Category: Fresh Fire Ministries

For four months, the Florida Outpouring was an international phenomenon.

Then, in early August, the board of directors of Bentley’s Fresh Fire Ministries of Abbotsford, British Columbia, announced he and his wife were separating because he had developed an “unhealthy” emotional attachment to another woman. There were reports that Bentley engaged in “excessive drinking.”

Bentley abruptly turned the revival over to the Rev. Stephen Strader, pastor of Ignited Church, and left town.

What is the Lakeland Outpouring’s legacy?

What a performance it was: For the past few months, Todd Bentley, a 32-year-old former drug addict from Canada’s west coast, was the hottest thing going on the global televangelist circuit. A hog-riding faith healer with a devil-may-care attitude.

Then he failed his flock, the old fashioned way: By consorting with another woman.

In stepping down, Bentley will also refrain from all public ministries, including his meetings in south Florida which have attracted about 300,000 people to a church and baseball stadium since April.

“In the meantime, he’s going to get himself refreshed,” said Ken Greter, International Missions Director for Fresh Fire Ministries.

Watch our church… Todd Bentley is bent on exporting the madness he calls ‘revival’ overseas.

Even some fellow Pentecostals have questioned whether Bentley’s revivals have placed enough emphasis on preaching and calls for repentance. A recent set of guidelines from the Assemblies of God, the largest predominantly white Pentecostal denomination in the United States, seemed to question the Florida Outpouring’s emphasis on miracles. Local pastors have expressed skepticism about exaggerated claims.

C. Peter Wagner, the leader of the ‘International Coalition of Apostles’ along with other prominent figures in the real-life ‘apostolic and prophetic’ role-playing game have commissioned controversial evangelist Todd Bentley as, well, an evangelist.

Doing so will reportedly result in a measure of ‘apostolic alignment’ (in plain english: accountablity).

Sadly, Bentley will be accountable to misguided folks who see themselves as ‘apostles’ and ‘prophets,’ but whose lack of Biblical discernment allows them to support and promote error upon error.

Many Christian who are unwilling to do what the Bible tells them to do — feed the hungry, help the poor, present the Gospel of Jesus Christ, etcetera — run from place to place in search of what they think it ‘revival.’ The latest mad craze is led by Todd Bentley.

Whether healing in a medical sense is delivered here may be hard to measure, but more people each night are finding reason to believe and pouring into the 7,000-seat arena. The Lakeland movement, still in its first month, is drawing comparisons to the “Toronto Blessing” in 1994 and the Pensacola Brownsville Revival that fired up the next year.