Supersized Jesus

Can somebody please explain to me what is up with the whole “One church in three locations” thing?? Is it just a black mega-church phenomenon? There are a number of these in my city.

It is just about the most irritating thing to see preachers like Michael Freeman , Bishop Paul Morton, and Brandon Porter (here in my town) advertise all their locations like they are opening Wal-Marts or McDonalds’. What, the Lord can’t call another preacher? Is the force of your personality so strong, are you just so popular that people won’t come unless YOU are there preaching? Can God not Get His Word preached unless YOU are the one doing it? We let these dudes get away with anything!

I have friends who play at these franchises, and they tell me how the pastor has to preach the nine o’clock service at one church, leave before the benediction to make the ten thirty at site two just in time to preach the sermon, and rush back to the first for a noon service, and finally preach a six o’clock at the third! Morton said that he takes a helicopter or a plane from one place in Georgia to New Orleans every Sunday.

How can you be any good to any flock at that rate? Let somebody else preach! Christianity looks like just another business when it is done like this. It looks like you are just collecting three paychecks.

One church here has one location that is in the middle of a community that is falling apart and rife with crime. Isn’t there enough work to do there without having to make a giant triangle across the county to “help” those in the outlying areas?

One might think that it is because you have to maintain your nearly million-dollar estate, with your five figure home theater and sound system, and I wouldn’t want anyone to think you were pimping the Gospel. I wouldn’t want anyone to think that because you are going so far as to suggest that people pawn their jewelry and such, you are struggling to maintain a lifestyle and that this is why you keep opening up new franchises. (You know who you are. I know, because I know the guys who installed your system, and I know what they think of Christ as a result of seeing how you live versus how your church communities live.)

Memphis, where I live, is a town with nearly one church per person! It makes me sick to see churches, often of the same denomination, within a rock’s throw of each other. Some of these preachers could shut down and work at one of the franchises. But nooooo! Everybody has got to be the HPIC! Just greed masquerading as shepherding. Even Jesus delegated! My goodness!

Why do we put up with stuff in God’s name that we wouldn’t let a cop or a congressman do if he were in our own family?!?

Where is the Circle’s “New Beginning”?

“Wolf, wolf! Beware!”:

Watch how many televangelists (and local preachers) tell you that “2008 is the Year of New Beginnings!” (I just saw the little English bishop, John Francis, doing it on TBN today…)

As you are tempted to “buy” into it, tingling with anticipation at the thought of the new car, the job, the debt cancellation, the husman, or the miraculous healing, think back to the first few months of the previous years and recall that you’ve heard it alllll before, like Coca-Cola Classic — just the same old product re-packaged for the short-term-memory-deficient among us!

There is nothing new but the suit. The line is the same, and the hook is the same: Exercise your Faith, and open your checkbook. God is just a merchant to them, and you must PAY for your miracles. You must pay THEM! (What is the jet for? To fly up to Heaven with your prayer requests, and to get Personal instructions?!?)

Please hear me, people! The story is the same empty con every year! Stop letting these pimps take you. Jesus and salvation cost you not a dime! HE already paid the price. And not in Hell, either! You can get no miracle that He does not ordain, and you cannot order Him around by “learning these principles,” as they say.

 Christianity is not about “giving to get.” God will take care of you. You don’t have to pay Him. Some of us, through work, or inheritance, will be rich, but the poor will always be among us. Some of us will live sick-free lives, and die old, but all of us will die! And God is STILL perfect, and STILL right, and STILL good.

Understand that this life is an eyelash, and that eternity, though foreign to us, is broader than the distance from here to Jupiter by comparison. Any joy we experience here won’t even move the needle when we see Him and see all He has built for us! The REAL Faith comes in believing Jesus when He tells us not to put our hopes in earthly mammon, but to store up riches in Heaven where the glory is endless! Feed the goose, don’t cut open its belly and snatch out the last egg! Pray to God for that eternal point of view, and live life not in the pursuit of wealth and comfort, but in the hopes of grasping the scroll that says, “Well Done!”

