In August of 2007, we decided to ask Todd Bentley if he would come to our church and hold a series of meetings.    We knew very little about Todd, but we realized that he carried with him an anointing that was unique in our day.   Being a small church, we didn’t really know if he would come to Concord, especially when Charlotte is right next door.   We got the usual courteous answer that he would pray and seek the leading of the Lord.  His administrative assistant told us that he would only minister in about 15 US cities, so we were believing for the favor of the Lord.

We then discovered that in October Todd would be at Morningstar, so we decided to take a group of people from our church to the service and to introduce them to Todd’s ministry.  We saw Todd at café area and we pressed our way up to Todd and told him we were the ones who invited him to come to Concord.  We both felt that our spirits connected, and he told us to call his office and tell them of our conversation and that he would come to our church.

The reason we wanted Todd to visit Concord and our church was that we knew a strong religious spirit had a stronghold on our city and region and we sensed in the Spirit realm that Todd could be instrumental in breaking this stronghold.     After the revival began in Lakeland, we also realized that Todd’s schedule would probably change, so we were preparing ourselves for a cancellation.   Each time we made contact with Todd’s office, we were encouraged because the word we received was that Todd “didn’t want to miss Concord”.   We knew that something was going to happen when Todd came to Concord.  We made 3 trips to Lakeland in about 6 weeks, soaking up all of the impartation we could get and continuing to believe that the Lord would release Todd to come in June.

As it happened, Todd did agree to come for one night and Concord was to be his first city outside of Lakeland and would serve as a test site for taking the revival outside of Florida.  We were excited about Todd coming, but our prayer was for more than just the one night with Todd.  We had been praying for Lord to unite the pastors and spiritual leaders of our area and that together we could form a unified voice to bring transformation into our region.   It had been prophesied in our church in November 2007 that 12 churches would join with us to bring about this desired transformation.  At that time, we had no other church working with us.    We desired a Kingdom mindset in the hearts of all churches, rather than an individual church mentality and we knew it would take a sovereign move of God for this to happen.

Several attempts had been made in the past by various churches and pastors to bring pastors together, with little or no success.   There seemed to be a resistance to pastors being willing to work together.  What we didn’t know was there were other pastors and churches praying for the same thing we had been praying for.  We just needed a catalyst to pull us together.

Todd’s visit on June 19th was that catalyst.  The arena was filled with nearly 6000 people in the main area and nearly 2000 people in the overflow.   The Highway Patrol reported that nearly 15,000 people were turned away and traffic was blocked for about 6 miles both east and west of the arena on Highway 49.    The city had never experienced such a move of God.

Immediately, we knew that we had to keep this revival spirit going, so we decided to contact many of the pastors and leaders who attended the meeting to see if they would be willing to come together and work for the transformation of our region.   At our first meeting, we had 22 pastors and leaders present with 14 churches and ministries represented.   We decided at that meeting to name our alliance Carolina Kingdom Builders and we recognized the need for pastors and leaders to come together and pray.  We established a biweekly prayer meeting on Monday nights at the local International House of Prayer in Concord.   We also established biweekly Strategy meetings to continue planning our region’s Spiritual Transformation.

At our second Strategy meeting over 30 pastors and leaders were present with 17 different churches and ministries represented.    We formed a board representing pastors and leaders from 5 different churches and ministries.

After nearly 10 months, we continue to meet weekly with local pastors for prayer and monthly with regional pastors and ministry leaders for strategy meetings.  Carolina Kingdom Builders is a ministry that is about the Kingdom of God and not the local church.    We believe this ministry will be a place where pastors and churches can work alongside each other to advance the Kingdom of God.

Because of the influence and unity that CKB is bringing to our region, in the past month:

• Men from 3 churches joined a local church’s men’s ministry and many were healed.   A particular miracle was a man who had surgery in 1978 to remove a tumor in his ear. All bones were removed leaving the man deaf.   His hearing was restored.  Other healings included knees, backs, etc.
• 4 churches joined on May 16th for a regional Youth Rally and over 100 people were present
• A citywide worship conference is being planned with worship teams from local churches
• Miracles are increasing at Impact Church.  We are seeing healings occur on a regular basis.  Healings include deaf ears opened;   tumors removed; diabetes confirmed cured by doctors report; numerous back and neck healings; COPD healed…. We are beginning to record them on our website to encourage people in the miracle power of God

We also have people who have visited and joined our church because we hosted Todd in Concord.

A lady in our church was healed last June when Todd was present.  She had been deaf in her left ear for nearly 20 years and her healing is still perfect today.  She continues to rejoice in God’s goodness.