We believe this day, something will transfer and bring us into, I believe, worldwide transition into the greatest Jesus movement we have ever seen.

Lou Engle

“The Send” was an all-day conference that launched Saturday, February 23rd and featured Benny Hinn, Bill Johnson, Mike Bickle, Todd White, Heidi Baker, Francis Chan, and many others.

According to thesend.org: “We are calling 60,000 believers to join us in Orlando, FL for a collaborative gathering that leads to unprecedented action. We’re believing for every believer activated into their evangelistic and missional calling!”

There’s a whole lot of seeker-friendly, prosperity, Charismatic mumbo-jumbo in that last sentence. It’s very confusing. But let’s move on.

The text on the website’s homepage asks the question, “What if the completion of the GREAT COMMISSION depended on our action and willingness to work together?”

What a tragic and revealing question.

Fox News, unfortunately, reported on the event:

Thousands of Christians packed the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida and live-streamed the event in thousands of churches across the United States all part of a “new Jesus movement.”

“The Send,” a 12-hour event Saturday that was a collaboration of national ministries aimed at activating Christians to fulfill their God-given call, was launched by evangelist Lou Engle, Youth With A Mission (YWAM), and other ministries. Engle, the founder of “The Call,” said “The Send” was launched after a conversation in 2011 with YWAM members who spoke about a new generation of Christian missionaries rising up following Rev. Billy Graham’s death.

The Big Names

So, who spoke at “The Send”?

Benny Hinn was the biggest name at the event. According to Tim Challies,

Benny Hinn, a faith healer, teaches that God intends for everyone to be healed of all of their diseases. If people simply have the faith to believe they can be healed, God will heal them through the agency of a healer like himself…As the healings begin, many people come forward, hoping for their own miracle. Generally, though, only people who claim to have already been healed are showcased on the stage where Benny speaks to them and then often “slays” them in the Spirit.

In this way he has manipulated countless people to give money to his cause, believing that giving money will be key to activating their miracle. Not a single one of Hinn’s miracles has ever been verified, though many have been proven to be temporary or false.

You can watch him sing and mumble some things under his breath here.

  • Fresh-faced, ex-pro-hockey player Todd White, a false teacher, also spoke at “The Send.” It should be noted that White also spoke at the 2017 Jesus Conference in Orlando with snake oil salesmen/Word of Faith preachers Benny Hinn and Kenneth Copeland. He claims to have lengthened legs, an old parlor trick that has been debunked ad infinitum. He also claims to have healed those with asthma and blood diseases.
  • Bill Johnson is a dangerous false teacher in his own right who preaches the prosperity gospel, has partnered with Catholics to “preach the Gospel,” and wrote about obtaining an anointing from dead saints (grave sucking) in his book The Physics of Heaven.
  • Mike Bickle runs IHOP, a ministry devoted to mysticism, Gnosticism, and shallow emotional tactics. He also claims to have had fanciful visions and dreams,

I (Mike Bickle) stood there and I was at the Lord’s left hand, and it was not a dream—this was as real as life here and like I said, I don’t know that realm… He (God) was speaking so sternly to me, He said, ‘If you are impatient…you will cause great turmoil and much trouble for many people.’ I was ashamed and I was broken with sorrow that He said that so harshly to me. And then what happened is that I start falling so rapidly—I mean like—S-H-O-O-O-M, it takes about five or six seconds, and fall down to my bed, right through the ceiling—I mean it was right through the walls and things—S-H-O-O-O-M, I hit my bed and it wasn’t like an instant I was there—I had knowledge of travel for five or six seconds. Have you had that?

We all know Francis Chan. He famously said this after abandoning the church he pastored for many years, as reported by the Christian post:

“I’m wasting the human resource of these people that according to Scripture have a miraculous gift that they could contribute to the body but they’re just sitting there quietly. … [T]hey just sit there and listen to me.” Moreover, he felt the church wasn’t following God’s command to love one another — attendees would simply greet each other for 30 seconds and mainly hang out in cliques once a week.

