Familial Generational Spirits: Vintage ~1994

I can still see the faces and odd behaviors of many of my siblings in Christ that night, when I showed up (with trepidation) to assess in person what was in the process of demolishing the Christian Community (as I knew it) that I had been part of for twelve years since I was an 18-year-old convert committed to following Jesus.

My first husband and I were already on the brink of leaving, as were a large number of others. And one of the things I will always recall was a conversation with another member regarding something one of the leaders had put in the bulletin. It went something along these lines (paraphrased): The tens of thousands of people that _______ can (draw in, impact with the gospel, etc) are, quite frankly, more important than the hurt feelings of one or two damaged people who are already saved and bound for heaven. This friend said that when they read that, they thought, “D—, (they) are writing about ME.”

In terms of manipulation and “damage control,“ the statement (embedded in a writing about “where we all were headed”) was brilliantly crafted. When you have about 100-200 people (just estimating) deeply questioning and poised to leave a congregation, and you define-and-relegate the big goal (the ends) as being more important than any (means) to achieving it as being thwarted by “one or two (DAMAGED) people,” it is hard to forget that kind of thing.

Surely, as many involved spoke (during that time) of the “Jezebel spirit” (to this day I don’t quite understand who came up with this and why, especially now that I more clearly know the story in scripture), that those of us who questioned pretty much understood as some slur toward us, equating us as “controlling, demonic and against the work of God,” it was quite clever to say there were only one or two of us. For those who need a refresher, Jezebel was a foreigner who married one of the Kings of Israel, leading him deeply astray in the worship of pagan gods (of Baal.) The most notable part of the story in the book of I Kings 18 is when Elijah confronted the false prophets of Baal in the name of Israel’s One True God.

These days, given a number of things before me, I have found that story quite compelling. But as for the contemporary usage of people having a “Jezebel spirit” if they don’t accept the “Toronto Blessing” and all its infiltration of derivatives and after-effects that have spiritually permeated and polluted today’s Christian churches to varying degrees, I think of the noteworthy line used in The Princess Bride: “You keep using that word (in this parody, “Jezebel”). I’m not sure you really know what it means.”

Back to 1995. I mean, who wants to come forward as being the one or two objectors to “tens of thousands” being saved and identify ourselves additionally, as “damaged people.“

Wait. Maybe I just got that, all these years later. It might not have meant we were somehow weak, sensitive and in need of ongoing healthy Christian community and normal teachings to assist us in the strengthening of our faith and the care of our marriages and young children. Maybe…just maybe…it actually meant that leadership had determined that one or two sheep out of 400-500 could be within industry standards of collateral damage...

I mean, it wasn’t like it was one out of one hundred.

INCONCEIVABLE!

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What I Saw That Friday Night in 1995

I think of the psychological “pseudo-John-the-Baptist-like” elements in the entirety of this–only I don’t think the way for the Jesus of the bible was being prepared too well…

That Friday night, all the chairs had been cleared out of the assembly area. These weekly (as I recall) meetings were for the purpose of “spreading the fire” that had been “obtained” at the Toronto Airport Vineyard Church by members who had somehow “pilgrimaged” to this “Mecca-like” location, encouraged by various leaders and others of the necessity for as many as possible to receive this “new outpouring of the Holy Spirit.”

Being a small-minded (perhaps) person who at that point in my life was consumed with the daily call to be a good wife and a good mother, and to attend to immediate matters as homemaker and small-business woman, I could not fathom getting on some bus to a foreign land to obtain and experience this “thing.” But, no worries, the way was already being “prophetically paved” by new people who somehow showed up in one of our two “sister-congregations.“

In terms of theatrics, I’ll never forget the Sunday morning when both congregations were doing their monthly joint service and a man stood up who had the appearance, somewhat, of a gray-headed “Moses,” (along with a confident posture and authoritative sound to his voice), and said something along the lines of this “prophetic word”:

“It’s coming, and you cannot stop it. The dividing line in the sand is being drawn and you must choose. You are either ‘for it’ or ‘against’ it (this coming ‘move of God.’)

