Why We Chose Bethel

I grew up in what is affectionately known as the “Bible Belt” in the South, and I’ve come to learn that simply means that everyone you run into probably attends church and calls themselves a Christian. Even though I wasn’t born into an immediate family that attended church, my grandparents loved to take me on Sundays. I do not remember much about my church experience other than a lot of really good hugs, and smiling faces. It was not in any way a bad experience. But I would call it an incomplete one. Some of the things I remember are having my grandpa let me stand up on the pew while we sang worship songs. I colored, and brushed my doll’s hair, and my grandma let me check off the box that recorded our attendance. I also would dig through (the southern word is “plunder”) my grandma’s purse because it was always full of werther’s originals hard candies (track her down, she always has them!). One of my fondest memories is of a man named Bob Mcmanus who brought all the kids packs of Wrigley’s gum, but somehow in my heart I knew that I was his favorite. I loved that place. I felt love in that place. Still, as I got older there were questions to be answered. Because at church, in between my “Mama and Poppy,” everything was perfect, but I certainly wondered what happened to my drug addict Dad who had run out. Mama had bought me a beautiful engraved Bible for a birthday once I started reading, it was King James Version. I don’t remember understanding it or attempting to read it other than during sermons. One time I stumbled across a list in the references section, questions someone might have and where to find the answers in the Bible. One question that resonated with me right away was, “What can you do if someone does drugs?,” and I immediately found the scripture reference. It was Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” So that’s how my Dad will get better…. But I grew up, we moved farther from my grandparents, and although many of my roots were in the church, it was becoming obvious that I was just a visitor. Many of the teens had gone to camps together, mission outreaches, and also attended the same school. Not me. There came a time that as an insecure teenager I really didn’t want to spend time with strangers. Not only that but word came that the main sanctuary was being torn down. And that shattered me. Why? Because I loved that church, and I loved the memories that I had cultivated there over the years. And I definitely felt safer inside a church building than in a relationship with Jesus.

I don’t know if I was “saved” by the time I got to high school. I definitely loved God, but I had no frame for what that looked like on an ongoing basis. A friend invited me to a small church near my school, and the transformation it brought to my life was instantaneous. If you want to know what I think about my salvation experience, the best way to describe it is that all of the sudden I had an understanding of what God asked of me as a believer, and I wanted to do it perfectly. I wanted to please Him. And I wanted others to please Him. When I became sexually active I was acutely aware of how much God hated this. One Sunday I walked into the lobby and I couldn’t even move my feet into the sanctuary. I sat in my car and cried until I convinced myself my makeup was way too atrocious to attend. And I never went back. This started a lifestyle of guilt. Every time I sinned, I found myself crawling into a corner and begging God to please not stop loving me. I used to give a little testimony in college of how when I got ready to sin, I would hear God growl at me. I don’t know why I said it other than it felt true, like as I would do something stupid, God would want to let me know how displeased He was.

I’m going to skip ahead a good bit here to avoid droning on forever. The point is, I have been comfortable with God “hating” me. It has felt good to be punished for my sin. Sort of the paradoxical pleasure that comes from hating yourself so much that a knife in the flesh feels good. But it isn’t healthy, and it isn’t right.

I had a really life changing word come from Mary Beth Sponsler probably six months ago. I think it’s God’s word to every one of us believers, but to me, it shattered a lot of my paradigms. She told me, “God says if you never change, He is pleased with you. Right now, He is pleased with you and He loves you” To a sold out God pleaser like me, it changed a lot in my heart. And so began a journey of inching my way into what is sort of known around here as “Bethel Culture.” My current home church, Chapel, has also been incredibly instrumental in my transformation to who I am now. Vastly different than who I was three years ago. We are not running from Chapel. Not even a little bit. First of all, they introduced me to freedom from fear and frigidity. Chapel is a church with a heart to see people set free and I love them for that. They are also very interested in seeing young adults walk in their spiritual gifts. Out of this came a revelation of who God made me to be that no spiritual quiz was giving away. I began to love prayer, not really sure where to turn, Kurt and Anna landed “The Happy Intercessor” in my hands, a book by Beni Johnson, Bill Johnson’s wife. This turned my world upside down. I went from saying “night night prayers,” to driving down the road, weeping, declaring mercy and love over my community. I was so grateful to God for this gift because if you ask me, intercessory prayer is as good as it gets. It’s centered around the presence of God, rooted in capturing the plans of Heaven and agreeing, changing the course of history simply because God’s put that authority in me. So incredible. All of the sudden, it’s true, I was not content with stressing over what to wear to church. I wanted to be at church because I wanted to feel God’s presence again. I told Paul, “Being a Christian is so, so much fun!” God began to give me words like, “I have made you bold and stouthearted,” and I knew He had called me to warrior-dom. One time I prayed so hard, I was laughing and crying. I forced myself to stop because I had to go somewhere, and when I was “coming down” from all the craziness I asked God, “Why me?” and He said instantly and almost audibly, “Because your prayers are moving mountains.” I have held onto that word closer than a treasured security blanket, and though I wrote it down in my prayer journal I have to remind myself of how real it was to me. So that’s my end of it.

