Blog and writing news

The Foundation For Ministry and Leading

This is a post about “maturity” and part of a synchroblog. For a list of those involved with the synchroblog, check at the end of the post.

In the light of the recent Todd Bentley event (for those of you who don’t know, Todd Bentley has apparently separated with his wife, stepped down from the Florida revival thingie, and was apparently ’emotionally involved’ with another woman of his staff) I thought that maturity was an apt topic to write about.

Some of you might not know who Todd Bentley is, which is fine. You can google him or see him at YouTube. Todd Bentley is a guy who does healing, and – although some would say that not all of his healings have been validated – it seems to me that there is a great deal of genuine healing going around his ministry.

Where the problem comes in is that Bentley seems to have lacked some of the intrinsic character needs that are (so often) lacking in the healing ministry. My post isn’t to show, so much, that this is Bentley’s fault but more to say that those around Bentley (including some well known guys such as Rick Joyner) seemed to have been in such a rush for revival that they were happy with Bentley doing his thing despite their own knowledge of some character issues that needed to be ironed out.

Generally, the church (I mean the people, not some institution) seems to be in such a rush to do ministry that we lose the basics of character, rather employing an attitude of needing results NOW before laying the necessary foundations that take TIME. I’m in no doubt that Bentley does possess the gift of healing (even if it is not as prolific as all the marketing around him made it out to be) and in a rush to get everyone healed we now sit in a situation where the ministry that did take place looses momentum and, more sadly, has now once again lost a lot of credence. Many people are now more skeptical over healing, when they were previously in a place where they might have just accepted God’s healing as something that He really does. I’m one of them, having lost a great deal of faith in God’s will to heal because so many of the healing cases are coming up as moot.

Jesus didn’t seem to be in such a rush, having only started his ministry at 30 and at a party told his mom that his time had ‘not yet come’. He still performs the miracle, but it doesn’t seem that he would have done it had he not been asked by his mom (who he obviously loved).

If a man possesses a great healing (or any) anointing that could touch thousands of lives, but lacks maturity in Christ and has some character problems, should we still launch him out into ministry because of the fact that the gospel will be told and many will be touched? It seems to me that, more and more, the answer is no. ESPECIALLY if the guy/gal’s ministry is going to be so public (but, in Todd Bentley’s case, we could also argue that the relentless MARKETING that went behind the ministry is completely unhelpful and has no real place in the church or in ministry). It seems that Jesus was in no rush to begin his ministry – he waited when God had sent Him, despite Him knowing something of what God intended for Him to do. He asked His disciples to do the same – telling them to WAIT in Jerusalem until power fell from on high.

Maturity is paramount in ministry, and true ministry requires it. Otherwise, sooner or later, the ministry can fall because it is not built on a strong foundation but is built on sand. The foundation is relationship with Christ, and this is a foundation that takes years to build. It seems, to me, that God is interested in quality first, and isn’t in a rush to refine us like gold until we are exactly right to do our ministry in its fullness. Don’t get me wrong, there are some things we should be doing from day 1 of our walk with Christ (like, friendship evangelism for instance) but we require maturity before we start leading churches, and it seems to me that most of the church is impatient and want to lead a church before they have any form of real, lasting, solid, refined maturity and relationship (and, relationship(s) with others!).

Those who have contributed to this synchroblog are :

Phil Wyman asks Is Maturity Really What I Want?
Lainie Petersen at Headspace with “Watching Daddy Die
Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head with “what’s inside the bunny?”
John Smulo at JohnSmulo.com
Erin Word at Decompressing Faith with “Long-Wearing Nail Polish and Other Stories”
Beth Patterson at The Virtual Teahouse with “the future is ours to see: crumbling like a mountain
Bryan Riley at Charis Shalom is Still Complaining
Alan Knox at The Assembling of the Church with “Maturity and Education
KW Leslie at The Evening of Kent
Bethany Stedman at Coffee Klatch with Moving Towards True Being: The Long Process of Maturity
Adam Gonnerman at Igneous Quill with “Old Enough to Follow Christ?
Joe Miller at More Than Cake with “Intentional Relationships for Maturity
Jonathan Brink at JonathanBrink.com with “I Won’t Sin
Susan Barnes at A Booklook with “Growing Up”
Tracy Simmons at The Best Parts with “Knowing Him Who is From the Beginning
Joseph Speranzella at A Tic in the Mind’s Eye with “Spiritual Maturity And The Examination of Conscience
Sally Coleman at Eternal Echoes
Liz Dyer at Grace Rules with “What I Wish The Church Knew About Spiritual Maturity
Cobus van Wyngaard at My Contemplations with “post-enlightenment Christians in an unenlightened South Africa
Steve Hayes at Khanya with “Adult Content
Sound and Silence considers Inclusion and Maturity
Lew A at The Pursuit talks about Maturity and Preaching
Kai Schraml tells us about Mature Virtue

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Blog and writing news

Todd Bentley

I’ve been watching Todd Bentley from the USA with some interest in the last few days. For those of you who don’t know him, you can see his website : http://www.freshfire.ca

I’ve posted this entry at http://www.emergingafrica.info to see the conversation there (which is usually more interesting than here) so you’re welcome to read this there and comment – or, just comment here!

Todd has, of course, caused some stir amongst Christian circles with the usual rumblings : he’s a heretic this, and a heretic that; OR, he’s the best thing to come since Christ Jesus.

Both views do, in my opinion, miss the point. But I’ll be honest : I always find myself skeptical when guys preach about these visions they’ve had, and that they’ve gone up to the ‘third heaven’ and spoken to this or that angel. Probably, I can understand some people do have a lot of visions (so, I can live with those — even if some of them seem a bit wierd.) But as for all the angels stuff, I just worry when people get all hung up on that. Too much of his teachings do focus around angels, and I’m like “why?”

I’m pretty sure that people are probably getting healed at his meetings. It’s impossible for someone to run a slick con-operation on this kind of scale. I always wonder why God seems to use the guys who we all might see as ‘wierd’ for this kind of thing — I just wish we could have normal, down-to-earth people in the healing ministry (There is Francis Macnutt, who I think seems pretty normal.) Maybe it’s because the eccentric are usually the only guys willing to make a fool of themselves, and the rest of us are trying too hard to be respectable? It would be interesting to hear thoughts on that.

(I do wish I could see someone like Francis Macnutt do this sort of thing : pity there’s no real free info of him on the web. I don’t think I can really afford to import a video — although I do recommend his book “Healing” which I am in the process of reading the second time now.)

Anyway, what do you all think about this sort of thing? The healing stuff does intrigue me, especially since I think healings of all types should be what the normal Christian life is about. Hopefully, one of these days, God will use me more extensively in healing ministry. I hope He uses us all! (or, rather, we’ll all be willing to let Him!)

Should we give up our respectability for a bit of eccentricness? Have you had any experiences of healing? I’ve been healed a few times myself, and only seen people healed from minor things at my prayer. Although, I’ve seen guys healed of some major things at the prayer of pastors I know. Anyone around here prayed for someone and seen them healed? Want to share it? And your thoughts on this stuff?

I do think Todd Bentley’s website sucks : it represents a typical American ‘give us money’ type of approach. Whether that is his heart or not is hard to say. I imagine he is probably too busy to worry about his website : but guys should make sure their team represents them well.

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