I pause here to insert a recent TikTok video that comes to mind, made by two notable online trans groomers and advocates of going “no contact” with parents (many “trans” kids come from Christian homes, so it is the Christian mom and dad and “their oppressive, unjust ways” that must be “severed” from) that I consider of a demonically-inspired nature. The similar theme being, “This IS where things are heading (one direction), and YOU will not be able to STOP it.”

But back to that Sunday morning meeting in 1995.

As if this wasn’t disturbing enough to me, given the little I already knew of this “thing” we were told was “coming” and for which we could either be “for or against,” we were yet to witness the full theatrics of it that morning. After this “prophet” spoke, another man stood up (one that was a regular, more longstanding involved member to that point), addressing the new-ish person, and loudly and defiantly asked, “By what authority do you speak this?”

And then, one of the Christian community’s leaders stood up and addressed the second man by name, saying along the lines of, “_______, you are out of line.”

THEN, the second man rapidly grabbed his wife by the hand or shoulder (as I recall), and they briskly and literally fled the large meeting room of assembled believers, in front of the eyes of all present (I’m guessing about 400-500 people in total), heading straight to the nursery to “scoop up” their children, never to be seen in our church again. I could write of what I loosely know about their experience between leaving the chairs and arriving in the nursery, but I will not. Not my story to tell, but, many there witnessed the main event.

This is a long lead-in to what I saw that Friday night, back in 1995, when I recall attending alone, wanting to spiritually “check it out” for myself.

That night, I sat in a chair against one wall, carefully (and fearfully) observing the strange scene, unfolding on the carpet in the simple sanctuary where my first husband and I had made our marital covenant about ten years earlier. Unfolding among many of the same people who had witnessed and prayed together in the 1994 baby dedication that included Jonathan Rodney Elfers, and in which the microphone somehow got passed to Zachary James Elfers (then about five years old), to add in his prayer.

We were a community of believers that felt like family. For me, especially, it was very much my family. Contrary to the new information being fed to us, I didn’t know we were so “broken” and in need of this “new fix.” In those days, though our church had the charismatic flavoring and practices with all its pros and cons, it felt generally “safe,” and generally like what I imagined or knew most Christian churches to be in those days.

Whether Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Church of Christ, Assemblies of God, Non-Denominational or otherwise, I think in general, one could expect that the goals of the local Christian church community were to teach from the scriptures about Jesus, worship through various music and styles, share the good news of salvation through Christ, and equip us for daily living with its responsibilities, conundrums, joys and sorrows.

Most churches had periodic retreats (getaways…for the “mountaintop” experiences of Christian-sibling-community and God) as well as occasional seminars where Christians with expertise in building marriages, for examples, might come an teach/encourage we who were married. There were small groups meeting from home to home in which we sometimes took communion together on Friday nights, and experienced a family-like setting where we could get to know one another, pray together and eat food together.

The sharing of food and potluck dinners seemed to be part-and-parcel of most churches. For me, given my childhood that was isolated from such family connections and interactions, this felt so good. This was where I felt I thrived, during that time in my life.

But apparently, we didn’t know that we were somehow “asleep” in the “purposes of God” for the entire, local and global WORLD, and needed this “awakening” to “WOKE“ us up. Surely we were familiar with certain scriptures about the Church being “asleep,” and such songs as Asleep in the Light by Keith Green, which generally encouraged followers of Jesus toward higher things in this world and especially in the Church’s historic call to reach the lost. But the idea of a “transferrable, replicatable, spreading of some strange “fire” — globalized “WOKE/awakened/dominating” Christian force seemed foreign to that which I understood I was getting myself into when I was baptized/immersed into Christ in 1983.

Though there was a lot I would only come to understand more deeply (through many sorrows and heartbreaks of all sorts) as the years unfolded concerning baptism as a sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection, and communion as a sharing in His cup of sorrow as well as His cup of joy, I and many other young people had been somehow drawn in by the Holy Spirit to desire and seek relationship and commitment to the Jesus of the bible. The community I was involved in had its origins in the Jesus Movement of the 1960’s to 1970’s, which I believe is the subject of the new film I have yet to see, Jesus Revolution.

