News Snippets From All Beats

Income earned by mega churches reportedly averages $6.5 million a year.  The annual budget for Lakewood Church in Houston, pastured by Joel Osteen, exceeds $80 million.¹  Merchandise in the form of CDs, DVDs, and books probably accounts for a large portion of the income.  Some of the changes that have been made which are propelling both growth and income were noted by Jonathan Walton, Assistant Professor of religious studies at University of California, Riverside.  Walton told CNN that “the plasma screen TVs have replaced crosses, Power Point-like presentations of words of songs and liturgical practices have replaced the hymnals.”²  While the CNN report did not touch on it, another change responsible for the growth of mega churches is the commercialization of the message marketed to the members, or rather, the consumers.

Notes:

^{1 - 2.} CNN, “Mega churches mean big business,” Connect the World, CNN. January 22, 2010.

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/americas/01/21/religion.mega.church.christian/

Bishop T.D. Jakes called Christians back to the Bible over the weekend, and then confused them as to which bible they should rely on by employing a guest speaker from the ‘other’ bible, the DSM-IV.¹ The “Back II Bible Conference” was held May 16 thru 18, and featured Dr. Cynthia James, who is a Christian psychologist. As there is no such thing as Christian psychology, this means that Dr. James dispenses scripture mingled with psychological therapy when she counsels Christians on living a Christian life. This counseling is more accurately termed Psychoheresy² because it supplements God’s word with the perverted wisdom of men.

When famous church leaders turn over their pulpits to these counselors, the they turn their flock over to wolves in sheep’s clothing who, at best, give them a compromised plan to live their lives by, and, at worst, tempt them into seeking answers from psychotherapy instead of the Bible.

Today, however, fewer and fewer pastors can discern the danger, and Dr. James gets some of the credit for that too. Her credentials from her speaker’s bio states that she “provides oversight for the credentialing, counseling, and pastoral care of approximately 140 pastors and ministers” who most likely have been inducted into Psychoheresy themselves.³

Dr. James is also the pastor of Landmark Ministries Church of God, Oakland, California, where they obviously skip the Bible’s teaching against women pastors. No doubt, however, that James would be what one might call a dynamic speaker; which is the real criterion for so many of these conference speakers today. And that’s really back to the future, not back to the Bible.

Notes:

In an example of the power of the dialectical conversion process on even its facilitators, leadership at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church actually thought they could compromise Ingrid Schlueter, talk show host for VCY American Radio Network. Schlueter is a contender for the faith whose shows and website expose the compromise and apostasy in this Laodicean church age.

Using tactic number three in dealing with resisters, ¹ Erik Rees of Saddleback Church, on Rick Warren’s behalf, attempted to befriend and involve Schlueter in Saddleback’s upcoming global leadership conference.² The problem with those leaders slated to speak, as Shlueter has pointed out repeatedly on her radio show and in her website, is that they are almost as harmful to the Church as apostate Rick Warren himself.

Rees offered Schlueter an all-expenses paid trip to California so that she could be absorbed into 2,000 duped fans of Warren’s cancerous growth on Christianity. As an added bonus, Schlueter would even be included in a small group discussion with the wizard himself. All she had to do to receive this special treatment was abide by one condition: remain silent until the end to give the brainwashing and manipulation a chance to take affect.

For an inspiring example of a godly woman standing for Christ and against the kingdoms of this world, readers must read Schlueter’s answer to Rick Warren’s invitation themselves at her website, www.sliceoflaodicea.com.

Mrs. Schlueter will be taking this weekend off from her website to enjoy Mother’s Day. Happy Mother’s Day to all you women of God who stand firm in the faith and contend for it wherever God has placed you; you are such a blessing to us all.

Notes:

^1. Berit Kjos, “Spirit-Led or Purpose-Driven?: Dealing with Resisters” (Part 4), Kjos Ministries, November 2003.

http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/04/4-purpose-resisters.htm

^2. Ingrid Schlueter, “An Invitation and A Response,” SliceofLaodicea.com, May 9, 2008.

http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com/?p=741

Bishop T.D. Jakes is charging that the media is unfairly characterizing the African-American church. The media, though, is only doing what it has finally been forced to do in examining one Rev. Jeremiah Wright and his obvious racists and Marxist leanings. Had Wright not been the twenty-year spiritual advisor of Barack Obama, he could have continued making his caustic speeches denouncing America, Caucasians, and hardworking people who obtained success, and gone completely unnoticed.

