The Official Handbook “How to Fleece For Fun & Profit”
In the tradition of “Amway and the Contemporary Church”
Comes the “Official Handbook of How to Fleece the Flock for Fun and Profit”
©2002 OAIM
Lionfish’s Hot Picks:
”If anyone challenges you as a prophet of God, remind them of the verse that says “touch not the anointed of God” and of the consequences of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
”Discourage the flock from reading the Bible for themselves. Remind them often of how the Holy Spirit spoke to you and this reduces the need for study of the Bible because you have knowledge that supercedes the Bible. Don’t forget to inject a verse here and there so they will be convinced that this is from God. Choose obscure verses so the flock doesn’t realize that they have nothing to do with what you are saying. …
If any of the flock attempts to read the bible on their own, make sure you direct them to your interpretation of the scriptures by showing them what it “really” means”.
”The most annoying people are those who keep insisting on sound doctrine and one must guard against this attack at all cost. Your income and reputation are at stake on this one. However, this can be easily overcome through the buzzwords of “Can’t we all just get along? We all love the same Jesus”. Convince the flock that doctrine is divisive and that to love the Lord is all that matters. This works well because they then are the ones labeled as divisive and it questions their spirituality. When this is accomplished, it makes it easy to dismiss what they are saying”.
”Emotionalism is essential for a flock-fleecing ministry. Mimic the most successful fleecers and practice this often until you have it down pat”.
”For a ministry to thrive, money must regularly be fleeced from the flock. Don’t take all of the money at once because it would drain the well dry, and you must be careful to spread it out over a very long time in order to raise your own income”.
“Remember that the corrupt nature of man is to seek after fame and fortune for themselves at the exclusion of others. You can be assured of a following as long as you continue to offer them the possibility of riches and power. Keeping this in mind, continue to appeal to the corrupt nature of man and spiritualize it by suggesting that the things they desire are the same things that God desires for them. Often repeat the phrases such as: “God desires for you to be rich, healthy and happy above everything else.” Avoid people who claim that spiritual maturity is more important in God’s eyes than financial success. Keep your flock from these types. They can be very devastating to your ministry”.
July 22nd, 2007 at 9:55 pm
Mn, were there any bloggers in the Bible…?
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
I’m sure we could re-work things a little to establish that there were NT bloggers at the least. I’ll just run down to Qumran, and dig out the relevant scroll.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:05 pm
I’m sure we could re-work things a little to establish that there were NT bloggers at the least. I’ll just run down to Qumran, and dig out the relevant scroll. Be a hoot if there was an LF in there.
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:20 pm
mn, of course not everyone will walk this out like I do. Some people will work normal jobs, but if you aren’t busy consuming all the time you can spend your free time doing things that matter, you can spend your money on things that matter. I know a large number of people that work four days a week instead of five, so they still minister to their work mates, but also have an extra day to be more involved in their neighborhood. Think outside the norm mate, God gave us this incredible imagination, we need it desperately.
rev
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:30 pm
Rev
I would luuurrrvv to work four days a week - but have four very expensive teenage munchkins to maintain.
Seriously I have thought about it but no can do. I am open to offers though.
Cheers
MN
July 22nd, 2007 at 10:38 pm
Rev -
Does going Scuba Diving constitute ‘consumption’. And is it something that matters?
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:46 am
We are all consumers, the goal is not to end consuming, but to consume in an ethical and sustainable fashion.
Not sure what you mean by is it something that matters.
rev
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:56 am
sounds to me like he’s trying to say scaba divers are very unimportant people. So your scubaphobic are you lionfish…. wait a minute. A lionfish would be afraid of scuba divers, they have spearguns. HMMMM
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:35 am
Tammy Fay Bakker has died of lung cancer You don;t have to be dowdy to be a Christian girls, take a page fomr Tammy Fays book and snap yourself a man and a fortune to boot!
