Lakeland Revival: Not so much!

The Lakeland Revival has been going for a while with Todd Bentley at the helm.

Well, it seems that all is not well in paradise, so to speak! Todd and his wife are having marital problems and are separating.

From an article by Marsha West:

"What did Fresh Fire Ministries know and when did they know it? I'm talking about Todd Bentley's marriage, which is in shambles. According to the statement posted on the Fresh Fire website it would appear that the board of directors have known for quite sometime:

"'Undoubtedly the pressures and the burden of the Outpouring, which approaches 144 days on August 23rd, have helped to create an atmosphere of fatigue and stress that has exacerbated existing issues in their relationship (emphasis added). We wish to stress however, that the Outpouring is not 'to blame' for the current chain of events and that in effect we have no interest in blaming anyone, but rather we deeply covet your prayers for Todd and Shonnah and for Fresh Fire Ministries during this time.'"

Continue reading Marsha's article here.

Bill Randles has written a very probing PDF article on Todd Bentley and the "revival."

"What we are seeing in the so-called Lakeland revival, did not come like 'a rushing mighty wind' out of heaven (cf. Acts 2:2). Rather it is the direct result of several 'streams' that have converged over the last twenty years. The roots of Todd Bentley's experienced based revival, are manifold. They include the Kansas City Prophets of the late 1980's and early nineties, John Wimber's Vineyard movement, South African Evangelist Rodney Howard Browne, the Toronto Blessing, and the subsequent Pensacola Revival which led directly to Lakeland Florida and Todd Bentley. A major common denominator, which runs through all of these streams, is an emphasis on an experience called spiritual drunkenness!

"There can be no denying that Bentley is a direct result of the so called Kansas City Prophets. He himself defers directly to two of these prophets openly, in spite of the moral collapses of both of them. Bentley calls a Bob Jones a mentor, and a seer. Jones had to leave the ministry after having to confess to using his prophetic office to disrobe women. But to Bentley, Jones is a spiritual father. It was Jones' teaching that encouraged false prophecies in the church by encouraging 'young prophets' that they need not be 100% accurate, and that it was a good thing that the accuracy was so low, otherwise there would be a whole lot of Ananias's and Saphirra's!"

Continue reading Bill's article here.

You can also read more about Todd and the Lakeland Revival expose here.

Finally, here is a humorous, yet sad account of what is going on at Lakeland.

Update:
28 Aug 2008 - Do we desperately need closure from Tod Bentley? Jan Markell thinks so! ( I do too!)