The Evangelism Training at Lakeland. Where is the Gospel? part 3
As we went into the large room I grabbed my "How to Know you are Truly Saved" booklet and found a seat. The guy who was speaking was named Jeff Lewis with CityTakers the "Evangelism" branch of The Florida Outpouring.
Here it is important to mention this video...
Why? Because I call this video propaganda. It's sole purpose is to show that "We are teaching Biblical Evangelism, so get off of our back!". In fact their claims to teach biblical evangelism has been of much discussion among the Way of the Master community. So it was very important to see if their claims of "Biblical Evangelism" is true via a first hand encounter.
The first few moments of the event was actually promising. He mentioned that if the revival stayed in the building and did not bring glory to God we were doing nothing more then feeding ourselves, he even said a few funny lines that yes, even made me and my friend Ryan laugh along with him...yet I forget what they were. Anyways he was very charismatic. Now on to the evangelism...
Oh but before we get to trite things like sharing the Gospel, it is first important to teach people two things.
First we need to teach people how to have a "Word of Knowledge". Of Course. I mean where would I have been all those times I was preaching law and grace if I did not know that someone was "Looking for a Job" in the crowd of hecklers...
This is where it got absurd and I cannot stress this enough...I am not making this up. Everything he says is not even close to paraphrased. It's so engraved in my mind...I cannot get it out.
"Everyone close your eyes. Think of a Pink elephant, has everyone done that think of it...now open your eyes. Close them again, Now, think of a pink elephant. Did you do it! That is exactly what a Word of Knowledge looks like. The Lord has given you an imagination to get Word of Knowledge's! Just like Jesus with the Woman at the Well!"
Sigh.
Everyone desperate to hear from God followed every word he said. He then showed how this principal could be applied.
Before I continue there I need to mention something. There are three Johnathan Edwards in History I need to point out.
The Presidential Candidate.
The Reformer.
and the Psychic that had it's own TV Show several years ago where he would use age old techniques of being "Almost vaguely right" to make people think he was one hundred percent right about hearing from the dead.
Just think about that last one.
He then said he had a word of knowledge from God about a man in a Brown hat. My friend Ryan was wearing a brown hat (Could it be, God had given him a word of Knowledge so Ryan might go up there and preach the true Gospel?)
No, Because 12 people in the room had brown hats. He pointed to another guy somewhat close to Ryan. The guy goes up there and Jeff says the following.
"I see you in a car with a lot of stuff, maybe a sleeping bag"
Did I mention that almost everyone there has come with luggage and sleeping stuff because they were either camping or going on a road trip to Lakeland? No surprise there. Our car was filled with sleeping bags!
Anyways he basically tells the guy he should move to Florida, etc etc. (The guy was from Scotland)
So he gave very vague descriptions while letting the guy in the brown hat fill him in on the details, while proclaiming that's exactly what he sees.
Well anyways that was over with and now it was time to get to evangelism...
Nope.
Now we need to know how to heal people. At this point I checked to see if we were still in the Evangelism class. We were. Sigh.
This is where it Got crazy.
He would call out all these disorders that people have using the same vague word of knowledge techniques.
For example...
"Is there anyone there with stomach ulcers? Do you have pink pills"
Hmm, pink pills? Like pepto bismol pink pills? No. What are the Odds?
Now comes the fun part (no not evangelism) he had people with cavities stand up. He said that God was going to fill their cavity with Gold.
Oh boy I thought, I think I have a Cavity! He then mentioned a whole mess load of other sicknesses that people had.
Including this one...
"There is a woman who was gardening, and she stubbed her toe with a shovel...Anyone? Anyone?"
No one replied.
"Well there are people on the Internet watching, maybe it was for them! But I feel as if it was for someone in here."
No one replied. Without missing a beat he had everyone stand and pray for the healings to take place in the room. After everyone prayed he said...
"This is gonna be amazing! Everyone stand up look in the mouths of those who had cavities. Look for Gold!"
Not one person shouted with joy, not one persons mouth was filled with Gold. Without missing a beat, he went on to a much more vague disorder like back pain. Everyone forgot about the fact he was WRONG.
At this point an hour and a half passed, I was getting annoyed, and all my stones missed...So we left.
There was no biblical evangelism taught at this meeting. (At least it was not the main focus.)
After being there for over hour, we never heard the Gospel or Christ's name magnified.
Keep preaching the Gospel friends...Do not get side tracked by stage shows and con artist.
Here it is important to mention this video...
