Since early April an evangelist called Todd Bentley has been heading up a 'revival' in Lakeland, Florida. God TV is broadcasting the meetings. The meetings have moved several times to progressively larger venues and people are travelling from all over the world to participate. Go to Youtube and do a search if you want to check it out.
Bentley shouts 'Fire! Fire Fire!' and 'Bam! Bam! Bam!' as he directs the blessing to people (the latter expression would be a great insult in Glasgow). The blessing is transferable or so it seems, with international guests getting a metaphorical hot coal to take home to their countries.
I watched a little bit of it tonight and several things struck me. There didn't seem to be much preaching. There were a lot of emotional people (not that showing emotions in church is a bad thing). There was a lot of ordering people about ('Join hands', 'Come to the front', etc).
My biggest question is this: even if ten thousand people or more are attending these twice-daily events, how is the community of Lakeland and the State of Florida being transformed by this revival? For, in classic Christian revivals like that of 1949 in the Hebrides, it's not only the believers who get blessed and transformed, but whole communities. People are convicted of, and turn from, sin. So far what I've seen from Lakeland doesn't exhibit this. It seems to be a form of charismatic Christian entertainment.
In 1994, I visited a place of similar revival, which was familiar to Christians around the world. Undoubtedly God was at work, yet at the airport on the way home, in conversation with workers there, they had never even heard of the church where these events were taking place. I remember being terribly disappointed by that.
I long for revival to break out, yet I'm not at all sure this is the real thing.
Postscript: Having posted this two things happened tonight: First off, a Pentecostal friend emailed me to say that he has just returned from Lakeland, 'Where I received impartation – like a furnace lit inside me'. Check out his church here). Secondly, an Anglican priest friend in the USA called and shared about the problems he faces and mentioned that he hoped to visit Lakeland too, 'For encouragement'.
Recent Comments