When leaders play games with God’s resources.

by Matt Green
from The Ministry Report, January 25, 2007

I read a story recently about a group of church leaders who took up an offering among their respective ministries and brought in more than $2 million. I was surprised to discover, however, that the money wasn’t raised for hurricane relief, AIDS orphans or training for pastors in the developing world. No, the leaders gave it to a friend: a prominent televangelist on his 70th birthday. Huh?

Now, I must confess: I’ve been the recipient of a few “Pentecostal handshakes” in which someone surreptitiously passed me a $20 bill and encouraged me to take my wife to a nice restaurant or fill the tank with gas. (Yes, that was in the ’90s.) But this level of extravagance smacks of the corporate arrogance that brought companies like Enron and WorldCom to their knees, a self-serving ethic that assumes that an organization exists for the betterment of its leaders, not for the fulfillment of its mission or the service of its constituents.

I’ve heard too many stories of fat-cat preachers throwing money around like ten-year-olds at a game of Monopoly. They’ll give each other Rolexes and BMWs, all the while encouraging their congregations that, when they step into “divine prosperity,” they too can exercise this level of “generosity.” Generosity! Since when is generosity defined as one rich person collecting money from a bunch of average income earners and then giving it to another rich person? Wall Street has a term for this so-called generosity: corporate incest. Capitol Hill has one too: graft.

Call me idealistic, but I expect better of the Body of Christ. I expect leaders to allocate every penny as though eternal souls depended on it, to model stewardship by accumulating as little as necessary and redirecting the blessings they receive to the areas of greatest need. From a biblical perspective, generosity is exemplified by those who gave out of need to meet an even greater need. Consider the impoverished Philippians, who gave Paul money for the starving Jews. Consider the widow who gave her last penny–or the one who gave her last meal.

Yet some of us have been taught that a birthday gift to a millionaire evangelist is equivalent to buying the freedom of a slave in Sudan. “It’s all planting a seed in the kingdom,” we’re assured. Sorry, but I’ll let that offering plate pass me by untouched. Some would argue that recipients of such gifts are usually very generous people. “They’ll just turn around and sow it back into the kingdom,” they contend. Maybe, but what does this look like to a world that observes the church through a lens smudged by corporate scandals and political corruption?

While most of us will never be wealthy enough to pass multimillion-dollar checks to each other in appreciation for the heroic sacrifices we’ve made for the cause of the gospel, this story serves as a sobering reminder of our dark tendency to turn in upon ourselves and justify all manner of self-indulgence, to slap each other on the back and congratulate each other on our successes while the world looks on in disgust. Maybe someday, if the gospel has saturated every corner of the world and nobody’s going to bed hungry, we can justify this level of triviality. Until then, there’s work to be done. And it’s not our money anyway, is it?

copyright 2007, Strang Communications

Why a religious movement that’s gained cultural prominence should take a second look at {{MORE}}

You began as a fringe movement within the Pentecostal community and made barely a ripple in the public consciousness until a handful of your proponents were exposed for financial and sexual indiscretions in the ’80s. In the ’90s, you faced continuous scrutiny and criticism from heresy hunters and theological watchdog groups, and several books were written deconstructing your supposed sub-orthodox doctrine.

But now, in the new millennium, you can claim victory. A cover story in the September 18 issue of TIME magazine explores your movement, asking, “Does God Want You to Be Rich?” A poll cited in the same issue of the magazine found that 17 percent of Christians surveyed identified themselves with the Word-Faith movement, and 61 percent said they believe God wants people to be prosperous.

Of the four largest megachurches in the country, three (Lakewood Church, Houston, pastored by Joel Osteen; The Potter’s House, Dallas, pastored by T.D. Jakes; and World Changers Church, Atlanta, pastored by Creflo Dollar) preach prosperity theology. And that doesn’t include other high-profile pastors and ministry leaders such as Randy and Paula White, Joyce Meyer, Benny Hinn, Rod Parsley and Eddie Long–all of whom have garnered substantial influence outside the church.

Once relegated to self-publishing your books and speaking at regional conferences and a handful of Bible institutes, you now negotiate seven-figure book contracts with New York publishers, you dominate Christian television and you have fewer critics than you did in the ’80s and ’90s when hardly anyone outside the church knew about you.

Simply put, you effectively adapted your teaching methods and persona to be more appealing to a broader audience. You distanced yourselves from obvious hucksters. You embraced the language of empowerment rather than greed, using terms such as “destiny”, “favor”, “promotion” and “increase”. You harnessed media with sophistication and tact, often eschewing the pulpit theatrics of your Pentecostal forebears.

Yet your message remained consistent, and its simplicity resonated with a culture disillusioned with a God who seemed to be disturbingly unpredictable, prayers that seemed to go unanswered and a version of Christianity that seemed to have little room for three of the most venerated deities in the Western pantheon: money, health and self-fulfillment.

So, the question for you is this: Have your teachings been accepted because they have been weighed in the balances and found to be biblically sound, or because they happen to be compatible with the narcissistic longings of 21st-century Americans? You were prophetic as you reintroduced us to a God who actually hears our prayers and wants to answer them … when you reminded us of the ability (and desire) of God to heal people of their physical infirmities … when you encouraged us to be more liberal in giving and reminded us of the principles of reaping and sowing.

But the truth remains that your simplistic formulas for wealth transfer, divine promotion and supernatural health don’t always ring true in a world where the majority of Christians in non-Western nations live in poverty. You have yet to wrestle through a biblically-coherent theology of suffering and the role it plays in a faithful Christian’s life. And some of you are confused as to whether Jesus wants us to take up our cross and follow Him or discover the champion within ourselves.

Like every religious movement, you’ve adapted to the demands of changing times. Now it’s time to adapt to the demands of an unchanging Word–to embrace the value of sacrifice, as well as success. Our culture is crying for nothing less than the same radical faith that Jesus exhibited when He assumed the identity of an impoverished, unknown, peasant-carpenter to show us what God looks like.

by Matt Green
from The Ministry Report
September 11, 2006