“I was like, ‘God, you wanted a church that was known for their love. You wanted a group of people where everyone was expressing their gifts. … We’re a body. I’m one member, maybe I’m the mouth. But if the mouth is the only thing that’s working and … I’m trying to drag the rest of the body along, chewing on the carpet …”

The Setback

This was the cast of characters chosen to lead thousands of young people out into the deep dark jungles of Indonesia, the closed, communist country of China, and the dangerous Muslim world? These men are the examples young people desperately need for what it looks like to die to self and give up everything for the Great Commission?

A shameless Word of Faith charlatan exposed as a fraud by Dateline NBC?

A snake oil salesman and Benny Hinn disciple?

A grave-sucking enthusiast who can’t discern between Catholicism and Protestantism?

A man who lies about having nonsensical visions and promotes mysticism, Gnosticism and emotionalism?

A pastor who will gladly support and share the stage with the men above, but he couldn’t handle serving people who were

devoted to his teaching?

You literally could not have picked a worse group of people to lead the mission’s charge. This is not an accident or coincidence: this has Satan’s fingerprints all over it.

As I’ve written, simply being a cautious continuationist is destructive when trying to plant a church in animistic cultures.

Belief in continuationism is a much bigger deal than many of us may readily admit. As Fred Butler wrote, “One may affirm doctrinal orthodoxy, but continuationism will begin distorting not only orthodoxy, but one’s life and practice as a believer.”  He’s right. If Scripture’s sufficiency is only given lip-service while meanwhile, everyone’s actually waiting for “the good stuff,” like random “words from God,” leadings, and speculations, you have a dangerous situation on your hands.

Unbiblical notions about tongues, prophecy, healing, and words from God are harmful to churches in the United States, yes, absolutely. No argument here. But unbiblical notions about tongues, prophecy, healing, and words from God are especially harmful in 3rd-world contexts. Continuationism tears at the fabric of the Western church. Its results can be horrifying. Please understand, however, that continuationism absolutely shreds churches in places like the jungles of Papua New Guinea, and it does so quickly. These churches are indistinguishable from sorcery-ridden witch houses.

It’s bad enough when the indigenous church produces its own people who diminish the authority of Scripture, but exporting Western missionaries who have much more money, much nicer clothes, and weigh a few extra pounds is especially harmful.

I repeat: a small drop of Charismaticism will poison the well of cross-cultural church planting. Hinn, White, Bickle, Johnson, and Chan, however, are Wormwood.

The Tragedy

Imagine thousands of young people, after hearing heart-tugging diatribes from these charlatans, spreading their newly appreciated heresies into unreached areas, claiming similar “visions,” teaching their twisted notions of the Christian life, modeling an inestimably low view of Scripture—and planting thousands of churches cults all over the world.

After all, their heroes do it.

Imagine how easy it will be for unreached people groups to mix those half-baked, Western Charismatic beliefs with their ancestral beliefs. Imagine all the fake alter-calls, the hand raising, the money-grubbing, the witch hunts — all because Bill Johnson’s animistic worldview fits seamlessly with theirs.

Garo Young Boy and Girl with their Garo Traditional Dress during a Wangala Festival at Asanaggre 14 KM from Tura. (Pixs By Vishma Thapa)

All of this, and under the label “Great Commission.”

Imagine sending real, God-honoring missionaries into these areas to learn the language and culture and preach the Word, only to be told by the village, “we know this stuff already. The missionaries have already been here. We’re already Christians,” as they watch the local pastor Witch Doctor remove evil spirits from local homes in the name of Jesus, or the people use incantations and power words to convince the Holy Spirit to give them more fruitful gardens.

The rank Charismaticism of “The Send” conference speakers will fit so seamlessly into Animism, so these cultures will gladly adopt it. Because of this, they won’t have a need to repent for their old, wicked ways and believe the true Gospel. Consider how distracted the people will be with fake miracles and visions, outdoing one another with outlandish, ridiculous claims. No, they won’t have time for the simple teaching of God’s Word. They want the “good stuff.” They want power. They want the stuff that makes them legendary; the stuff that makes them proud; the stuff that sounds so good and seems so spiritual.

The stuff Satan will gladly let them have.

Indeed, he’ll help reinforce this farce in whatever way he can. He loves to affirm and reaffirm this Charismatic/Ancestral belief system. After all, it keeps their noses out of their Bibles.

Don’t be fooled: “The Send” was a Satanic assault on real, global mission work. Pray for repentance.

What a tragedy.