Why? Because I call this video propaganda. It's sole purpose is to show that "We are teaching Biblical Evangelism, so get off of our back!". In fact their claims to teach biblical evangelism has been of much discussion among the Way of the Master community. So it was very important to see if their claims of "Biblical Evangelism" is true via a first hand encounter.
The first few moments of the event was actually promising. He mentioned that if the revival stayed in the building and did not bring glory to God we were doing nothing more then feeding ourselves, he even said a few funny lines that yes, even made me and my friend Ryan laugh along with him...yet I forget what they were. Anyways he was very charismatic. Now on to the evangelism...
Oh but before we get to trite things like sharing the Gospel, it is first important to teach people two things.
First we need to teach people how to have a "Word of Knowledge". Of Course. I mean where would I have been all those times I was preaching law and grace if I did not know that someone was "Looking for a Job" in the crowd of hecklers...
This is where it got absurd and I cannot stress this enough...I am not making this up. Everything he says is not even close to paraphrased. It's so engraved in my mind...I cannot get it out.
"Everyone close your eyes. Think of a Pink elephant, has everyone done that think of it...now open your eyes. Close them again, Now, think of a pink elephant. Did you do it! That is exactly what a Word of Knowledge looks like. The Lord has given you an imagination to get Word of Knowledge's! Just like Jesus with the Woman at the Well!"
Sigh.
Everyone desperate to hear from God followed every word he said. He then showed how this principal could be applied.
Before I continue there I need to mention something. There are three Johnathan Edwards in History I need to point out.
The Presidential Candidate.
The Reformer.
and the Psychic that had it's own TV Show several years ago where he would use age old techniques of being "Almost vaguely right" to make people think he was one hundred percent right about hearing from the dead.
Just think about that last one.
He then said he had a word of knowledge from God about a man in a Brown hat. My friend Ryan was wearing a brown hat (Could it be, God had given him a word of Knowledge so Ryan might go up there and preach the true Gospel?)
No, Because 12 people in the room had brown hats. He pointed to another guy somewhat close to Ryan. The guy goes up there and Jeff says the following.
"I see you in a car with a lot of stuff, maybe a sleeping bag"
Did I mention that almost everyone there has come with luggage and sleeping stuff because they were either camping or going on a road trip to Lakeland? No surprise there. Our car was filled with sleeping bags!
Anyways he basically tells the guy he should move to Florida, etc etc. (The guy was from Scotland)
So he gave very vague descriptions while letting the guy in the brown hat fill him in on the details, while proclaiming that's exactly what he sees.
Well anyways that was over with and now it was time to get to evangelism...
Nope.
Now we need to know how to heal people. At this point I checked to see if we were still in the Evangelism class. We were. Sigh.
This is where it Got crazy.
He would call out all these disorders that people have using the same vague word of knowledge techniques.
For example...
"Is there anyone there with stomach ulcers? Do you have pink pills"
Hmm, pink pills? Like pepto bismol pink pills? No. What are the Odds?
Now comes the fun part (no not evangelism) he had people with cavities stand up. He said that God was going to fill their cavity with Gold.
Oh boy I thought, I think I have a Cavity! He then mentioned a whole mess load of other sicknesses that people had.
Including this one...
"There is a woman who was gardening, and she stubbed her toe with a shovel...Anyone? Anyone?"
No one replied.
"Well there are people on the Internet watching, maybe it was for them! But I feel as if it was for someone in here."
No one replied. Without missing a beat he had everyone stand and pray for the healings to take place in the room. After everyone prayed he said...
"This is gonna be amazing! Everyone stand up look in the mouths of those who had cavities. Look for Gold!"
Not one person shouted with joy, not one persons mouth was filled with Gold. Without missing a beat, he went on to a much more vague disorder like back pain. Everyone forgot about the fact he was WRONG.
At this point an hour and a half passed, I was getting annoyed, and all my stones missed...So we left.
There was no biblical evangelism taught at this meeting. (At least it was not the main focus.)
After being there for over hour, we never heard the Gospel or Christ's name magnified.
Keep preaching the Gospel friends...Do not get side tracked by stage shows and con artist.
posted by Marcus Pittman at
2:55 PM
3 Comments:
Very interesting.. I am amazed that people actually go to these and believe every word... It's truly sad when it's so obvious!
This comment has been removed by the author.
I went to 4 or 5 of the evangelism training meetings. All of them infact preached a gospel of repentance and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus for sin. A questionaire is used each day. This questionaire goes through the fallen state of the world and the gap between humanity and a righteous God, it then moves on to Jesus as the solution and repentance.
The evangelism training is done by a guy called Jeff Lewis who runs CityTaker ministries. His statement of faith is found here:
http://www.citytaker.com/faith.html
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