The media would have ignored Wright precisely because it fears a T.D. Jakes, or some other personality, would accuse the press of maligning the whole African-American church by exposing Wright’s racial intolerance and subtle calls for anarchy. Not to mention the media’s love affair with Democratic presidential candidates. What’s on the radar screen now is the important question as to either Obama’s deceitfulness (secretly agreeing with Wright), or his inability to make necessary character assessments of people who have an influential relationship with him, and who stand over him as a respected counselor, on intimate and moral matters, for two decades.

Jakes, however, would not have it get a hearing. “I implore you to not take the words of a few and depict the thoughts, hearts and motives of many,” Jakes wrote in his CNN piece.¹ But did he craft this to mean the few in the media who got the story out? There was, after all, no condemnation of Wright in Jakes’ commentary.

Notes:

¹ T.D. Jakes, “Commentary: Negative press distracts churches from mission,” CNN Politics.com, May 5, 2008.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/05/jakes

The list of speakers scheduled to participate in Crystal Cathedral’s Rethink conference in January 2008 reveals promoters will be practicing mental stealth. Of course, a gathering of global influencers would not be complete without a cadre of Teletherapists. They are necessary to persuade attendees to embrace new relationships with unsaved globalists, and to take on new ministries to the emotional needs of the rising global consciousness; instead of ministering the gospel of grace to the lost and the perishing. The lineup includes:

H. B. London - billed as the “pastor to pastors” at Focus on The Family, where he is employed as Vice President, Ministry Outreach, Pastoral Ministries.¹ This purported shepherd-of-shepherds recently earned recognition for assisting in the restoration of fallen New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard; restoring him not to the cross of Christ, but to the serpentine staff of psychotherapy, of which mastery Haggard is now in hot pursuit for his own salvation, and the salvation of others whom he hopes to one day earn a living from; being paid to likewise restore them, to Freud, Jung, and Maslow and the gang.

Appearing here in the conference line-up of speakers, London proves once again that he is not only unable to lead pastors, he can’t even lead sheep, or himself, in the right direction: which would be as far from the bazaar as possible. Instead, he is put on the hook as a lure to entice the young and simple in the faith into the camp to be made merchandise of. Certainly it must be a proud moment for Dr. Dobson and Focus on the Family to have helped to give this man legs to walk, and a mouth speaking great things.

Dr. Tim Clinton - is a licensed counselor and marriage and family therapists, and an ordained minister. It is obvious by his other pursuits which one of these opposing views the doctor holds to be superior to the other, and which one he views to be only supplemental to his practice. Clinton is also the President of American Christian Counselors, an organization of other licensed therapists, and the Executive Director of the Center for Counseling and Family Studies, and Professor of Counseling and Pastoral Care at Liberty Theological Seminary. In this last position, it is interesting to note that should pastors reach out for encouragement from a supposed bulwark of theology and doctrine, they will be shown the real power behind the stone, and nursed back to competency with the sour milk of Freud and the gang.

Dr. Les Parrott - is the founder of the Center for Relationship Development at Pacific University. Like his colleagues, Parrott’s concentration is on preaching relationships between other people; married people, unmarried people, and people who are doing the things that were formally reserved for married people, but very little in the way of establishing and maintaining a relationship with God. This is because his Psychology Bible (DSM IV) neither asserts the existence of God nor views relationships with Him as healthy (a diagnostic category has been derived for the treatment of persons to ease them out of a religious view). He is an appropriate choice for officiating in this marriage where “prominent thought leaders become you thought partners.”²

Dr. Henry Cloud - an author and clinical psychologists with a consulting practice who “works with leaders in a wide range of organizations and corporations.”³ With his new book The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You, Cloud justifies plying his craft on Christians. By asserting the dichotomy of the psychological mind existing separately from the spiritual heart, Cloud suggests the two are at impasse without the power of his psychotherapy to bridge them. He then implies that his work will allow the victorious Word that ineptly gets “locked in their minds” to get activated in their hearts.⁴ Of course, the Bible alone would never do because that is just full of the secrets that get locked in the head, and can’t find their way out to help anyone without the power of psychotherapy to set them free. Not to mention, Cloud would make far less royalties only selling bibles.

These speakers are among those being exalted by Crystal Cathedral for their vain imaginations which are the products of their own reasoning, and the successes they have had in deceiving others with their stratagems. They measure each other by worldly standards, and they are led away by their own conceits. Their carnal reasoning is actually against God; they do not come from Him, they do not express Him, they do not rely on Him, and He will not have them used for Him.

