By Rick Hiebert. All Rights Reserved. Used By Permission.
Todd Bentley, who’s calling himself a “native” of Canada these days, and not a “Canadian”, was preaching in Canada this week.
It’s not exactly “returning for the first time in three years” as his ministry mentioned in an e-mail promoting the series of meetings last week, as he preached with Rick Joyner at meetings in Red Deer, Alberta, earlier this year. But it is a Canadian mini-tour, as they write.
Bentley ministered at Mount Brydges, ON on May 2-3, London ON, May 4 and in Toronto May 5 and 6. But what is odd is where he is not ministering.
Recall that Bentley is from B.C.’s Lower Mainland, and spent many years living in Abbotsford, in the heart of the Fraser Valley, the province’s closest thing to a “Bible Belt.”
Doing a series of meetings here, where his first wife, Shonnah and three children from the marriage, would allow him to spend some quality time with his kids where they actually live.
Seeing as though Bentley has brought his children down to the US for vacations, talks to them on the phone and on the Internet, isn’t this something that he should want? Not to mention seeing his friends back there in the Abbotsford area, and various church contacts that he might want to bless.
I think this won’t be happening soon and I have a guess why that is.
When Lakeland collapsed, the only national or Toronto paper to pay any attention to Bentley’s woes was the National Post.
Vancouver’s main papers, the Sun and Province, covered the fall of Bentley and the collapse of Lakeland pretty closely. One of the Sun’s stories on Bentley made the front page of the newspaper.
The newspapers in Abbotsford itself would no doubt notice if Todd Bentley came to the city to preach. In fact, in August 2010, the Abbotsford Today newspaper reported that he was trying to make a comeback on Discovery TV.
In his story, reporter Mike Archer mentions that it was local residents who had compelled the paper to do the story, worried that Bentley was going to get the Discovery TV show.
Bentley, the story notes was doing what could be a dry run for a TV show on his website and adds this:
“Some have expressed their unease on websites, in conversations and emails recently over what kind of an impact Bentley’s resurgence will have on Abbotsford’s reputation as “an evangelical hotbed*.”
The paper even went to the trouble of calling the Discovery network to ask about a possible show.
If Todd Bentley came to minister in Abbotsford, or anywhere close to Vancouver, no doubt the local press would be all over it. They’d know how to find Shonnah Bentley, or people who used to work for the Abbotsford-based version of Fresh Fire Ministries, as it then was. The press, in doing a “follow-up” story, would necessarily have to recount the reasons why Bentley left his work for a while. And all that would be rather inconvenient for Mr. Bentley right now.
Perhaps, if Shonnah and her kids are really annoyed at Todd, we could even see a picture of them looking suitably disgruntled, with accompanying story, in The Province, say.
And that may be why we won’t be seeing Todd Bentley nearby his old stomping grounds anytime soon. At least, that is my guess.
Bentley tweets briefly that the meetings went well from his point of view, and adds that he is book solidly for ministry work until the spring of 2012.
I am a little dismayed that he tweeted a “Yaaaahhh Canucks” a few days , when he mentioned, in my hearing, during a sermon in Abbotsford a few years ago that he doesn’t like hockey at all. At that time, the Canucks were playing Minnesota in the playoffs that very night, and I can paraphrase him as saying then that it would be nice if the Canucks won, he guessed, but he didn’t really care as baseball was his preferred sport.
Of course, pretending to care passionately about hockey, when you don’t, to get Twitter love from canucks fans, would be totally in character. Todd Bentley probably thought, “Oh nobody will ever remember me talking just now about how I am not a hockey fan…”
Abbotsford is an eangelical hotbed
Maybe it is a New Apostolic Reformation hotbed as well
Abbotsford could be more than the Bible-Belt and an Evangelical Hotbed
Well with the New Apostolic Reformation
Abbotsford could be known as the NAR-Belt
This area could be an NAR Hotbed
But I don’t think the latter would be too much mentioned
There’s been reports of criminal activity there too.
Every area has its’ problems
This wave of thought might be more widespread than we think.
Well, firstly, hardy anybody has heard of this sort of thing but with more research it comes out into the open
The NARs themselves know better as to not be too open about it either
Just come across as Evanglical Christians is the ticket into the Venue events.
what a pile of crap:
“ministry”
“spend some quality time with his kids”
where is the god of abraham, isaac and jacob? he did not allow for a lot of wiggle room in ot israel’s theocratic government. oops, forgot, this is the dispensation of the gentiles.
“A prophet has no honor in his home town.” A false prophet has even less.
Todd’s not gonna show off the new wife to his hometown buds?
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Todd is simply “re-positioning” himself for another Flakeland event
The church in Mount Brydges holds a maximum of 120, so if it was full, that would be the crowd. In Toronto, there were 90-100 people. Not really the crowds he’s used to.
In around 2003 when Fresh Fire was at Abbotsford Pentecostal Assembly were quite a few persons.
I would say around 1000 or so.
The atmosphere seemed alive.
But there seemed to be a kind of semi-subtle strangeness in the atmosphere as well.
The look of some of the persons there
Some of the things said and how it was said
For instance, a speaker said, “Jesus is knocking on the door of the city of Vancouver”
Statement seemed profound but at the same time strange
I’m from Vancouver
A bunch of them came up and laid hands on me and I fell
This is the laying on of hands and being slain in the spirit
We started to talk
I mentioned, “I like to walk around the Stanely Park Seawall”
One of the persons mentioned, “There are not good spiritual forces around there…”
For heaven’s sake, it’s the Seawall
It’s in the jewel in the crown, Stanley Park
This is a nice escape
This is a good amount of greenspace in te middle of the city
Yes he made a terible mistake, that brought pains to alot of folks. But God has forgiven him. U hipocrites cal urself d bible belt of canada and yet u neglect d main theme of the bible which is unconditional forgiveness. Only in d church do wounded soldiers get executed. U are simply fulfiling the ministry of ur fdther the which is the ministry of accusation.
Even the early Church Apostles had order and discipline to deal with somesome like Todd B…..But,no,its the NAR,everybody goes unchecked and does their own thing
SAD!