That Friday night 1995, I watched and listened to the goings on. Generally, as I recall, people gathered around individual “pray-ers” to receive “the fire” and “the blessing.” These “pray-ers” distributed this strange “fire” and “holy laughter” sometimes by literally “blowing on people” who would fall over and lay on the floor. And then, others would gather around them and use their hands to “fan” them, as though literally trying to give oxygen to whatever “fire” this was. And oddly, it appeared there were some noticeable responses going on in those who seemingly had their eyes closed…

There were eruptions by some of uncontrollable laughter and other odd, twitching and jerking movements. In those days, I was personally healing from forms of emotional and psychological childhood trauma, which caused the very idea of participating in something such as this distressing to me. I wasn’t too fond of being in situations where I felt pushed to any type of psychological/emotional loss of control, or situations which held some expectation that I should intensely psychologically/emotionally respond to something in a very specific psychological/emotional manner.

I watched long enough to take it all in, and then I headed for the door to leave. But not before noticing one of the church’s leaders that I had always looked to as being of particular sound mind and grounded in biblical truth, laying on the floor near the exit. As I recall, he appeared to be in some type of contorted position with hands drawn up as someone having the effects of cerebral palsy. With glazed eyes open with a faraway, non-blinking appearance, he was blanking staring upward. I take it that he was experiencing some type of “trance state,” although it was so long ago and I should not state with any certainty what the person was experiencing. I only recall it being my last glimpse of the hoopla as I made an internally emotional, angry, frustrated and confused exitation. Yes, I made an exitation (not to be confused with sensational excitation) to that “visitation” of some “supernatural force” that was present there.

Shortly after this, my first husband and I left this church and found ourselves in another charismatic congregation where a small number of others from our previous Christian community had also fled and arrived at. (Many of us scattered to various places including other charismatic churches, a return to Catholicism, or to Reformed Presbyterian and other Presbyterian congregations, to name a few.)

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The Church is Not a Democracy

Prior to our leaving, I recall the difficult conversation with one of the leaders. After expressing whatever it was I expressed about the situation, I remember the comment made that seemed to substantiate the trajectory of the “prophetic word” given by the “Moses-appearing” newcomer somewhere during that time period.

Basically, I was made to understand that this IS where the church there was headed, which was accompanied by a phrase burned into my mind and ears that, “the church is not a democracy.” Meaning, we would not all be voting on this, but the decisions of the leadership would stand. Basically, we and many others essentially felt like the exit door was being pointed out to us, in a variety of damaging ways.

Oddly, all these years later, I kind of agree with that statement.

The Church (churches), in its ultimate universal expression, as well as its local assemblies, is not/are not mini-democracies, per se, (although these days we seem to see some tacit or overt popular poll being taken among various members affecting the worldly, worldwide trajectory they wish to welcome into their life and the corporate life of their particular denomination/congregation). The idea of church leaders being both authorities and hopefully, under authority (as Shepherds accountable to God, the scriptures and otherwise), is a big topic. I don’t want to depart into that too deeply here, only to say that this sobering call carries with it many things, including the need for ownership and repentance from ways of error and harm imposed on individuals (whether known or not) and more importantly, into the universal Church of God.

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What Happened to All Our Children We So “Dedicated” to Jesus?

Over the past couple months, at times, I’ve wondered to myself as I think back to those early days of motherhood and church community, “What happened to all our children–the little ones we so attempted to ‘dedicate’ to Jesus and raise according to scriptural principles and truths?” The heartbreak that is mine, personally, is not unique. I know of a number of situations with similarities, albeit differing details.

Yesterday, I realized I might be asking the wrong question. A sequence of thoughts about blessings and cursings (and generational spirits) linked to readings surrounding that old “Toronto Blessing” in light of a current encounter revealing to me the thing still alive and re-packaged with new veneer, prompted the title of this piece and the question, “What happened to all (or many) of the church ‘parents’ of those days that may have interrupted us in various ways from staying the good course in prioritizing ‘marriage and child-rearing’ above following after and being influenced by some false ‘wind’ of demonic influence and ‘strange fire’?”

It should be a sobering thought to consider, collectively, how my church generation, by inviting and seeking the “Toronto Blessing,” may have inadvertently invited in first generational curses (sins of the fathers) which we are now witnessing bearing their ugly, destructive fruits in the lives of millennials, Gen-X-ers and Gen-Z-er’s. ( I really don’t know if I’ve got the sequence correct…like the labels and linguistics of the “alphabet people” these days, it’s a lot of mud to keep straight.)

