Catch the Fire Toronto, previously known as Toronto Airport Vineyard and Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF) is a non-denominational neocharismatic Christian church in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the flagship church of the Catch The Fire movement, and is also affiliated with the Partners in Harvest group of churches. The church the birthplace and center of the Toronto Blessing, a prominent religious revival and phenomenon in charismatic Christianity during the 1990s.
[...]
History
In 2010, Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship changed its name to Catch The Fire Toronto, to go along with its new international church planting vision.
Pastors John Arnott and Carol Arnott founded the church around 1988. The church later joined John Wimber's Vineyard movement and was known as Toronto Airport Vineyard Church. It met in various rented locations throughout Toronto until the early 1990s when the church found a more permanent home near the Lester B. Pearson Airport.
In January 1994, Randy Clark, a Vineyard pastor, was invited to preach. John Arnott heard that Clark had attended a conference with Rodney Howard-Browne and had been greatly impacted by Howard-Browne's ministry. The revival started during Clark's two-month visit but continued after he left. Some religious leaders criticized the church and revival because of the teachings and manifestations that occurred. Wimber initially defended the Airport Vineyard saying "Nearly everything we've seen—falling, weeping, laughing, shaking—has been seen before, not only in our own memory, but in revivals all over the world."[1]
Nevertheless, the church withdrew or was expelled, according to some, from the Vineyard.[2] Wimber explained the circumstances surrounding the split in a Christianity Today interview, saying that the revival at Toronto was "changing our definition of renewal in Vineyard" and that "[the Vineyard's] decision was to withdraw endorsement; [TACF's] decision was to resign".[3]
After the break with Wimber and the Vineyard in 1995, the church was renamed Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship. It founded Partners in Harvest, a group of churches that shared similar beliefs. In 2006, the Arnotts resigned as senior pastors to pursue a new ministry, Catch the Fire. They were succeeded by Steve and Sandra Long.
The Arnotts now hold the position of Founding Pastors, and the church was renamed in 2010 as Catch the Fire-Toronto, to reflect the "fire" of God spreading to other congregations around the world, unifying them.
Beliefs and practices
At TACF revival services, worshippers have exhibited unusual behaviours that they attribute to an encounter with God and the presence of the Holy Spirit. The most common described behaviours include laughter (often referred to as "holy laughter"), weeping, deep bowing, shaking, "drunkenness" (a reference to Acts 2:13-15 and Ephesians 5:18), slain in the Spirit and speaking in tongues. Other less common behaviours include producing sounds that resemble animals, such as roaring like lions.
The TACF website described it thus:
"The Toronto Blessing is a transferable anointing. In its most visible form it overcomes worshippers with outbreaks of laughter, weeping, groaning, shaking, falling, 'drunkenness,' and even behaviours that have been described as a 'cross between a jungle and a farmyard.'"
The church is also the site where the prophecy of the golden sword was given.
The statement of faith of Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship can be found on their main website.
[links/footnotes omitted] Not your ordinary Lutheran faith. Not Roman Catholic. Not Unitarian. Of its own chrisma. Your's or not, bark like a dog and roll on the floor at a Lutheran sermon, and you will be considered greatly ill-behaved.
There is a split to two websites:
http://ctftoronto.com/
https://catchthefire.com/
And, should you wonder about that "Golden Sword Prophecy" bit, apologetics.org gives insight:
When Randy Clark announced his sermon title, "The Making of a Warrior," the Spirit fell powerfully on many people and especially on Carol Arnott. For about twenty minutes, while on the floor, she was slashing violently with a two handed sword in her hands (her hands together as if holding a sword). After Randy finished his message, she got up and powerfully delivered the following prophecy:
"This is My sword, this is not man's sword, this is My golden sword. The ways you have been using My weapons, the methods that you have been using in the past, you are to throw them away because I am giving you My sword now and the old ways of doing things will not do. The old methods will not be acceptable to Me anymore because I am doing a new thing. Do not look to the yesterdays but look to the future because I am doing a new thing and this new way is not the old. This new way is new and you must throw away the old ways of doing things and take up My sword because My sword is made of pure gold and is purer and is mighty. If you wield it the captives will be set free, the chains will be broken and the healings will be manifest because it will not be by might, nor by power, but by My wonderful Holy Spirit. It is by Him, it is by Him that this new wave will be brought forth, it is by Him that the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will ride again. In this next wave I am requiring those who take up this golden sword to be refined, to be pure, to have all the dross refined in the fire because if you take this sword and there is secret sin in your life this sword will kill you. This next wave is no joke. It is not a laughing matter. All those who do not want to give up their sin and are fearful, like Gideon's men, stand back, because I am calling men and women in these next days that will allow me to refine them, that will allow me to chasten, but not with anger because I am a loving God. I am a God full of mercy but I am serious as the time is short. The bridegroom is most anxious for His bride, so those of you that will, let Me refine you and come and take up that golden sword for I will use you in ways, I will use you in ways that you can't imagine, but I must purify you first."
