Introduction
This article was written after watching the following two videos: Jesus asked Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor for forgiveness? Video, and Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor and the giant finance angel? Video
“Activating” the kids at Bethel Redding
1. “We also have a curriculum, four lessons on that that will just get your kids activated in prophesying over each other, over teachers, and learning how God will talk to them, learning to hear Him…” [1] –Seth Dahl, Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor
2. “Oftentimes, I think we get too concerned about is that God or is that me. I think we get way too concerned since we have the mind of Christ. Much of what God will do will feel like us or seem like us. ” [2] –Seth Dahl, Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor
3. “That’s the goal, is to get the children experiencing the works of God from a young age, having experiences to do with God, so they can never be argued out of their experience.” [3] –Seth Dahl, Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor
4. “You know, I think our environment, we have a lot of grace for, let’s say a kid gives a Word of Knowledge that isn’t accurate. We’re okay with that. We just have a high value for risk. And if it didn’t work, it didn’t work, and we move on.” [4] –Eric Johnson, Bethel Redding Pastor
5. “You had me come down and bring some kids to do Words of Knowledge on the stage. Like, how can we activate the kids more?” [5] –Seth Dahl to Eric Johnson
Activate the kids?
In other words, there is little discernment at Bethel Redding. Children’s Pastor Seth Dahl’s response to the interviewer about discernment is telling. Watch from the beginning of video to 1 minute and 40 seconds:
Interviewer: “How is it you guys help the kids learn to discern encounters, dreams, visions, those kind of things?”
Seth Dahl: “I had a mom come, they moved here not that long ago. Their son would come home and say, Mom, I’m seeing angels. Mom, I’ve seen Jesus. She came and said, how do I know he’s not just making it up? I said, what’s the fruit? Does he love God more? Does he love Jesus more? Is he more on fire for God? What did the angel tell him? What’s the angel doing? Things like that. Oftentimes I think we get too concerned about was that God or was it me. I think we get way too concerned with that since we have the mind of Christ. Much of what God will do will feel like us or seem like us. Like, He has a thought through us and it’s like a thought. Wow, I could have missed that or dismissed something God sent me as if it were my own.” (bold mine)
Now, please note how Children’s Pastor Seth Dahl seeks to determine if an experience is from the Lord or demonic:
Seth Dahl: “But, when it comes to discerning if it’s God or the devil, like, does it steal, kill or destroy, or does it give life and life more abundantly? That seems to me a bit easier. Like, how did you feel? Were you scared? Was it bad fear? You know, versus did you feel peaceful. Did you feel loved. Watching the fruit of the lives too.”
In other words, if it feels bad, it must be the devil. If it feels like peace and love, it must be from God. This is astonishingly naïve. We know from the Word of God that Satan is a master liar. For deception to be effective, it must be perceived as good.
Christ tells us the devil “was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (John 8:44)
Bethel Redding has tasted many demonic deceptions through false visions, dreams, and prophecies. There are also the false prophecies and visions that come from the imaginations of eager Bethel Redding supporters. In Bethel Redding culture, it almost seems like the sky is the limit when it comes to spiritual experience.
Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. (2 Peter 1:20-21)
Seth Dahl describes an alleged angelic encounter that took place in children’s ministry. He says, “I asked the little girl where the angels were in the room, and she pointed off and said, there’s one over there by the first graders. So I asked her, I said, do you know why he’s here? And she took off, and I think she went and talked to the angel and when she came back she said, he’s here for healing. So I had her send all the kids over to the first grade mat where the angel was. And just a little bit of time later, every single child was healed in the room, and no one even had to pray.” [6] There are many claims about healings in children’s ministry.
The continued spread of Bethel Redding’s hyper-charismatic/New Apostolic Reformation approach threatens to sooner or later infect the remaining traditional Pentecostal churches, whose saints believe in the gifts of the Spirit but who are far more conservative in application.
Through the popular music group, Jesus Culture, Christians throughout the Body of Christ are being exposed to Bethel Redding theology without even realizing it. (Read)
Observing the horror and wreckage of hyper-charismatic excess has also caused some in the Body of Christ to pull back from intimate relationship with God.
One last observation about Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor Seth Dahl. Even with his giant finance angel, his false vision of Jesus asking forgiveness, don’t make him your perfect storm of a villain. He is accountable, and he is going to have to answer to God, but in many ways he is simply a reflection of Bethel Redding culture.
Related articles: Bethel Redding Snack Pack
Source Notes:
1. Seth Dahl, Bethel Children’s Ministry Video Conference: Seth Dahl and Eric Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-48hPfSD6Y (4 minutes, 29 seconds in video)
2. Seth Dahl, Children’s Ministry Insights https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1g-wTvelpEs (In first few minutes of video)
3. Seth Dahl, Bethel Children’s Ministry Video Conference: Seth Dahl and Eric Johnson https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-48hPfSD6Y (1 minute 53 seconds in video)
4. Eric Johnson, Ibid. (29 minutes 53 seconds in video)
5. Seth Dahl, Ibid. (25 minutes, 47 seconds in video)
3. “That’s the goal, is to get the children experiencing the works of God from a young age, having experiences to do with God, so they can never be argued out of their experience.” [3] –Seth Dahl, Bethel Redding Children’s Pastor
To me this is the scary part… train them so they cannot be argued out of their experience. Teach them so that the truth cannot penetrate their deceived experience.