The Christian faith is not about sloganism, numerology, and using the Bible as a chemistry book. And God ain’t the popsicle man! 

If their supply is cut off, maybe they’ll stop the “Quest fa yo Dollar” and get saved and learn the truth!

The Hypocralypse

Williams’ Dictionary. 

The “Hypocralypse”  (hi-POK-ra-lips)   n    def. – The sudden upsurge of “preachers”  (read: “Carnival Barkers”) who convolute the Gospel into a means of obtaining wealth from their “marks” by telling them to go get it from God.

Key sign of the Hypocralypse: They boast of  great wealth and “Supernatural Favor,” they flaunt their Bentleys or top-end Mercedes’, they regale with stories of  lavish mansions, (tax free “parsonages”). And rather than share with you the wealth they got from you, they make up magical formulas disguised as “Biblical Principles” for you to “tap into” the same blessings of God.

ex. “Use the same faith God used, the “God kind of Faith,” and create whatever you want, just like God did! Being made in the image of God means you can develop your Faith to the point to where you can do exactly what HE did!”

The Hypocralypse is often associated with “Immagettin” (ah-mah-GED-n)  n  , which is the great battle being waged by biblically loyal Christians against crooked, heartless, greedy, satin-tongued fake prognosticators who are “gettin’” every dime they have from those who don’t know and don’t WANNA know the hard Truths of Scripture.

The fighting is fierce, and the enemy is great in number, but as always, the Lord will win out with fewer soldiers that He may prove His might! There will be no secret, “catching away” of the saints in this battle! The example of Scripture is that Christians have to join the battle, not hide away from it.

If you are angry about these terms, you are either a three-legged sheep, or a wolf with a lambhock in ya mowf (mouth)!

 

B.S. (bishop-sniffing) Buzzwords

There are a few words and phrases common within the current form of popular Prosperity preaching. Many of us are not biblically literate enough to discern, so I figured that I’d perform this small service right quick. Indulge my grammar, if you will…

If you are at a church and hear two or more of these terms in one service, button up yo’ hip pocket and get out before offering time! If you are watching teevee and hear these terms, turn the channel to Nick at Nite and find “Sanford and Son,” ’cause Aunt Esther got more Holy Ghost than most of these televandalists!

If they try to get you to donate a certain amount of money that corresponds with a certain Bible chapter and verse, ding ding ding ding! They are trying to test your sucker-filter.  

I’ve done tireless research- to the chagrin of my wife-  and there are more, but these are a few of the key ones;

1 “Sow into…” (meaning money)

2 “Believe God for your…”

3 “You’re the head and NOT the tail.”

4 “Birth out”

5 “Increeeease!” (Jakes)

6 “Seed” (meaning money)

7 “Your BREAKthrough!” (THIS one is the “Chill Out” of worn-out Christian phrases)

8 Next Level

9 “…calls things that are not as though they were.” (GOD does this. Not people. Word of Faith trash.)

10 “Shanda la la bosha tayaya…”

11 Such and Such “Christian Center”

12 “The spirit of…” (perversion, pedophilia, nicotine, alcohol, drug abuse, pornography, adultery, greed, etc. Are these supposed to be demons? What sense does that make? What were these demons doing before these things were invented, or before people were created?)

13 “Slap yo neighbor, an’ say ‘naaaybuh’…!” (I think they do this to make sure that the mob mentality has kicked in and they are ready for the fleecin”!)

14 Authority (YOURS, not God’s)

15 “In this season”

16 “This is your Time“

17 “God’s gittin’ retty ta…”

18 “Take you out” (as in, “The devil’s tryin’ to “‘take you out!’”)

19 “Double Po’tion”

20 “Tenfold Blessin’”

21 “Money COMIN’!”

22 “God is raisin’ up a generation of…”

23 “I’m speaking prophetically, now…”

24 “You will never be the same!”

