I came across this interesting article by a man named Chris Elrod entitled Did I Sit On The Sidelines While The Playing Field Burned? where Pastor Elrod takes a sobering look at the Lakeland Revival and regrets not doing more to warn the community about Todd bentley.
What makes this story unique is that Elrod is the pastor of the Compass Point Church in Lakeland. If anyone saw the stuff that went on in Lakeland from April until the first of August, this pastor (along with Charisma forums poster “Hesed” who blogged from Lakeland and provided some excellent insights via blogs and appearances in Christian forums) is well qualified to speak.
From Elrod’s observation of:
When the first news began to break around here about Todd, healings and the revival…I went to see it for myself. In all I attended four separate “revival” meetings over a two month period. I also watched countless hours of the events on the Internet. I witnessed Todd hollering “BAM” a lot. I witnessed “verification teams” in the parking lot carefully choosing people deemed candidates for “healing” while turning many others down. I watched ushers push ill children away from the stage area because they had not been preapproved for “healing”. I heard stories about pixie-dust-spreading angels and conversations with the Apostles in some abstract heavenly cabin. I saw leg drops, high kicks, head punches and every other Wrestlemania cliche under the sun. I heard anonymous crazy stories about people being healed and others being raised from the dead. I heard and saw many strange things…but nothing that even remotely kept with sound doctrine. Every Biblical discerning bone in my body showed me that there was nothing going on at the “revival” that was in keeping with God’s Word.
to his realization after deciding not to talk about Lakeland publically after being advised against “…speaking against something that God is actually doing” and heeding that advice realizing later on that he”
… protected my flock from the three-ring circus and hoopla…but did nothing to protect the Body as a whole.
to the remorseful pondering of:
The question that I now have to ask myself…the question that will haunt me for quite a while is…did I sit on the sidelines while the playing field burned? Should have I blogged about it…spoken out about it publicly…done more to get the word out to the rest of the world that this whole thing was about Todd and not God? I took care of my own house…but should I have done more to take care of the entire neighborhood?
To Pastor Elrod, I say that I believe that your remorse and repentance is indeed genuine. I think you definitely realize that maybe you should have carried the apologetic defense beyond the walls of your church and gone against the run of the mill. I am greatful that you cared about your congregation to get the word out about Lakeland to your congregation. Many churches did not even do this and/or did the ‘wait and see’ approach thinking they could ‘jump on the bandwagon’ if Lakeland was proven to be a true revival beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But I am not here to condemn you. I am here to encourage you to ‘not beat yourself up’ over this into condemnation. This can be a great learning opportunity for you to learn that apologetics goes beyond just contending for and defending the faith. It can be a very effective form of evangelism that firmly establishes a correct doctrinal belief system. And from looking at your web page, evangelism (the “servant outreach’ section comes to mind) appears to be a biblical mandate your church is emphasizing and evangelism does involve apologetics to some degree.
Even though you have genuine remorse and repentance for not going beyond the four walls of your church, some of your fellow online brothers and sisters in Christ you have never met (but you will meet one day…..) did spread the word about Lakeland via blogs and forums and eventually saw the dark truths become revealed in the light. God still moved on behalf of His people in reference to his revival ending and I do not want you to beat yourself up any more. I want to invite you to rejoice with me and many others praising and thanking God for His sovereign and providential hand that revealed the sin and corruption for it to stop manifesting in preparation for a glorious church who is daily dying to the flesh and fulfilling the Great Commission.
It’s time to do what the blog title states….
Go Onward, Forward, Toward…
Compass Point Church.
Hmmm. Sounds like a good place to visit.
That is, if I wasn’t already at a great church in Lakeland, as well.
;-)
Bob,
Thanks for this. For the last 15 years, ever since Toronto came on the scene, I’ve been saying that these people exaggerate and outright lie. This is one of the only people I know of to actually come forth and tell the truth about the so-called miracle healings. It’s Peter Popoff all over again…:(
Admin, back when this whole Lakeland thing got started, I forwarded some of your video links to my writing partner, a burned-out pastor in rural Pennsylvania who had professional stage-magic experience.
His conclusion was not of God, not of demons, but a man — possibly a con man — working a crowd into a frenzy using stage mentalist tricks. As for “Shaking Stacy” and the weird dancing — people caught up in the enthusiasm and frenzy and letting it all hang out.
He warned his congregation about Lakeland, that it wasn’t a revival but a floor show and likely a con job. (At the time, a Pentecostal church in his area was trying to start their own Lakeland. There was also a local Rapture scare going on due to the spike in gas prices.) After all, one of the duties of a pastor is to warn his people of such things.
He referred to his sermons during this period as “Don’t Go Stupid On Me!” (A type of sermon he has unfortunately had to use a lot lately.)