... old ways not acceptable - new thing, so forget the great schism, it's yesterday's news ... if you buy into it what, take up the sword, and do what? Joseph Smith with Moroni's help deciphered golden scrolls, symbolizing learnings, not sword work, so this is NEW.
The "fire bug" - burning logo part of a registered catchthefire.com copyrighted trademark; see: left side of the image for the logo:
Keep it in mind. Trinity flaming or otherwise, it repeats, web-wise. Places where it may say more than the website itself says about site owner self description, orientation and/or Gestalt.
Some dissenters exist online, one example:
John the Apostle warned, “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1). This warning is particularly relevant today, as Christianity is undergoing a paradigm shift of major proportions — a shift from faith to feelings; from fact to fantasy; and from reason to esoteric revelation. This paradigm shift is what I call the Counterfeit Revival.
Prophets of the Counterfeit Revival claim that a bloody civil war is going to polarize the entire Christian community. On one side will be those who embrace new revelations. On the other will be those who obstinately cling to reason. One “prophet” went so far as to say, “God is going to renovate the entire understanding of what Christianity is in the nations of the Earth….In twenty years there will be a totally different understanding of Christianity as we know it.”
Some of the most recognizable names in the Christian community are endorsing this paradigm shift with little or no reservation. The appeal is so staggering that churches on every continent are now inviting their people to “experience” God in a brand new way. It is now estimated that seven thousand churches in England alone have embraced the Counterfeit Revival. And with each passing day the numbers are escalating dramatically.
Sardonic laughter, spasmodic jerks, signs and wonders, super apostles and prophets, and being “slain in the spirit” are pointed to as empirical evidence of the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The form and function of the church are being so radically rearranged that even the secular world has taken note.
Time magazine, in an article titled “Laughing for the Lord,” pointed out that Anglican parishes across England today bear a greater resemblance to “rock concerts” and “rugby matches” than to Christian worship. The article says that sanctuaries throughout the world are littered with bodies as “supplicants sob, shake, roar like lions and strangest of all, laugh uncontrollably.” Newsweek, in an article titled “The Giggles Are for God,” reported that people in churches worldwide were jerking spasmodically, dancing ecstatically, and acting like animals. The article reported that this behavior by Christians has already spread from Canada to “roughly 7,000 congregations in Hong Kong, Norway, South Africa, and Australia, plus scores of churches in the United States.”
Newspapers from the Orlando Sentinel to the Dallas Morning News have written stories on what is termed the “fastest-growing trend within Christianity.” According to The New York Times, this trend promotes an “experiential” Christianity that “promises an emotional encounter with God” manifested by “shaking, screaming, fainting and falling into trances.”
However, there is this. Make what you will of it. And of course, this:
Okay.
Moving on - here is a variant of the catch the fire logo [duality, not trinity]:
In an effort to keep a long story short, proof without links of more of the same:
There is GOD TV. Music.
There are articles of various stripes, some down playing any threat, others less so; here, here, here, here touching the NAR (and note the variation on the trinity/flame motif). [update - inadvertently omitted links, here, here and here - the latter item mentioning this pious Andy Parrish]
Where the stench is heavy, is with the Golden Sword of political intrigue, and with newly declared today's Appostles and Prophets however dressed and presented, we worry about any part of NAR extremism among cult dimensions, with suggestions of an oleaginous provocateur as part of that fold. (same item, separate link)
So, what is the point? Is there a point? In short, the answer is yes, the point is know who you are dealing with even if a message is encased in a vanilla-looking web page with badging for the knowing initiates, specifically, this (yes, burning brightly - the upper left logo-&-name joinder, not notice of anything particular to the unknowing, but there for those a part of the cult-movement, or being disclosed through research of those who question and learn):
 |
| Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. |
Opinions differ, but John in Revelations never described the mark of the Beast. But Beast being a question; there is this:
THAT is loathing and LOATHING! And that little fire bug - again, low key, but telling. Let the flame be your guiding light to vote Ellison.
LAST: Smiles are inexpensive, trust in Ellison and what he's stood for, priceless.