25 Supernatural favor!

26 “Supernatural debt cancellation”

27 “This (whatever year it currently is) is the year of…” (They do this every– single– year! It is so tired. Endless false, unchallenged prophecies.)

28 “Speak to your situation.”

29 “It’s your time!”

30 “Um preachin’ now!”

31 The anointing

Question: Why do they always have to holler? Did Jesus holler at His congregations? And HE didn’t even have a microphone. Don’t holler at me. I ain’t sleep! If you can’t get your point across in a calm manner, maybe you need to check your source material. Preach more Bible and less Rev.Whosoever.

I like to hear James Brownholler, but his lyrical content and diction were a whole lot less important than yours should be, IMpostle.

The Charlatan’s Mantra

 ”Have a need?

Plant a seed.

Stop! Don’t read!

Put on speed!

Feed my greed!”

Sheep, take heed!      Derrick L. Williams

The Boy Who Cried “Wolf!” Was Right. Once.

I, being a musician, am up till the wee small hours of the night. in what is perhaps not the best expense of my time, I usually end up watching televangelists on networks such as, BET, TBN, the Word network, and the God Channel (how presumptuous!). Some may call me a “heresy hunter,” or some other such derisive term designed to steer one’s focus away from “the  man behind the curtain.” (see: “The Wizard of Oz”) In my mind, I am fulfilling a Biblical mandate to defend and protect the faith which was handed down to us. I don’t “hunt” heresy. I am simply a Christian who is learning about the Lord, and who sees a need to defend His character as I would my earthly father if he were being constantly lied on and misrepresented. I NOTICE heresy. I don’t get caught up in the charisma or the personality of a “Mand of Gawd.”* God is not Santa, and these hucksters are not His little helpers. They’re more like little “self-helpers!”

“Pastor” Kerney Thomas, is a popular (I guess) late-night info-preacher, that is known for his empassioned, almost tearful pleas on behalf of those poor souls who need his healing power, his healing hankies, his anointed oil, and YOUR money. So that you may know him when you see him, he looks like Clifton Davis**, and he frequently breaks into these sudden, startling shouts when the power of GOD! is released on someone, whether in person or through the teevee screen. He apparently is so anointed that his healings are effective on tape at three-fifteen in the morning when all the ladies with the green dresses on, and nebulous migraine headaches are asleep! Wow!

One problem: If he is so good at healing folk – through the power of GOD!– why is he going bald?

Can’t GOD!, grow hair?

Why does he heal the chicken parts, the backs, and legs, and necks of people who are still overweight and still wear glasses?! Wouldn’t a true God be able to restore sight and take off a few pounds? It is interesting that Bruh*** Thomas only heals that which cannot be seen. Through the power of-GOD!

If God– the REAL God– can make a man out of some DIRT (which He did), can’t He replace a leg? If He can raise someone who has been dead for days, can’t he put an eye into an empty socket? On teevee? Yeah, Benny Hinn, or some other one, always tells stories about people being raised from the dead watching his program, or what happened in some revival in east Africa somewhere, or in Iowa forty years ago, but we never see it on teevee. All we see are people getting up from wheelchairs (that were probably given to them on the way in! Robert Tilton!).

Rather than join in the chorus of “Fake!, Fake!,” many of those claiming Christ would rather squelch the cries by calling us heresy hunters. Rather than examining these public teachings, which should rightfully be scrutinized, they launch websites casting  judgments on people who are simply pointing out the wolf. But all the while, they say that it is wrong to judge… Why don’t they see the contradiction in their diction? It is as if they are saying, “It’s wrong to hate, so I hate those who hate me.”

These people are the Discovery Channel hyenas that feed on the old and weak wildebeest and zebras in the teeming, needful herd, and just like hyenas, they laugh sarcastically at us all for not being learned and able enough to protect them. So, if I had only two choices, I’d rather be a “Heresy Hunter” than an accomplice to the pillage of the poor!

*Man of God, Preacher

**Used to be an actor, now a TBN host.

***Brother