Inspiration at New Wine

I shouldn’t be surprised by this, but New Wine this year was most inspiring, yet again. Part of it comes from worshiping God alongside several thousand others – but it’s also about the stimulating teaching and spending time with good friends.

The main arena at New Wine, which holds 5,500 and was full for the main sessions

One of the main speakers was Robbie Dawkins, a Vineyard pastor from gangland Chicago. He’s a big unit – you wouldn’t mess with him even if he is a pastor! Who could forget his story about the gang leader nicknamed Hitler, who vowed to kill him in Church, who was frozen by the Spirit when he turned up, and then turned to Christ when he was in jail for multiple murders?

It was also exciting to hear about the effect that prayer for healing has had on his area. He was keen to emphasise that when he prays for someone, he does not wait for a word from God to give him permission to do so – he prays and trusts that God will respond. He encouraged us to do the same, saying that too often we hold back for fear of looking stupid.

It was inspiring, in a rather different way, to hear the Bishop of Worcester give one of the seminars – partly because he’s the Bishop in this area, but mainly because of his backstory: of the battle his wife is currently undergoing with cancer. He spoke on ‘Healing: the entirety of the Gospel’, and stressed the need that everyone has for both healing and forgiveness. Both he and Robbie Dawkins stressed that if we think the main arena for God’s healing is in the church, then we’re sadly mistaken – it’s primarily a sign for those that don’t know Christ that he is real, alive and that he loves them.

One of the audience members at that seminar also told us about the healing his wife received after an 18 year battle with multiple sclerosis [read about it here] – it’s a remarkable story.

The worship this year was outstanding, led in particular by Martin Smith. He’s a great performer, certainly, but above all he’s someone keen to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Lively worship in the main arena.

One of the joys of New Wine is spending time with friends, and our section of the Trinity Cheltenham site soon became know for its top-quality dinnertimes!

Matt, Caroline, Lisa, Neil, Lorraine, Les and Judith – relaxing after an evening meal

Greatham Creek revisited

Visiting Lloyd and Margaret Williams in Dewsbury with Tom Hiney

I’ve just come back from a trip up north, starting with visiting Tom Hiney in Dewsbury, going via the seals on Tees-side and ending up watching red squirrels in Strathyre (the next blog post).

While in Dewsbury, Tom and I visited Lloyd and Margaret Williams: Lloyd has been a major figure in the healing ministry, if somewhat less well known than his contemporaries David Watson and John Wimber. It was a great opportunity for us to quiz someone with a proven track record in this area, with tricky issues such as “Are there times when it is better to pray for someone to pass away into the Lord’s care rather than to pray for their healing?” (Short answer: yes.)

Common scoter in Greatham Creek

I then travelled up to the north east, dropping into Stockton before meeting Jaybee for a day of bird-watching on Tees-side. We spent most of the time in the Greatham Creek area: I enjoyed being able to see birds that hardly ever occur in the West Midlands! Two notable examples were the common scoter, a sea duck, and the red-breasted merganser, a notably colourful bird with a punk hairstyle.

Red breasted merganser pair in Greatham Creek.

It was great to be able to catch up with Jaybee. It was meeting him in the first week of my time in Durham, and his showing me around the main birdwatching sites on Tees-side a few weeks later, that led to my taking up birdwatching in a big way. He’s a courageous character, absolutely determined to overcome the ill health that he battles with, and of which he is eager to be completely free.

I’ve always been fascinated by Greatham Creek with its combination of wildlife and heavy industry. This scene, with avocets skimming the water in the foreground, epitomises it.

Heavy industry on Tees-side, with avocets skimming the water in the foreground.

Just over the road – which is the main route from Middlesbrough to Hartlepool – is the haul-out point for the seals (just visible in the image below).

The A178 road bridge at Greatham Creek, with the seals languishing on the mudflats beyond.

The seals at Greatham Creek

Spot the male redshank unsure what to do when a female flies in… “if in doubt, keep yapping”

I was also amused by the antics of a male redshank, who made quite a racket in an attempt to attract a female. One flew in – which seemed to astonish him, as he was silent for a while, not sure what to do. Then he continued his racket, so that she eventually flew off. Some blokes just seem to lack a bit of panache! 🙂

The banning of Todd Bentley

Todd Bentley’s first book

“Revivalist preacher Todd Bentley refused entry to UK” -thus states the Guardian headline.  I am no fan of Todd Bentley, but having seen him live, and having friends who are supporters of his, I am more than normally interested in what’s happening here. The story raises a number of important issues.

A few years ago I went with some friends to a meeting in Dudley to hear him preach: he had the reputation of having a radical style but with dramatic healings taking place in his meetings. He was one of a number of celebrity Christian preachers, often with links to God TV, who would tend to draw large crowds whenever they appeared in this country.

I went with a sense of expectancy, but was disappointed to find that he had a highly manipulative style which, before anything else happened, resulted in many of the audience dropping cash at his feet. It was never explained what this money would be used for. Nevertheless, I spoke with a few who’d been at the front, who said they had seen dramatic events which they took to be of supernatural origin.

