TLR Kickstart in Raleigh

To say I had an interesting weekend would be an understatement.

When I travel, I don’t blog it until I get home. Blogging your trips is like asking people to rob your house. I was away for 5 days, and now I’m back. I went to a Last Reformation “kickstart” event in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I only have one friend from childhood, and that’s my choice. I don’t have anything in common with any friends I had when I was a kid, except for my buddy Mike. We met when I was in the third grade, if memory serves. I lived in house on a northeast corner, and his family moved into the house on the southwest corner.

We haven’t always kept in touch, and I guess I would have drifted off, but Mike dug me up and contacted me every so often, and that kept the friendship alive.

I went to the kickstart for two reasons: I wanted to participate in street healing, and I wanted to help Mike get a proper baptism, including the baptism with the Holy Spirit and prayer in tongues.

The original plan was to have a baptism here at the house, but then I learned about the kickstart. It was in Appalachia, sort of, and I feel drawn there. I thought it might give me a chance to visit Tennessee and look at properties. I also thought, wrongly, that it would enable me to get a look at the new Last Reformation center near Charlotte, which is actually over a hundred miles from the location where the kickstart was held.

I felt it would be good for Mike to meet other Spirit-led Christians, and I thought he would learn some important things from the teaching, so off we went. He flew to Charlotte from New Hampshire, and I drove from Ocala, picked him up, and took him to Raleigh.

I have to say that I didn’t like Raleigh at all. The traffic is terrible, and drivers are pretty rude. The city seems invisible. I found myself putting in a lot of car miles on tree-insulated highways that all looked the same. It wasn’t possible to see anything that looked like a city. I just saw highways and malls, except for a visit to the University of North Carolina.

The people there aren’t particularly nice, and that surprised me. I suppose it’s because it’s a college town. It’s full of people who came from other places, and it draws leftists, who are not the nicest people there are. It’s nothing like Ocala. Living here is like getting a hot oil massage all day. The people are wonderful.

I really dislike cities now. In spite of all the good things that happened in Raleigh, I was very happy to leave and return to my farm. I hope I never have to visit Raleigh again.

The trip did not start well. I slept poorly the night before I left. I don’t recall the reason. The next day, after picking Mike up, I made the mistake of drinking an Arnold Palmer, which is tea mixed with lemonade. We shared a room in order to save Mike money, and between the effects of the caffeine and the difficulty of sleeping near someone who snores, I barely slept. This was after driving 600 miles at one crack, so when we got to the event the next morning, I was eager to go but not feeling my best.

The two most prominent figures in the Last Reformation are Torben Sondergaard and his friend Jon Bjarnastein. They are not essential to the success of events, but they showed up. Torben drove from Charlotte, where he now lives.

Torben spoke a lot. We heard more of his testimony concerning his expulsion from Denmark and the way God provided his new headquarters near Charlotte. I wish I could recall it all.

He made the mistake of allowing a Danish TV crew to film him for a “documentary,” and of course, it turned out to be an anti-Christian hit piece. They followed his group as well as some corrupt ministries, including one headed by someone accused of molesting girls. When the edited footage was shown on Danish television, Torben became a pariah. People sent him emails accusing him of pedophilia because they confused him with the other preacher. Politicians said the Last Reformation abused children and the disabled by casting demons out in front of them.

The Danish legislature passed a law against “mental violence” because of Torben. They declared that mental violence should be punished the same way real violence was punished.

Sound familiar? Remember the pampered, faint-hearted millennials who had to cuddle puppies and use coloring books because Trump got elected?

I probably disagree with you about something. This makes you a victim of mental violence. I hope you won’t have me arrested.

Since mental violence is just as bad as physical violence, I assume it’s okay to respond with physical force. I would think the law would permit you to punch people who talk about Jesus, in order to protect yourself from harm.

One day someone called Torben and told him he needed to leave Denmark. The authorities were preparing something for him, and he needed to go. He and his family filled 8 suitcases and left their home in the middle of the night. They came here and applied for asylum.

They ended up in South Florida at first. Torben was concerned about money. A man called him and said that if he ever needed money for rent and so on, he could help. Torben thought he was responding to the stories about the flight from Denmark, but it turned out the man knew nothing about it.

Torben was staying in Palm Beach, and he was about to travel, flying out of the Fort Lauderdale airport. The man told him he lived near the airport. They agreed to meet. The man met him at the terminal and gave him an envelope. When he left, Torben found that he had been given $50,000.

TLR started looking for a new center. They believed they were going to take a property in New Jersey. Someone told them about the North Carolina property, and they decided to visit, thinking it might be a good idea to buy it in a few years.

