Looking for God's Kingdom in Louisville

I’m writing this afternoon from Louisville, KY. The family is on a bit of a pilgrimage with some friends to sit in on two meetings with evangelist Todd Bentley. We’re in line right now at 3.30 pm, waiting for the doors to open at 5.30. Both the temperature and the humidity are right around 100, and I’m wondering if I’m nuts. In spite of the heat, people are singing, crying and praying for the sick right in the line. Wild.



Joseph and the line between us and the door.



This lady has a lucky green ticket that got her and whoever had one into the building 30 minutes ahead of those (like us) who were totally green ticketless!

I don’t know what you’ve heard about Todd Bentley or the goings on in Lakeland, FL, but it’s fun to think about God’s kingdom growing in fresh ways in our midst.

One thing that struck me, both as we’ve watched the revival online, and today here in Louisville, is the degree to which the focus is placed on Jesus. I don’t have much experience with this sort of thing, so I have little to compare it to. I do know that my cynical side would expect the focus to be on the main guy or on the healings. There’s a bit of that going on here, but not as much as I feared. The proof of that pudding will be if similar stuff happens on a similar scale without the Bentley-boy showing up.

Which is a key reason why we’re here. We’re wondering if God might desire to work in similar ways in our church.

Cool healing: A war veteran who’d been in a wheel chair or electric cart for 41 years, got up, walked, leapt and praised the Lord. His wife confirmed this was a whole new deal for him. She then got prayed for healing of a couple major issues. It was precious to watch them hug onstage, enjoying their divine two for one deal.

Heartbreaking sight: The service wrapped up, leaving a possibly Bengali couple onstage holding an obviously troubled child of one or two. They stood there, nearly alone, looking confused, as the focus of the meeting shifted away from the stage. I prayed that God would meet their needs some way.

Walking away from the meeting, I thought that it was probably good that Jesus came to the planet when he did. Early in the gospel of Mark the whole town gathered at Jesus' door and he heals many who had various diseases. What would happen today? When thousands can fly or drive to a place where people are getting healed, how would Jesus have handled it?

For that matter, how does Todd Bentley handle walking away when there are unmet needs? But the guy’s got to sleep. A friend once talked about the stress he felt while running an eye hospital in Azerbaijan. There were always more people than he could help. Every hour he didn’t work meant that someone who might have been helped remained sightless. That’ll keep you up at night.

May God give his people the wisdom to do the work he’s designed for them to do (Ephesians 2.10) and not stress about the rest. Jesus gave us a good model for this. He said, “I can do only what I see the Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does..” (John 5.19)