Plan B – Todd Bentley’s back up plan – Sound of Fire

Rick Hiebert of The Western Standard:

Todd Bentley, the infamous Canadian faith healer whose Lakeland, Florida revival collapsed last summer, appears to be sticking a toe into the Internet waters, seeing if it is safe for him to swim. I can report, though, that there is evidence that the evangelist may have decided to forsake working though a charity.

I guessed a few weeks ago in a post that Mr. Bentley would instead develop his private company, Sound of Fire Productions, as an outlet for his materials. Well, over the Christmas holidays, his ministry, Fresh Fire Ministries, closed its online bookstore. Also, the only materials that FFM is promoting on its website have nothing to do with Mr. Bentley at all. (Has Mr. Bentley been given his walking papers? I don’t know. Perhaps Fresh Fire is delaying the announcement in order not to cause a slump in donations.)

Meanwhile, over at the Sound of Fire Productions website, now Mr. Bentley is offering his later CDs and DVDs for sale, where he wasn’t before. Perhaps it is the last of his stock from the book tables at the revival.

I think that Mr. Bentley is setting up going private as a “Plan B”, and that he would prefer working through some sort of charity. However, I do note that Oral Roberts, during his faith healing days in the 1950s and early 1960s, used a private company, Healing Waters, Inc., as a base for his work. Todd Bentley, as a company, would be workable. He could sell everything, as he does now, and demand an “appearance fee” up front for doing his work at a church. Having sat in his audience while Mr. Bentley talked up the blessing of giving to his work, I suspect that he would still receive what he calls “Pentecostal handshakes”, and still have people sticking money into his pockets as he talks, to get the particular blessing from God that he is speaking about at that moment. I saw this happen. He could get donations without having to issue receipts. So, perhaps he might prefer not having to answer to tax authorities at all.

Hiebert has been bang on about Bentley in the past and noted his private The Sound of Fire Productions site (administered by Todd Bentley’s stepmother) and owned by Steven Stanczyk, a BC artist who is known for his work with Cry Africa, Heidi and Roland Baker who are part of Global Harvest Ministries (C. Peter Wagner’s NAR headquarters). Bentley who apparently has been hiding out in California since being exposed by Nightline had announced he was divorcing his Canadian wife and his Canadian charitable site Fresh Fire Ministries (which his wife’s family works for) released a statement about severing their ties with him in November.

A couple of things have happened recently. Todd Bentley has a new MySpace page activated mid-December where once again, he not only re-invents himself, but had moderator control (his last MySpace page was a free for all) and it is what people call a fan page, where content is moderated. He lists himself as from California and single among other things. As followers know Bentley is scheduled to undergo ‘restoration’ at Rick Joyner’s Morningstar location this year and to that end Bentley’s MySpace page has his scripture twisting up on restoration.

Fresh Fire Ministries Canada has removed most of Bentley’s former products from their site. It can now be found at Sound of Fire Productions. So the soon to be in-laws are out of the loop and Bentley and his parents are running their own company. (The site has been around since 2004) and it’s IP is out of Orlando Florida where GodTV moved it’s US headquarters and close to the property purchased in the Lakeland area by Fresh Fire Inc in 200. Sound of Fire Productions Whois:

Registrar History:
1 registrar
NS History:
4 changes on 5 unique name servers over 5 years.
IP History:
6 changes on 5 unique name servers over 5 years.

Whois History:
7 records have been archived since 2007-09-04
Owner:
      steve stanczyk
      steve stanczyk 
      314 34909 old yale rd
      abbotsford, BC v3g2e7
      Canada

Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Billing Contact:
      Sound of Fire Productions
      Darcia Bentley 
      Box 1163
      Ladysmith, BC V9G 1A8
      Canada

Bloggers who have followed this are identifying a young woman as Bentley’s mistress. Her picture was taken by Abbotford photographer Laura Merz. Merz supplied Canada’s ChristianWeek with at least one Lakeland revival photograph. I’m not going there, if she is the mistress she can identify herself. Having said that, I agree with the thinking that the news about Bentley’s affair was leaked when it was (after public exposure of the lies about healing etc) for the benefit of the New Apostolic Reformation network. Releasing information about ‘the affair’ took public attention of the core issues, heresy, lying, false doctrine, false manifestations, prophecies and man made ‘revival’. It’s easier for NAR leadership to continue to deceive, and I’ve no doubt soon we’ll see claims from the top down in the New Apostolic Network that Bentley has been restored.
Rick Joyner has the media facilities and the show will be cross-platformed once again.
NAR needs him, money isn’t coming in like it used to and there are new groups of people to take from, abuse, spiritually bind and harm.

So where did the 2008 money go?

The New Apostolic Reformation Movement