For some reason, they visited the Ark Encounter first, in Kentucky. This is a tourist attraction. It’s a full-size replica of Noah’s Ark. While they were visiting, Torben’s daughter asked him how Noah got the animals to go into the ark. He told her God, not Noah, brought them.

When they arrived at the property, the owner came out to greet them. He told them he was Noah and that they were the first animals to enter the ark.

They hadn’t been in communication. Torben was using a realtor.

The property is a 50-acre resort with dozens of rooms and an RV park. The owner was a Christian. He said God had told him to buy the place. He hadn’t used it for anything. He had kept the grass mowed, and that was about it.

The owner wanted $2.2 million, but after talking to Torben, he dropped the price to $1.2 million. Torben didn’t have it. Another man contacted him. He was in the process of selling a home in another state. He said he wanted to donate the proceeds, expected to be in the area of $800,000. Torben didn’t want to borrow money. The sellers agreed to lease it with an option to buy.

In a very short period, Torben went from having nowhere to live to having a huge property, with the prospect of having a huge amount of equity right from the start.

It gets weirder. Their air conditioners needed work. They were going to hire someone. A man from Canada said he wanted to visit. They asked him about himself. He said he was a retired air conditioning repairman. Problem solved. One day, Torben’s wife said the property needed a fence. Before they could buy one, a man who owned a fence company said he wasn’t busy, and he wanted to give them a fence for nothing.

Torben said some other amazing things. You have to remember that he’s Danish. He hasn’t been watching CNN every day for the last 10 years. He can’t be expected to fully understand what American Christians deal with. Nonetheless, he described our political problem perfectly. He said things were going well now because we had a friend in the White House. He said things would eventually change. Rage was building up on what he called “the other side,” and when that side regained power, we would have the kind of problems Christians now have in Denmark and other countries.

How long have I been saying that?

He said there was a “Satanic lullabye” in America that had put the church to sleep. We’re obsessed with money and our own desires, so we are prosperous but fat and weak.

I enjoyed hearing this, because I knew there were Christians there who were Democrats. It’s surprising how many charismatics don’t pray in the Spirit, don’t hear from God, and don’t understand how evil the Democratic Party and leftism are. The people at the kickstart had a lot of respect for Torben, and now they were hearing about politics from him. It was a good correction for them.

He mentioned Chick-fil-A. It’s funny how a fast food chain has become such a big deal to Christians. He had an encounter at a Chick-fil-A, and he told about it. He loves the food there. I don’t know if he’s aware of the persecution from homosexuality activists.

I’m conflating things he said over several days.

They put us in groups, and we went out to heal. Our group had two little girls in it. I would say they were around 6 years old. They healed people. Nothing spectactular; we didn’t see legs grow back. But they took away pain.

I only got to pray for one person. We were across the street from UNC, and I prayed for a girl named Beatrice. She was having neck pain. Sure enough, it went away.

At lunch, we talked a lot and saw how similar our views were. The Holy Spirit is binding people together. That was nice. We also discussed problems and errors. We talked about the Sozo/Bethel movement, which is something a lot of people are concerned about. None of us thought Bethel was a sound movement.

The Sozo people will tell you to imagine a traumatic event in your life and ask Jesus to show you where he was when it happened. People who go through it will say things like, “He said he was by the door, and this is what he felt.” I gave it a sincere try once out of consideration for a close friend who is involved in it, and nothing whatsoever happened. I haven’t seen anything like their approach in the Bible.

Our group was late leaving the church where the kickstart was held. Our leader, a guy named Ash, had a lot of responsibilities to handle. A lady with demonic issues was on the floor while other groups left, with members of our group praying for her and casting spirits out.

I joined the group and sat a few feet away. The lady writhed and foamed at the mouth. She made sounds like an angry animal. A woman named Jen was at her head, and Jen does not do well with spit, so she had to leave the room. She asked me to take her place, so I sat down behind the demonized lady, who I will call Sally, and put my hands on her shoulders. I resumed telling the spirits they had to leave.

She started to convulse, and we had to get a wastebasket in case she was sick. The spirits left her, and peace filled her.

Afterward, she said that while she was on the ground, it hurt to look at the people trying to deliver her. She said they shined with a very bright light. She wanted to look at them, but it was too hard.

We had to repeat the process the next day. That’s normal. Spirits like to try to come back. They are probably ordered to do it.

Had it not been for Sally’s need, we would have been able to pray for more people on the street.

On Sunday, we were prepared for baptism. Mike kept saying he wanted me to do it. They had kiddie pools out back, but he wanted to do it at our hotel. I told him we would do whatever he wanted. He listened to the lecture, and he talked to Ash for a while. Then he decided he could not be baptized at the event.

