scooter wrote:Who is to say that the lavish spending isn't coming from the proceeds of best selling books. If I write a book having to do with God should the goverment tell me how to spend the proceeds??
We just basically run to the little old widow card and assume offerings are what funds the jet fuel.
I don't know that there are enough widows giving to do that.
Me, I don't have a problem with a pastor having a Cadillac, especially is it's brand new. Having owned enough hunk-o-crud-mobiles to know how much it costs to keep one running, I'd say the pastor who owns a low-upkeep car is saving his congregation money. They're gonna be the ones who pay for it either way.
Truth is, I don't worry so much about little old widows spending their last mite on Benny or anyone else's Lear jet. God has a way of providing for open-hearted little old ladies. I am much more worried about younger people with much to give who buy into the hokum. Here's why.
I knew a man back in Sedalia. Call him Doc. He was, and is as far as I know, an orthodontist, a very successful one. He became a Christian before I knew him, but he wound up attending the church I went to, mainly because it was the most "happenin'" independent Charismatic church in town. Doc was pretty concerned with being a "happenin'" Christian. He believed he was a little bit above of most folks, and called to leadership. He met and got involved with a couple who, believe it or not, had been on the road with Benny Hinn. I guess the guy had enough money to pay his and his wife's own way, and make a sizable donation to Benny's ministry fund besides. That's all it takes to get on Benny's team, apparently. In any event, he went to Africa or some place with Benny and Co.
The husband was another orthodontist Doc had met at some professional conference, and his wife was the coldest, hardest woman under the age of 40 that I ever met outside a prison. To say they hadn't become the poster children for loving acceptance and humility under Benny's tutelage would be a massive understatement; arrogance just rolled of of them. They came to town on the strength of Doc's recommendation, and they were massively unimpressed with everyone and everything they encountered. It would be fair to say that most folks who met them were pretty underwhelmed with them after speaking to them for a while. Arrogance isn't hard to detect, and usually has the opposite effect from love. One draws people to you, they other repels them like a bad stench. Guess which is which...
Well, Doc and his wife hung with them for a while, but I'm not sure how long. Doc was always looking for new thrills and chills, so I guess they weren't around long. But during that time, they prophesied over him that he was called to leadership, and he believed them. He tried very hard to become a leader at our church.
At one point, he donated a massive amount of money to begin a "building fund" so we could move into a bigger, more modern, more happenin' building. He also pushed very hard among the congregation and elders to get a new building project going. He very nearly destroyed the church in the process. I know of two lives that got lost in the shuffle while our pastor was distracted with building plans and meetings to get the building started, and the elders were pulled from side to side with the issues facing the move to a new building, and the debt they would be assuming(the note for the balance of the cost to build was in their names, and still is although none of them are elders at or even attend that church anymore).
After the building was finally finished and the move accomplished, Doc got around to asking to attend the elders meetings and have a say in church decisions. He thought it was only right, seeing as how he had such a large investment in the building, and since he was obviously called to leadership, as had been prophesied over him by that couple, it pretty much needed to happen, in his opinion.
Well, no one was all that excited about him taking a leadership position at that level. The pastor and elders all felt he had maturity issues, and no one was very impressed with his many and varied doctrinal stances, especially after he brought in that unpleasant couple. Mostly, they all thought Doc had tried to buy himself a seat on the elders board, and they weren't for sale.
Well, to Doc's credit, he at least ostensibly accepted their refusal. But, he kept trying to introduce teachings at church that leadership felt were inappropriate. At one point, it fell to the pastor to tell him he was out of line and needed to sit and listen rather than teach. To Doc's detriment, he responded by making a very obvious show of reading his scriptures and various other books during sermons at every meeting he attended.
Eventually, he and his family went to another church, and made another substantial building donation. This time, he was successful in buying a seat on the elder board. It was a very small church in a little bitty town that had been struggling to keep a stable membership and a steady income to operate on for a few years. Doc's money was very welcome; indeed, he became the church's biggest contributor as soon as he started tithing.
Some of you might have heard of the church; it was called Smithton Community Church, and made a pretty big splash as Pensacola clone. Doc was a part of all that as it happened, along with my former brother-in-law, a guy who became known as Elder Dave.
A few years down the line, Doc made the mistake of saying he had read a book that had taught him more about Jesus than he'd heard in a month of "revival" meetings. I don't know if he didn't realize he was no longer the major source of funding for the church, or maybe he really believed his money wasn't the source of his standing there. But, after his statement, seats at the front of the main room were no longer available to him and his wife. They were moved to a separate room where less important folks viewed the services via closed circuit camera. Elder Dave ended up there too, but I'm not sure why. They had both been on the ministry and prayer team and, up till then, a major part of any service. They went from hero to zero in nothing flat.
Doc and his family don't attend a church anymore, last I heard. I guess he felt pretty ripped off, and that he'd been burned by churches one time too many. I really believe that Doc brought a lot on himself, but he was bombarded by teachings that fed his ego and promised him importance in exchange for money. I wonder if for, every poor old widow, there aren't ten or twenty Docs, rich, ambitious folks who get strung along for their money, and eventually are cast aside when they are replaced by different sources of funding...
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