutes of good music, lots of visual and creative arts, a guest speaker bringing the message, and a time of prophetic ministry at the end.

During our drive up there, I prepared Tanya for what to expect at a wildly charismatic church. Granted, our Vineyard is technically a charismatic church, but not nearly as eccentric as Marion Christian Center. I told her:

1. That the time of worship would be awesome, but exhausting.
2. There would be lots of colorful banners, flags, and on-stage props.
3. There would be a bit of speaking in tongues.
4. They would take an offering and suggest that we should believe in a material blessing that is proportional to our gift.
5. To be extra-discerning of the message from the guest speaker (Let’s just say that one time when I went, the content of the message was questionable at best.)
6. To have fun during the time of prophetic ministry and be open to whatever God may want to speak to us.

For items one through five, everything happened as expected. We were exhausted after our time of worship; Tanya got a taste of an artistic worship experience that was very much her style; I spoke in tongues a little (softly and to myself); I gave money cheerfully (but not with the expectation that I’m to get a whopping financial blessing); and the message was delivered by the Creative Arts Director and it was a good biblical message.

That finally brought us to the time of prophetic ministry. Here’s how they do things. When you first walk into the building early in the evening, they have a place where you can buy a tape for 1 dollar. You buy the tape, not the prophecy� see how that works? We were limited to buying one tape because we are a married couple. Written on each tape was a letter, A through L, and that letter corresponds to a dedicated room where you will receive prophetic ministry.

So at the end of the evening, we went to our room and there were probably 25 or so people in our room. On at a time, you stand up, move to the center of the room, give them your tape, and they pray and prophecy over you. Tanya and I let 20 people go first ahead of us because it’s fun watching other people receive prophecy. Sometime the person prophesying hits something dead on and it gets really emotional and people start to cry as they realize that God is a lot closer to their situation than they previous thought!

Before I get into our prophecy, I want to bring up what I wrote in my previous blog entry. The Thursday evening before, I went to an apostolic pastor’s conference and went up for prayer ministry. I wrote in my previous entry, “I told the person who was praying for me that I’ve really been trying to seek God in the direction of my ministry and it feels like I’m just sitting in a cloud not going anywhere.” Let me just say that God loves to meet you where you’re at when he speaks in prophecy! God had something to say to us!

For the sake of readability, I’m going to give you a few sounds bytes of that prophecy. Keep in mind this it was given to both Tanya and myself. Uppercase words were verbally emphasized by the person prophesying:

And the Lord says:

This is a fresh season where you have been feeling as though you have been in snow shoes and you have been trudging along in almost every aspect of your lives together. It’s been good, but it’s been some trudging. But, I would say that this is a new time, and I’m changing your shoes, and they’re not those snow shoes because the terrain is changing. And, I’m putting you on one of those skateboards or scooters where you can actually stand on it together and ride this thing together in a completely different terrain that you’re on now.

…

And I will do miracles this year says the Lord. I am going to do miracles in several areas THIS YEAR says the Lord. So that you might wake up with an expectation and a freshness, almost though it’s like a morning that you open up the window and you know something’s coming. That’s what it’s going to be like in this next year, especially just the beginning of that fresh chapter.

…

And I am going to be changing and shifting all things around and it’s like, “This is REALLY not the way it was up until now!” But, it’s a happy good thing. And, it’s a little bit, little bit scary. It’s like, but by faith, even by this word, you’ll say, “God will not harm us. We can do this. It’s kind of wild and crazy, but we’re going to go flow with it.” And I’m going to do exciting things says the Lord.

I believe this prophecy is accurate and spoke very strongly to the place I was at. Many of my prayers that week were about my direction in ministry and a sense that I was getting nowhere. God wanted to tell me he’s in the process of changing our terrain, which leads into a new season, which leads to a change in shoes, which leads to less trudging! God will do miracles this year, so we should be waking up each morning with a sense of expectation. We should expect a shifting, which may be scary, and at the same time exciting, but it’s ultimately going to be for our benefit! Go God! Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven!

I’ve been keeping my eyes on a kingdom movement here in Columbus. The church is called Eagle Rock and they are located in Pickerington, Ohio. They hold a yearly conference and this year’s conference is called “Acceleration 2008″. They really didn’t promote this conference in my sphere of influence, so I had no idea who was going to speak or what they were all about. The only thing I knew is that they call themselves an Apostolic network.

Acceleration 2008 is a 3-day conference, so I dropped in the first evening on July 31st, 2008. I felt a little uneasy coming to a new church and not even knowing what the conference was all about. I saw a registration booth for “Guest Ministers” and I thought to myself, “Oh no! Maybe this conference isn’t open to the public! It says ‘Ministers’, so maybe this is a pastor’s conference!” Then I thought to myself, “everyone is called to be a minister, but not everyone is called to be a pastor”. So I realized that even though this might be a conference intended for pastors, I certainly couldn’t be excluded because I am not ordained. I decided not to register myself as a guest minister, but rather secretly slip into the sanctuary, hopefully unnoticed.