While I thought that eventually the “Toronto Blessing” had pretty much fizzled itself out these days, leaving only remnants here and there linguistically and pragmatically in the lives of individual believers and congregations (of somewhat skewed ideas and practices) that might occasionally rear their heads but were of no real consequence, I recently learned otherwise.

And, while some of us clearly renounced this “movement,” we remained in various forms of fellowship and influence with other Christian siblings/families that took amounts of it in, to some degree in the continuum. And this surely had its collective affects on all of our children and on into the lives of those my age who have grandchildren of any age.

Like the endless string of events thrown at us in news these days, we ride the waves of various global situations and the hottest national news until the next sensational (and truly alarming thing) enters our sphere. And then, considerations such as the true source of Covid-19 that caused a global pandemic and worldwide personal disruptions, losses and implementations of new laws and “normal practices” become some type of non sequitur, as they are quietly swept under the proverbial rug.

Like exposing the truth about the genesis of Covid-19 to a public whose short attention span is now elsewhere, why bring up anything about the genesis of the “Toronto Blessing” nearly thirty years later?

Well, if you aren’t following all this, I can’t explain it any better.

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The remainder of this piece will be to share interesting links and videos I have explored in the past couple days, weeks and months, concerning the general topic and those topics I see as “bleeding into” one another.

I think conceptually of the age-old Trojan Horse and Pandora’s Box metaphors, and I think of parallel highways and all roads leading to Rome.

I think of the new MRNA technology concept that turns one’s own body into somewhat of a virus-producing machine, supposedly for some good purpose, and I think of wanting to research the years that various globalizations were emerging (the Internet, and much more technologies and “global communities”) and how they might align with the emergence of the “Toronto Blessing Virus” in the Church.

I think of a recent article I read telling us that Wicca/Pagan/Witchcraft Religions (which include the odd idea of the “good witch”–not to be confused with any fairy-tale character in the Wizard of Oz) and such occult “ministries” as being a “death doula” (yes, I came in contact with someone who called themselves that) has been the fastest growing “religion” in the US during the past twenty years, and that makes me wonder about my church generation “inviting” strange supernatural and demonic spirits into what was to be our “safe space” spiritually. Why paganism and witchcraft are making a comeback

I must wonder whether this trend (in stealing away children raised in some form of “Christian homes”) is akin to some new “familial spirit” that attached to some of the parents themselves, so that their offspring and the friends of their offspring might gravitate toward occult practices, New Age things and “foreign gods.“

I think of the faces of the little ones from all those years ago and how we moms (prior to the “Toronto Blessing”) would meet in someone’s home for a ladies Bible Study in the warm, summer months or otherwise, and how older children would watch the younger at play outside. We women would fellowship together and share and pray for one another as we navigated the things about being a good wife, mother and follower of Jesus. It felt good and right and sister-like. I dare say, we even were taught and reminded that scripture says older women should teach younger women a number of things. For me, I seemed to be in need of observing normal family homes and activities, and learning how to be a better cook and mother, perhaps.

I’ll always remember being at one such meeting where we turned our children loose in the yard and one of the older girls came in to report that there was an issue going on with my son, Zach, who was about three or four years old! We went outside and my little one had climbed high into a tree and refused to come down! I remember he was proudly smiling and said something like, “I am up high and you can’t get me!”

It was partially true. I mean, he was indeed up quite high in the branches of a huge tree and I don’t think any of us women were prepared to climb-and-chase him around to get the little monkey down! Somehow the group, which included all the children of various ages standing around this tree gazing upward, managed to talk, admonish or otherwise coerce my little son down. I really can’t recall what I did or said to him when he safely touched the ground, but I wasn’t too happy. Yet, I do recall us young thirty-some women looking at one another with amusement. Kids will be kids, and there was something funny about the situation.

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Church Globalization and “Para Churches” Promoting “Awakening”

Is globalization of the “Church” through various means a good and right thing? Do we want to move in a syncratic way with other world globalizations and things such as a global world economy, global world government, global world currency, global world mandates of many sorts, and especially, global world “Christianity?”

While on the surface it might sound to be the fulfilment of the high priestly prayer of Jesus and specifically John 17:21 “that they may all be one,” is it?


