Go Away Already!

Am I the only person in the world that has heard as much as he can stand of celebrities? Who cares?. If only 1/10,000 of the time and energy that people (including Christians) put into celeb watching and tabloid reading were put into studying their bibles and serving Christ...

The Effect of Covetousness and Greed in the Word Faith Movement

We as Christians are expected to encounter persecution and hatred from the world, but we should expect this persecution and hatred to be the result of our faith in Jesus Christ and not the result of our actions. Especially our actions inside the church.

Read this article before moving on: http://www.minnesotamonitor.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=1251

This article is by no means objective or bipartisan, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that these allegations will not be refuted. Instead LWCC will challenge the charge that he broke the law.

It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the
office of overseer, it is a fine work that he desires to do. An overseer,
then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife,
temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to
wine or pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable, free from the love of
money.

1 Timothy 3: 1-3

You shall not covet your neighbor's house, you shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Exodus 20:17

Let me start by stating what I believe to be the foundation of this issue (apart form sinfulness and poor theology)-- a non-biblical church structure. These churches are set up as businesses with a board of directors rather than elders, and the board of directors is made up of other pastors of like mind around the country. Where are the elders who are a part of everyday church life? According to Mac Hammond, is church is not organized that way because it would interfere with his anointing. I know this because I attended LWCC for 12 years, until my Father so graciously saved me in 2005 (no, that's not a typ-o, but it is another story), and I remember him explaining this to the congregation for one reason or another and it always stuck in my head. Why would a pastor that is supposed to teach the Bible not follow it's instruction on how to structure a church? Because it interferes with the way he wants to run it.

The prosperity gospel as a whole is false gospel. The idea that not only should we be rich,but that God wants us that way is ludicrous and counter to Christ's teaching. "How else would we bless the world?" they reason. "Who would want to join a church full of poor suffering people? they ask. My answer: a truly converted Christian that realizes that the glory of God is not in His power to give you wealth and healing, but that His glory is in Himself. To paraphrase John Piper: God is the Gospel. To try to bait the world with worldly goods is to ignore the foolishness of the Gospel. An unsaved person cannot understand the Gospel and therfore considers it foolishness. To win "converts" by luring them with anything less than God Himself is a deception and is filling buildings with unsaved people who believe they know the Bible and the God they believe they serve. How sad. Of course,claiming to desire riches as a way to win souls is merely a facade that allows greed and covetousness to infiltrate the church.

So how does a pastor in this position consider himself free from reproach? Can he? When his reputation within the church is tarnished, it tarnishes the reputation of the church itself. Why do all of these televangelist want planes and such to travel around the world? Because their peers have them. Covetousness displayed to the exact definition of the word.

My intent was to post extensively on this topic, but instead I'll move on. God forgive my anger over this topic. If you belong to one of these churches I only appeal to you to examine it and ask yourself which gospel do you have- The Gospel of the Living God, or the gospel of prosperity, greed and covetousness?