For Paul, he was getting wrapped up defeating some of the false teachings bouncing around. Not just false teachings, but things that weren’t making sense to our theological worldview. Yes, we’ve been there. Bill Johnson has made us scratch our chin and spend hours in the word trying to figure out how he could say some of these blasphemies! So we looked down our noses at Bethel, but started seeing people we trusted quote their leadership too. So what else was there but to go past what we were hearing and explore it for ourselves. And it was good. So good. We found ourselves filling out some survey at a marriage conference and it asked us for our mentors. Paul wrote “Kris Valloton” in the blank. I told him, “Paul, you don’t know even know Kris!,” and he informed me that Kris was beginning to be a forefront speaker to his heart about the Bible, theology, and the love of Christ. And it was funny because I sort of considered Beni Johnson to have done some really big things for me through her book. I can say, since I have read about 6 books out of Bethel at this point, that I’ve never seen anything contradicting the Bible. Now, I am not as versed in scripture as Paul. Nor am I as critical of others who are or aren’t, like Paul. It’s probably way more of a testament to say that Paul has not found anything incongruent. Heck, he wants to go to school there!

Now let me say, I do think Bethel is sort of weird. Was it in my comfort zone to see people shaking, and twitching, and jumping around like maniacs? Not really. Do I care though? Nope. Because the only thing that matters to me at this point is loving God, enjoying His presence, and cultivating a lifestyle of worship. And I believe the Bible to be Holy, and set apart, and I believe God speaks through His word to us. There is an irreplaceable place for the word’s of the Bible in the heart of a believer. But I don’t think any real Christian in the world would debate that. The thing that has set apart Bethel, to me at least, is their emphasis on both the availability of God’s presence to the believer, and the price that Jesus paid on the cross for not only this magnificent, loving presence to be manifested, but in it’s midst for their to truly be life abundantly- free from the burden of sin, and from poverty, and ill health. It was hard for me to jump on board with this because I believed trials were from God. Guess what? I still believe that because I think God will use anything to draw us closer to His heart, and His strength, and the shelter of His wings. But I don’t think He gives people sickness, or forces them into poverty and suffering. If I could pick my favorite elements of the gospel, they would be the freedom that is available, as well as the friendship and communion with Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit.

I am so getting off tangent here. You want to know what Bethel is all about? Revival. To me that is exactly what I stated above, available freedom through the manifest presence of God, in a really, really big way. And the best way to get God to show up in a big way like this, or even in my home as I am doing dishes or cooking dinner is to worship His majesty and simply love being with my Father. When that happens, brace yourself, anything can happen. And that is what I get from Bethel, this incredible awareness that God loves us and wants to be with us. And out of that place, He wants to use us. And bless us. One of my favorite “Bethel sayings” is “God is in a good mood.” I teach it to my kids, “guess what, you delight yourself in Him, He’s ready to embrace you.” I know I grieve the Holy Spirit sometimes and I still struggle with my flesh, but I repent and ask Him to come hang out with me some more. He’s not frowning at me. He’s happy to be with me. God has never growled at me a day in my life.

The fruits of rolling around good in this Bethel “stuff” have totally messed me up. When I was visiting Bethel, the speaker said that He had a vision of a chocolate cake and he said, “God said he was the cake and he wanted me to eat it.” Weird, right? I thought it was weird. But the more I thought about how much I loved chocolate cake, and how much I loved God, and how much God likes to bless me, I thought, shame on you Summer for being so simple. Because God, in my experience, is not simple. He’s a big guy, and He’s not boring! I know that...

I received a word several months ago when I had someone leading prayer, they told me that God wanted to bless me with something, and to go to Him and ask what it was. So I did. Do you want to know what He gave me? A fishing pole. I responded, “I really wanted you to bless me with a baby.” But it wasn’t, it was a fishing pole (though I was pregnant only two months later!). Sometimes you have to ask God what these crazy things mean. He said, “I want you to come fishing with me. That’s what a daddy does with his daughter.” God ministers to our hearts in all sorts of ways. I’m not one of those really annoying people that likes to quote Bill Johnson, but he said recently, “You can’t invite God to show up and expect Him to stay in your box.” This doesn’t mean that God won’t meet us where we are at…it just means, I am learning to let God be who He is, not who I think He is. It’s true, I don’t hear God growl at me anymore. I come to him like a little girl and I say, “please don’t make me seize on the floor in front of everybody,” and He laughs and says “Ok.” Sometimes I say, “Do whatever it takes so I can taste your freedom!” and He says, “Except lay seizing on the floor?,” and I agree, and He laughs and says, “Ok.” He is a good God. He is pleased with me. I desperately want my life to go where He goes, but He’s perfectly willing to stay with me when I’m not ready. And I have found in this “Bethel Culture” especially when my religious tendencies get me messed up (and the chocolate cake vision really messed me up!), He really isn’t phased that much. He gives me my space (unlike Bethel, sometimes!), and waits for me to absorb what I need to in order to get it.

So if you have researched Bethel, you will find some really controversial things. Some people just don’t like Bethel. I personally don’t like some of the people who have come out of Bethel or who claim it as their home church. But what Paul and I ultimately did was go to the source. And once we tasted the goodness of God, which is what the church will continuously introduce you to, there was no turning back. So go to www.ibethel.tv and register for their free service. You get a sermon a week. Buy a book online. Just try it, chew it up, and decide for yourself. Yes, they have gold and feathers randomly fall from the ceiling, and gold dust appear in clouds of smoke, but the leadership at Bethel just says, “I don’t know why it happens, I don’t look for it…I just want to worship God.” Honestly, that’s good enough for me. The best thing that ever happened to my Christian walk is to truly absorb the fact that God loves me. ME! ME! How did anyone ever get saved without understanding that?

And right now God is telling me to take a deep breath and trust Him because He’s paved the way for us to get to Redding, and I believe Him.