We left and drove 8 miles to the hotel.

Mike was concerned because I couldn’t sleep, so he decided to get a room for himself. He picked the worst possible time. He did it while we were supposed to be getting him baptized and running back to the event. It took a very long time. Instead of waiting until later, he packed all of his things and tried to move them to the new room. Obviously, this could have waited.

This is normal. When evil spirits know you’re about to do something good, they will do their best to obstruct. They may come up with “urgent” things you absolutely have to do first.

He checked into a hotel 350 feet away, and there were delays. He couldn’t actually go into his room until they cleaned it, so he had to bring all of his things back to my room.

He put on shorts, and we went to the pool. There were three boys splashing and yelling. We couldn’t wait any more. We had to do it.

I put him under, baptizing him with water and the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus, and he got back out. We started walking out. One of the boys asked Mike if he liked McDonald’s. He said he did. I told them Chick-fil-A ruled!

Back at the room, Mike was highly disturbed. I don’t want to into it, but baptism was overwhelming for him. You expect to see this kind of thing with women, but men tend to be harder to upset. I was shocked to see how profoundly he was affected. It took quite a while for him to recover.

He then took a surprisingly long shower and took quite a while to get dressed. We were absent from the event for a couple of hours. I was afraid we would miss everything. I wanted to be sure someone other than me got to help him release the gift of tongues.

The lady with the demon problem was on the ground again, so I joined the group and got to work. Mike sat by himself and talked with God. When we beat the demons again, a young man needed help praying in tongues. I kept telling him he needed to start moving his mouth on his own. People tend to demand that God make them speak. It was taking him quite a while to get going, and it didn’t look like I was needed, so I went and talked to Mike.

When the young man started speaking in tongues, Ash and I took Mike inside, and Ash counseled him. We prayed for him and stuck by him, and after a while, the gift was released.

Mission accomplished.

After things wound down, Mike wanted to rest. He was very drained. I drove him to his hotel, and then I returned to the kickstart. I was wiped out from lack of sleep and driving, but I was not going to miss out.

The next day was a day of prayer and testimony and so on, and thank God, we didn’t start until 2 p.m.

Mike had to go to Cancun for dental work, so I had to pick him up at 7:30 the next morning, drop him at the airport, and drive home alone. I stopped at a Chick-fil-A for breakfast, and I got out my laptop and looked at maps and routes. I wanted to go Tennessee very badly.

I prayed and surfed, and eventually, I felt that God was telling me to go home, so I got in the car, and I finally arrived at my gate at 6:30 p.m.

I am surprised to see how much I had to do for Mike. I think of him as a sturdy, resilient guy who is anything but needy, but he needed a lot of help and patience this weekend. It reminded me of looking after my dad, and that’s very strange. I wonder how much of it was due to supernatural opposition.

I highly recommend TLR kickstarts. I am never going to join TLR, Bethel, the Royal Family, or any other denomination, and I am not suggesting they don’t make mistakes, but what they do is generally right, and it’s very powerful.

If you want to hear about TLR errors, I can mention a few things.

First, Tom Loud, a Royal Family/Identity preacher disagrees with some TLR doctrines. His belief is that they think you can’t be saved unless you get water-baptized and you speak in tongues. I don’t know if this is what they believe or not; I’m just relating what his secretary told me. I don’t think omitting these things will land you in hell. I could not baptize my dad before he died, and I saw no indication that he spoke in tongues, but I’m very confident he made it.

Second, Torben says he got driven out of Denmark because he didn’t listen when God spoke softly. He says he was comfortable with what he was doing in Denmark, so he didn’t pay attention when God started telling him to leave, and then he had to leave in the middle of the night, under threat of imprisonment and losing his kids.

That sounds like a mistake.

I have had concerns because I am so comfortable here. I have a magnificent house and farm. I love the people here. There is very little traffic. I keep feeling that God wants me in Tennessee, but I like it here, and I can’t seem to find a property that resembles what my heart tells me he wants for me.

I don’t want to leave at the point of a gun! I want to go early, when I’m not rushed.

Ash and I talked. He said he used to have a big house with a music studio. He sold it and started renting. Now he thinks God is telling him to get something he can move around in, like an RV or trailer.

Together with Mike, we prayed that God would show both of us where to go and that he would help us make whatever moves needed to be made.

Yesterday, I had the strangest sensation. I started driving home, and I realized I didn’t want to go back to Florida! This house is a treasure, but I didn’t want to go. I believe God is answering our prayers.

TLR is doing good work, and you can find information about their events on their website. If you’re tired of boring Christianity in which nothing ever seems to happen, you might want to give them a try.