Before I went into the sanctuary, I stopped by the bathroom so wash my hands. I had spilled some gasoline on my right hand on my way to the conference and I smelled pretty bad. I came into their bathroom and it was well decorated and well furnished. It wasn’t the type of bland church bathroom to which I have been accustomed. Then I thought to myself, “Oh no! Maybe they are one of those prosperity-teaching churches!” I promptly washed my hands and went out into the lobby. I looked around with a new set of eyes and nearly every man was wearing a nice suit and tie. I had come dressed in a shabby pair of corduroy pants and short sleeve button up shirt. I started to feel really self-conscious and I promptly slipped into the sanctuary.

I noticed a book table to my left, so I checked it out. They were featuring Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline as well as some other books from a publisher called Chosen. They also had a very pink booth setup for “Gritty Girls” which is apparently a ministry run by the wife of the Apostle of this church. I thought to myself, “That’s a stupid name! Who wants to be a ‘gritty’ girl! Most girls would rather be a ‘pretty’ girl!” Hey, I’m not a girl, so I’m not going to explore why they’re gritty!

I strolled across their sanctuary and found a seat on the left side of the room. On each seat there was an offering envelope. I thought to myself, “Ah ha! Maybe they are a prosperity church!” I don’t have a problem giving money to ministries, I just have a problem when they make outlandish promises about how giving money is the key to getting more money and more stuff. That just doesn’t line up with my beliefs and it makes me feel yucky inside.

So I sat there in my seat, looking up at the stage and looking around at the people in the sanctuary. The sanctuary was medium sized; I would say that it could probably hold 300 people. The people there seemed friendly and they were all dressed really nice. I guess I didn’t get the memo that this was a coat-and-tie event!

There was this older female greeter hovering around the whole sanctuary greeting people. She eventually made her way to me and said, “I just wanted to come by and bless you! What your name?’ I replied, ‘Brian’. She said, ‘From where did you come?’ I thought for a few seconds and realized that she probably wanted to know if I was part of their church network, so I asked, ‘Do you mean which city?’ She said, ‘Sure, which city?’ I said, ‘Grove City’. She said, “That’s great, did you come expecting?” I smiled back at her and said, “Yes!” As she was exchanging more pleasantries, I couldn?t help but keep staring at her teeth. She clearly had dentures and there was a slight disconnect between where the gum ended and the teeth began. It was as if her teeth were 2 millimeters in front of her gums. Maybe I’m just a weirdo for noticing that sort of stuff.

I looked down at my clock and noticed that it was 7:10pm. They still hadn’t started this thing and I was starting to get restless. I had been sitting here since 6:52pm and I was running out of things to observe.

Around 7:15 they got started with the music and let me just say that it wasn’t what I expected! I came expecting Vineyard-ish kind of contemporary guitar music and what I got was some kind of old-school, early nineties Christian music with no lead guitar and mostly a lead pianist. The worship leader was a woman in her early 60ies with a voice like a freight train. Her voice was simply overwhelming and impossible to sing with. Don’t get my wrong, she wasn’t singing badly, she just sung in a manner that made it really hard to discern the right notes for the melody and harmony. She was white, but she sung like a full-gospel black lady!

She had a small choir behind her and they were really hopping to the music. It was fun listening to it, but I found it strenuous on my vocal chords to keep up with her. Have you ever had a time of worship so intense that you became exhausted physically exhausted? It was kind of like that, but mostly with my vocal chords.

After singing for about 35 minutes, they took an offering. They do offering a bit differently in some charismatic circles. Instead of passing around a basket, they had every row get up at the same time, walk in a line to the front, drop in the offering, keep walking in a big circle to the opposite side of your row, which leads you back to your seat. I don’t know about you, but I like a little exercise when I get my free-will offering, don’t you?

The person who brought the word to us that evening was Pastor Terence Stovell. He pastors a church in Bermuda. He is a black pastor, and one of the finest preachers I have ever heard! His sermon was lively and he got the crowd all riled up. Have you ever seen those gospel churches in the Bible Belt when the congregation is shouting back to the pastor, “THAT’S RIGHT!” or “UH HUH!” or “AMEN!” or “PREACH IT!” Imagine a sermon an hour and fifteen minutes long with no drop in the pastor’s energy or the congregation. Yeah, no sleeping through this sermon.

His topic was Faith and he took us through the book of Acts to show at times the people of called are called into situations in which there is no reference point. Situations that are so challenging and new that we simply cannot rely on how we’ve experienced God’s provision and presence in the past. That’s when God is calling us to have a raw faith to move into something new, even if it makes us uncomfortable. We can no longer put our faith in the “facts” (our preconceptions about God) but rather put our faith in the “truth” (what God is now revealing for you to do). In other words, God will sometimes reveal the “truth” even when the “facts” (what we presently understand) don’t add up yet. In those situations, since we have no previous reference point to gain assurance, we are called to move forward with raw faith. What it boils down to is, do you believe in what God told you? When you experience a shipwreck, are you still putting your faith in God’s word and his promises?

It was a powerful message and I went up afterward for prayer ministry. They do prayer ministry in way that is very similar to Vineyard. I told the person who was praying for me that I’ve really been trying to seek God in the direction of my ministry and it feels like I’m just sitting in a cloud not going anywhere. He laid hands on me and prayed. It was good to get some ministry that evening.