Wow getting kids to prophecy to one another? Seriously? This is madness.
These guys are dangerous with their “use of how did ot feel” as method of discernment. People who meditate or take psychedelic drugs have feelings of “peace and love”, did that mean it was of God? No way! Those are demonic spirit guides set out to deceive and destroy.
Hi Nicole, send me your questions at mywordlikefire@yahoo.com.
I live in the Northwest and my church recently started bringing bethels new age practices into the church. I am preparing to bring the issue to the leadership. Is there any way I can get in touch with you to ask a few important questions?
I feel bad for them. I feel bad for Seth. And I feel for the people who have believed all this stuff like Christ asking Seth for forgiveness.
Bunch of crazies! The Bethle church is like a sick, very problematic disease that keeps spreading through our weak minded, easily convinced society of sheeple. Hmmm just wondering what this “non profit” organizations net worth is anyway. Wake up people and stop letting this power hungry group of obvious weirdos jam fairy tales down your throat. If you need “god diamonds” and “Angel feathers” to reassure yourself that your a good person, you’re not a good person and you’re part of the problem. Consider a free mind not chained down by the beliefs of a master story teller/illusionist.
Satan comes as an ANGEL of light, not an angel of destruction. HTAT is the long play, not the short play.
Asking if an angel told them to destroy vs help out will not give ‘discernment’!
Leaving aside biblical arguments about the gifts of the Holy Spirit, in scripture we are taught that only Christians are in dwelt by the Holy Spirit. Having been a Sunday School teacher and a parent to my own children, I know that not all of children of Christian families are saved (yet!). If they are not saved, they cannot have the Holy Spirit inside them and thus cannot ‘prophesy’. It is foolish of Sunday School teachers to believe all their students are Christians.
My own daughter (who is a Christian) had a supposed vision of Jesus at age six. She now says it was her imagination brought on by being in a Christian school environment that encouraged and expected such phenomena. Small children generally like to please adults. The children at Bethel would be no different. If the adults get excited about a child ‘seeing’ an angel, it would encourage other children to ‘see’ them too.
Correct Maggie. Spiritual formation classes are also taught at our Baptist Christian colleges here in our state with these college students coming back to our local congregations with much influence. No longer is the aging process in acquiring knowledge, wisdom, guidance, and maturity in Christ respected within our churches, but instead, we have turned over the instruction of our faith to these college students who regard themselves highly above the rest of us. It breaks my heart to see these young people come back and promote the likes of John Wimber, Henry Nouwen, Rick Joyner, Mike Bickle, Ron Luce, Benny Hinn (yes, one of the Baptist graduates was and is promoting one of Hinn’s penned publications, “Good Morning Holy Spirit” to our teens), and Beth Moore.
There is one hallmark that I personally have noticed with these college students in that they speak constantly of the holy spirit with absolutely no mention of Jesus any longer. “The holy spirit spoke to me and said” statement is quite common amongst these followers and they love to say “I had a dream about you” and impart their interpretations on you so that the gullible will become followers of themselves, rather than Christ.
The boasting and bragging from these individuals saying, “I am more spiritual than you, thus I know more than you,” grieves my soul as Jesus speaks of people such as these with reference to the fact that men would love to make themselves lords over people. The one factor missing in their spiritual formation agendas is this, these people never point people to Jesus, nor do they encourage us to read our Bibles for ourselves, allowing the Holy Spirit to teach, minister, and speak to us through His very Word.
The expectation of hearing “God’s voice” is also being introduced to children in non-charismatic churches by way of spiritual formation curriculum in Sunday school.
Thank you!
Well done!
The bottom line is: does what they are doing lines up with the word…or not?
Deuteronomy 18:20-22 makes it clear that prophecies must come true ALL of the time or they are not from God. Verse 18 even says that those who give false prophecies should die. God takes speaking on his behalf very, very seriously.
2 Peter 1:20-21 also makes it clear that one cannot practice or teach prophecy. It flows from the Holy Spirit…or it is a lie deserving of death. I didn’t write this…Moses and Peter did.
Colossians 2:18 also tells us to avoid those who vainly boast about seeing angels.
This is what is going on: Jeremiah 14:14
4 Then the Lord said unto me, The prophets prophesy lies in my name: I sent them not, neither have I commanded them, neither spake unto them: they prophesy unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of nought, and the deceit of their heart.
All of this is false, and all of this is sick. I am also certain that the power of suggestion, and kids wanting to feel important and thus, maybe exaggerating a bit as I did as a kid, plays a roll in all of this wickedness.
Below I laid out as many scriptures as I could find on the warnings given to us by Jesus and Paul on the false prophets and teachers among us:
http://followingjesuschrist3.com/2014/09/18/false-prophets-and-teachers/