Shortly afterwards the Florida Outpouring took place(see here for a helpful review). This was taken to be a dramatic example of God’s supernatural action in a particular locality, and it probably received more media coverage than any event since the Toronto Blessing. A number of friends from my church in Cheltenham went out there and came back there deeply impressed by what was happening. I was under-enthused, having seen him in operation in Dudley, but slightly perplexed that I might have missed something important. In the end, after several months, the event came to an untimely close because of Bentley’s marital difficulties which led to his subsequent divorce and rapid second marriage.

In recent times people have spoken of Bentley’s restoration and there has for a while been talk of his returning to the UK. In the end the legal system has intervened. However there are some important issues that must be addressed. One of these is exemplified by a story which tended to follow Todd Bentley, and is reported in the Guardian:

In one typical claim, he is filmed telling an audience: “And the Holy Spirit spoke to me, the gift of faith came on me. He said, ‘kick her in the face with your biker boot’. I inched closer and I went like this – bam! And just as my boot made contact with her nose, she fell under the power of God.”

The story carries with it an important sub-text: I am so in tune with God that even when he tells me to do something bizarre, I know it’s his voice, so I am obedient and amazing things happen in consequence. However, unless such claims can be backed up independently, there is the suspicion that they are no more than self-generated myth. If he has invented the story himself, I suspect many will be glad to have it exposed.

However, Bentley’s claim to be able heal people of cancer (and other major illnesses) is not unusual in charismatic Christian circles. I am a part of these circles and engage in this ministry (see here; albeit not yet with headline results), so I am actively interested when these claims provoke controversy. Whenever serious claims are being made for healing from major illnesses,  it is incredibly important that medical evidence is presented so that these claims can be authenticated. A healing from cancer should be possible to document properly. While it is unlikely that medical doctors would want to positively affirm a supernatural miracle, they should be able to confirm the presence and extent of the cancer before the event, its absence afterwards, and that the rapidity of the change is substantially beyond what could be explained by normal biomedicine. (For a well documented example of healing from a serious illness, see here. See also the story of my friend Jono Smithies.)

My suspicion – and it is no more than that – is that while Bentley may be a highly manipulative individual, genuine supernatural events were occurring at his meetings. There is a tendency to think that miracles authenticate the spiritual power and integrity of the preacher – but this is not a Biblical view (see here). My feeling is that at his meetings, there was a high level of faith in God that there would be healings – and because of that, God acted, in response to the faith present as opposed to the preacher. Bentley may have abused this for his own ends. It would be interesting to know whether Bentley is another example of a depressingly well-known phenomenon – of a genuinely Spirit-empowered preacher who started well but was waylaid by his own corruption.

This leaves an awkward question: why would God use such a man in any way? There may be a painful answer. This is that those of us in more conventional church positions are not prepared for the radicalism that God desires, so that we are unable to be used. Perhaps in God’s economy corrupt vessels are better than unusable vessels.

Amazing healing testimony

Most people at Trinity Church know Jono Smithies. He’s a student at the University here on a photography course, and has been a committed regular at church since he arrived. But that’s not the reason people know him: instead, it’s because he had an acute case of Tourette’s syndrome, which led him to manfiest loud tics, sometimes as often as once a minute.

Jono

I first met Jono about two years, as he became a lodger with Dave Slight. I got to know him better when for a while he came along to the Kingdom Renegades group. Jono has a passionate character and a deep faith, both forged in adversity… and he wasn’t just eager for healing, he was desperate for it.

By the end of January this year it became clear that something dramatic had happened to Jono, and he came along to the group to share his testimony of God’s healing.

He started by telling us what it was like to have Tourette’s, which he’d had for as long as he could remember. He described it as a tough journey, ‘very tough, very painful’: ‘I can only describe it as torturing myself a lot of the time’. (This is not too strong a description: it looked like it, as well.)

He became a Christian when he was 7. He said, ‘Throughout my life, God’s character, his nature and his ways have been affirmed. God has always been faithful and true.’ Jono clearly lived in this knowledge: even when he was, equally clearly, not being healed. He and his family prayed for his healing for two decades: and the lack of an answer ‘never took anything away from who I believe God to be.’

Back in 2010 he felt that God was telling him that he would be healed, and this fuelled his desire to experience this healing. For a few days in August last year he experienced several days, tic-free. The tics came back – but even for that short period of time he had experienced a taste of God’s healing power.

Although this was puzzling, Jono continued to eagerly desire full and complete healing. He learned lessons that have power coming from someone who has been through what he has been through: he learned to praise God in the pain. ‘Worship attracts the presence of God… when you praise, you get miracles.’

What happened in January was not planned. He went round to watch a DVD with a friend, but instead they ended up praying for healing from Tourette’s. He has not had a tic since.

Jono is still a noisy character – but now because his extrovert personality is no longer restrained by the tight cage of Tourette’s. In September he will go to the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry, an extraordinary place which has both the expectation and experience of God’s supernatural power, that has inspired many across the globe. He was accepted on the course before he was healed: but he can now go with his own amazing testimony of God’s healing power.

Click here to see Jono’s own video testimony on YouTube, “The pursuit of a miracle“.