A very interesting news story sheds some light, in a backhanded way, on Todd Bentley's finances during the Lakeland revival.
The story is by Cary McMullen of the Lakeland Ledger, who did a lot of fine reporting during the revival.
Have a look at the photo next to the story. Really big and fancy, right? Must be expensive...
The building in question belongs to a Lakeland church, Without Walls Church, which has decided to move to a different building.
McMullen's background on the church, lower on in the story, has an eyeopening note:
Randy White said two churches, including Family Worship Center in Lakeland, had offered to buy the Central church facility. He also said that evangelist Todd Bentley who conducted a faith-healing revival in Lakeland in 2008 attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around the world, offered to buy the sanctuary for $30 million. White said Scott Thomas asked him not to sell.
I work with a lady who used to work in a bank for many years. I asked her, "If I were going to buy a church for $30 million, how much would I need to put down to secure a mortgage?
She hazarded a guess that since the mortgage crisis, "You'd probably need $2 or $3 million at least."
Go back to ther revival for a moment. Todd Bentley gives the impression that the revival barely paid for itself. But, when BDBO looked at the 2008 Canadian tax returns for Bentley's old ministry, it was listed as having about $4 million in assets.
A big chunk of that was the house near Lakeland that Bentley intended to live in with his starter family, which has since been sold.
The return for 2008 lists just over $8 million Cdn. in revenues and just under $5 million in expenses.
Bentley, then, could have made a down payment with ministry money, but mortgage payments would have been a stretch. I am pondering whether Bentley, had he bought the church, would have been tempted to keep the Lakeland revival--and its donations--going somehow.
What is certain, though, is that this story reveals that in the spring and summer of 2008, Todd Bentley had enough resources to consider buying a $30 million US church.
However, shortly after his divorce from Shonnah Bentley--Bentley said in a Sept. 2009 "webinar", he was down to having only $20 in his wallet.
What happened to all the money that could have bought Todd Bentley that $30 million church?