Bethel Church senior pastor Bill Johnson returned to the altar earlier this week, marrying his fiancée Linda Francoeur.
Despite being on a 4-month sabbatical, Johnson was a keynote speaker at Kenneth Copeland’s Southwest Believers Conference, where he revealed that he asked Francoeur to marry him on July 18, his 75th birthday.
“Linda loves my family so much- my family is so crazy about her that I thought ‘I’m going to do the unusual. I’m going to propose at my birthday party.’
“… And I went down on a knee. I’m not going to right now, but I went down on a knee. If I do it now with tears and all, I’ll be a mess. So, but uh anyway, I asked her to marry me and my kids just cheered and just went, “This is great.” Yeah. So, so fun.”
A month later, on August 18th, the two were married in a private ceremony with Bethel chief prophet Kris Vallotton presiding.
Notably, in 2022, Bill’s first wife Benni Johnson passed away after a long battle with cancer at the age of 67.
During her first diagnosis in 2017, Beni Johnson revealed she had a heavenly encounter with Jesus in the spirit and gained access to “healing power over cancer” and told the congregants to begin grabbing the healing power of cancer “out of heaven” as a means of obtaining healing.
in 2021, when Bill revealed the cancer came back, he said they were confident she would be healed, sharing with the church:
We’re not begging for a miracle. It’s already been bought and paid for. The entire Christian life for me is learning what’s in my possession and what’s in my account and how to make withdrawals, and that’s the entire Christian life.
…Guilt and shame is false humility, and it introduces you to an insulation to breakthrough, and so what you want to do is stay away from that…but what we know for sure is that divine health is our portion. We know that no weapon formed against us can prosper. We know that he sent his word that is finely tuned and specifically designed for Benni’s situation.
He sent his word and healed her. We know that by the stripes of Jesus- did you know the stripes of Jesus, the suffering, was not necessary for your redemption? It was necessary for our healing. The death on the cross was necessary for our salvation- the shedding of blood, but not the suffering from a whip. That was for the healing. That was for the deliverance.