All the “latest thoughts and perspectives,”⁵ or strategies, of these icons are contrived to wage campaigns after the manner of physical warfare, and rely on the weapons wielded by the flesh. The weapons of psychoanalytic observations and manipulative therapies are weapons of the flesh. The eclecticism of modern Teletherapists in applying human techniques to alter thinking and behavior are all strategies and schemes derived and employed by sentient beings relying on their own devices. They are not of God; neither are they for the Christian (2Co 10:3-5).

Notes:

1. Pressroom Biographies, H. B. London, Jr., Vice President, Ministry Outreach/Pastoral Ministries, Focus on the Family.

http://www.focusonthefamily.com/press/focusvoices/A000000029.cfm

2. Rethink, Why Rethink: Rethink Tanks - Learn and Share.

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com

_content&task=view&id=1&Itemid=2 (accessed 10-8-07).

3. Rethink, Speakers.

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com

_content&task

=blogcategory&id=3&Itemid=14

4. Editorial Reviews of Dr. Henry Cloud, The Secret Things of God: Unlocking the Treasures Reserved for You, by Dr. Henry Cloud. 2007.

http://www.amazon.com/Secret-Things-God-Unlocking-

Treasures/dp/1416563601]

9. Rethink, Rethink the Details.

http://www.rethinkconference.com/index.php?option=com_

content&task=view&id=4&Itemid=6

David Dansker

In determining conferences to skip in the upcoming seminar season, examining the list of Celebrity Christian Globetrotters scheduled to share their wisdom at Crystal Cathedral’s Rethink conference in January 2008 may be helpful. The following are a few Bio-observations for some of these influential icons:

Lee Strobel - is a best selling author and former teaching pastor of Willow Creek Community Church (under Bill Hybels) and Saddleback Church (under Rick Warren). It was Strobel who thought that the case for Christ was yet to be presented and, ignoring the fact that the task had already been completed and complied in the New Testament by Apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, produced an effort that contributed only to distracting from the authorized version; and showed, as does his enlistment with this conference, that he is also unable to fathom the case for discernment.

Jay Sekulow - is the Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ). Sekulow’s appearance at Rethink is difficult to explain, unless it is the product of too much arguing. One of the identifying characteristics of a good attorney is his ability to argue a case from both sides, and one of the biggest liabilities of an attorney is an inability to remain on the side he has chosen. Is this conference appearance the result of too much ideological plea bargaining?

John Ortberg - is the teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church. His appearance at Rethink is easier to understand. This is the same Presbyterian USA denomination that sided with Palestinian homicide bombers and against Israel when the later began building a wall to protect themselves. PCUSA enacted their own brand of economic sanctions by calling for financial divestment from companies doing business in Israel.

It is also the same PCUSA that allows the local presbytery to ordain homosexuals, and denies “the singular saving lordship of Jesus Christ,”¹ and from which thousands of lesser luminaries have been able to flee, with their congregations. Not so with the Ortberg, under whose leadership, and despite its prestige and wealth, or perhaps due to it, his church remains affiliated with PCUSA to this day. So much for the “teaching” pastor.

Notes:

1. Lillian Kwon, “Dissident Presbyterians Offered New Home in EPC,” Christian Post, Jun 26, 2007. http://www.christianpost.com/article/20070626/28167_Dissident

_Presbyterians_Offered_New_Home_in_EPC.htm.

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When mega church pastors leave, often the pastoral selection committee identifies replacement candidates who are themselves mega church pastors. New Life Church in Colorado Springs is scheduled to vote in August on a new senior pastor from another mega church to replace former pastor Ted Haggard. While the situation surrounding this search for a pastor arose from scandal, earmarks of the search for a replacement pastor are consistent with what large mega churches increasingly see their pastors to be.

Noting that a church is a family, New Life associate pastor Bob Brendle also said: “We need an effective CEO.” These new Chief Executive Officers are also well known personalities who are treated very much like celebrities. Celebrity globetrotting is already a well established practice for famous Christian speakers who crisscross the globe from one engagement to the next.

Details learned about requirements of some celebrity speakers, and related by J. Lee Grady, editor, Charisma magazine, mirror those of secular entertainers. When enquires are made for speaking engagements, some of the accommodations that must be met are outrageous–a suite in a five-star hotel, a $10,000 deposit for fuel for their private jet, and a five-figure honorarium.

Mega churches can come up with this kind of cash, but at the expense of the edification of the saints. There is also another aspect to perpetuating this pastoral selection process that provides a very sad commentary on this whole business.

It is a testimony of the ineffectual tenure of these shepherds who supposedly preach to thousands on a regular basis, up to five times or more a week, over several years, and are unable to raise up one solitary pastor from amongst their flock who can take their place. It is also a testimony of the sinful nature of man where nothing else will please but a famous personality.

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