Are the continued infiltrating movement(s) with their music, theatrics, methodology, goals, literal smoke/fog machines and special effects, stage lighting, motivational speaker techniques, use of social media and QR codes and more, to be considered (without reservation) a “good and ‘right’ thing?”

These days, I can’t seem to attend church anywhere without experiencing some form of what I consider tainted-ness (of one thing or another) that seems to trace itself back to the mid-90’s in contemporary Church history.

DISCERNMENT is NOT knowing the difference between RIGHT and WRONG. It is knowing the difference between RIGHT and ALMOST RIGHT.

-(Charles Spurgeon) from this article

Scripture tells us that local assemblies of believers should be under various structures of godly authority and accountability. I realize that these days, this expresses itself differently among various denominations, sects and non-denominations. But generally, it is some form of elders, deacons, Pastors, Ministers, shepherds, teachers, bishops, etc.

But who do the leaders of various “para churches” founded/headed by what I’d (sometimes) term false preachers like Randy Clark with his “Global Awakening Network” look to? Modern day “apostles” and “prophets?”And, what is that? I recently learned a new term in my readings, “New Apostolic Reformation (NAR)” and this is some type of “list” of those being named as such.

I find it very discouraging, because there are a few worship/praise songs I actually connect with that seem associated with some of these ministries. What do I do with that? Purge my Spotify list? At some point, I think of the scripture, “to the pure all things are pure” and surely over the centuries, various Christians who were off base in some point to some degree penned beautiful worship music that the most conservative among us sing to this day from hymnals world-wide.

The thing I may hate most about this is my current status of being a single (and female) entity, as I navigate church. While this is in keeping with my sometimes circumlocutory writing and speaking style, it surely takes me into many places of further personal contemplations than I have written of here. While I do have the brain capacity for navigating things scripturally and discerningly, a part of me still feels this is upside-down. This is not the way the world should be, and it is not what I desired and envisioned would be the outcome of my own, personal world all those years ago.

I did not envision a personal world marked by two divorces, grown children aligning themselves to some degree with doctrines of demons, occult beliefs and other trendy, damaging ideologies and sending me links that go against the Jesus of the bible and historic scriptures and faith understandings, and the various forms of isolation and sanctioning I am on the receiving end of.

It is hard for me to yet imagine a world where grown children (and now, grandchildren) freely come and go and we enjoy meals, movies, gardens, holidays, everyday life and church together. A world where I do not need to be hyper-vigilant in church situations but simply show up, trust, learn, worship and occasionally (or often) bake a really good cake to bring to some church family social.

I truly fear for the first time in my life, as I look about me, that the world in which I prepared myself (and tried to prepare my children for) no longer exists.

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Footnote/Links/Further Contemplations for Interested Readers to Explore

The “Toronoto Blessing”: 20 Years of Deception, Delusion, and Destruction (in this piece I learned of a “Stacey Campbell” in a bizarre video)

If one does a Google search “who is Stacey Campbell…” they will come up with some version of this sampling of gobbledygook:

Why Google “Stacey Campbell?”

In my reading yesterday I came across the next video below. I have been attempting to find what year this video was and at what particular conference and have been unsuccessful, per se. It generally may date between 2011 to 2018, but I am not sure. What I did find was this article and quotation:

Stacey’s husband Wesley joined her when she began to give individual prophecies. As is her trademark, she shook her head violently from side to side while she spoke or rather shouted the words of prophecy and healing into a microphone. (Her words seemed to move rapidly from one topic to another, so it was not always easy to follow all that was being said.) Several times Wesley shouted into his microphone, “Wow!” in reaction to a prophecy about how someone would have a world impacting ministry.
The end of Stacey’s presentation was essentially a long boast of the work of Mike Bickle and IHOP, the International House of Prayer. “Boast” is a word I am not using carelessly here. Stacey apparently is headquartered with IHOP.

-Source: An “Awakening” Conference Headlined by Stacey Campbell and Heidi Baker

In terms of the over-arching point I am trying to make here, I also came across this podcast made by Stacy Campbell’s son and a friend. Warning, there is mockery and profanity used at places, but, this seems to substantiate how this “Toronto Virus” affected the subsequent generations.

WICCA AND FEMINISM
The 1970s saw the American version of Wicca transform from the magic-based pagan discipline claiming British heritage to a natured-based spiritual movement, with heavy tones of environmentalism and feminism. In turn, this influenced the religion in England.
The feminist influence in Wicca strengthened in the 1970s and 1980s, brought about by women who had entered the religion attracted by the female deity, but were faced with a misogynist reality in the religion’s ranks.

In 1971 Wiccan activist Z. Budapest started the Susan B. Anthony coven, which practiced Dianic Wicca, a form of matriarchal lunar worship. Budapest wrote the Feminist Book of Shadows. A number of feminist covens were outgrowths from Budapest’s coven.

-Wicca (Source)

On music…

Music is extremely powerful and affects the inner most parts of a person. I grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Rock music was a very big part of my life. I still catch myself singing a lot of the catchy lyrics from that time period. The other day I caught myself singing the following lyric I had just heard on a Radio Station:
“Holy Spirit you are welcome here. Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere. Your glory God is what our hearts long for. To be overcome by your presence Lord.”

I then stopped dead in my tracks. I investigated the song and discovered it was made big by the group that grew out of Bill Jobnson’s ministry called ‘Jesus Culture’. Their music is all about hype and sensation. Then I realized this key Scripture verse:
“You once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience.” (Ephesians 2:2)

Examine very carefully the lyric “fill the atmosphere.” Who is the prince of the power of the air? –> It is Satan himself along with his minions. For those who think this is stretching it, I will remind you that each of us is in a very real spiritual battle (Ephesians 6:12).

Next, examine very carefully the lyric “To be overcome by your presence Lord.” The Holy Spirit does not overcome true Christians –> the spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet (1Cor 14:32). True Christians bow down in willful adoration, never by being overcome. I cannot emphasize enough that our Christianity is based on faith (Heb 11:1)(Eph 2:8)(Rom 10:17), not on experience. Never forget that the Holy Spirit abides in you; not around you or on you (1 Jn 4:4). A scripturally correcting wording of the song would be:
“Holy Spirit you are welcome here. Come flood our hearts and take away all fears. Your glory God is what our hearts long for. To be honored by your presence Lord.”

There is simplicity, clarity, satisfaction, and fulfillment in the true Jesus Christ. When I read any of the prolific teachings that come from this bizarre ‘counterfeit movement’ there is an overabundance of words that have you running around in circles and no clarity. They cause you to ever reach, but never obtain fully.

-Source: But LORD!

On being a “WOKE” church…and schools of “Global Awakening”…

An awakening of what and for what?
An awakening–it was billed as an Awakening Conference–but awakening of what and for what? It seems to me the well is running dry. Getting up the enthusiasm is requiring more work, and it looks like a sort of desperation is setting in. The crowd must be satisfied, rewarded, and motivated with more, more, more. What will be next? What to do for an encore? Headliners are few and not very polished, and the old gimmicks are wearing thin.

Having lived through the Jesus People Movement, having seen many healings (I was once healed myself and without even praying for it or being prayed for), having seen signs and wonders, both of the Spirit of God and of the devil, continuing to believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit are genuine and are still being given (so not a cessationist), and having studied many of the awakenings that have occurred in the Church, I must only conclude that what is here being called an awakening is not. It is a humanly engineered enterprise and will ultimately either come to some scandalous ending or will simply fade away. I am hoping for the latter.

As Christians we do hope to see another awakening in our own time and place, when God pours out His Spirit and sweeps countless numbers into His kingdom. He is sovereign and will do it according to His own good pleasure. And when He does, it will be the real thing.
Kent Philpott, March 9, 2011

-Source: An “Awakening” Conference Headlined by Stacey Campbell and Heidi Baker

Articles…

Bethel culture infiltrating my community

The Rock Church: Getting Miles Away from the Truth?

Neocharismatic Christianity and the Rise of the New Apostolic Reformation

http://www.piratechristian.com/messedupchurch/tag/Randy+Clark

‘Toronto Abomination’ resurfaces at BETHEL, CA

Annointing

10 Pastors I’m Concerned About

History of Wicca

Wicca

What is Wicca? An expert on modern witchcraft explains.