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:49 am
I don’t know if anyone else saw it but Entertainment Tonight interviewed Tammy Fay Bakker within the last few weeks of her life. Trademark make up, 68 pounds (30 kgs), struggling for breath. I do not think any christian could have watched the interview and not felt some compassion. It was very very sad. Tammy saying she did not want her doctors to tell her how much longer she had on this earth as it may discourage her faith level but no matter how long she had left on this earth, she knew she was going to be with Jesus for eternity.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:59 am
rev you write - “Some people will work normal jobs, but if you aren’t busy consuming all the time you can spend your free time doing things that matter, you can spend your money on things that matter…”
I am only asking if when I go scuba diving or buy a cobra air integrated dive computer - can it be counted as ’something that matters’ or is it pure consumerism.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:29 am
people matter mate, so when you go scuba diving how is it about people. Just incase you didn’t know you are a people.
rev
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:28 pm
people…what about fish? Are they importnant too?
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Only if they have coins in their mouths, or have a lemon-herb crust
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
btw FL
i have been attending pente churches for about 20 yrs… and have no intention to leave
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:45 pm
the verses i put up were obviously meant to be read as a guide for what to do or how to react to someone who corrupts the gospel
that it was the judaizers means nothing
the pente church is being corrupted by the panganisers and i think Paul would probably say the same sort of thing
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:12 pm
On 894 to 896, Lionfish, that preview of ‘Suffer the Children’ is limited by its own production. Snippets of conversations give a limited view of context and content.
For instance Paul said, ‘righteousness should have been by law’, but the entire verse says, ‘Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid: for if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law.’ Gal.3:21
I think the producers may have a point, but I don’t trust their methodology or their presentation, and neither should you, in the interests of fairness.
mn,
I have to say that your comments are fair, but they are compassionate reasoning rather than scriptural accuracy. We don’t receive faith through suffering. faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. Physical and emotional suffering is more likely to produce doubt than faith, but I’ll qualify this by adding that in those who are true believers who suffer, patience and endurance is an amazing testimony to their belief in Christ, and to not be healed in no way makes a person less of a Christian or less of a believer, or someone without faith in Christ, or a faithless person.
But we have to make a distinction between faith in God and our ability to go through difficulties without wavering in our conviction that God is and that we are his children, regardless of our circumstances, and the kind of faith Jesus is talking about when he says to the woman with the issue of blood, ‘woman, your faith has made you whole’, or the centurion that his faith has caused his servant to be healed, or to the Canaanite woman that her faith had caused her daughter to be delivered of a demon. When Jesus rebuked his disciples by saying, ‘you of little faith’, he wasn’t talking about their faith in Him, but in their ability to overcome fear of the weather.
The Bible tells us that faith can be increased, and that it is a key to receiving the promises of God, however repentance and faith which accepts Jesus as Lord and Saviour are the only requirement for salvation, whether we’re healed or not.
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:26 pm
Facelift,
It is a preview … do yourself a favour and get a copy of the whole movie.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:32 am
Ah Lionfish. I haven’t been scuba diving for 10 years and not likely to go again in the near future. I miss it. I still want to dive Sipidan before I die.
Go enjoy, meditate over and marvel at God’s creation. And say hello to the fishies for me.
Scuba diving should be a spiritual discipline.
July 24th, 2007 at 12:51 am
Facelift
I find your discussion about faith curious - it seems a bit mechanical to me.
I’m also not sure what you mean by compassionate reasoning as opposed to spiritual accuracy - should there be a difference?
About faith I make these observations:
Firstly, it is not something we manufacture or produce on tap - it is the gift of God (Eph 2:8) that we should not boast.
Secondly the measure of faith that each of us has is assigned by God (Rom 12:3).
Thirdly we are indeed given trials of all kinds precisely to test our strength and produce endurance (Rom 12:3) - which in my experience is something that God values very highly otherwise He wouldn’t take the time to do some of the things He does - e.g the time between the promise to Abraham He would have a son and birth.
Fourthly, in God’s eyes I doubt there is any difference between the faith we have in Him (which He gives us in the first place), the faith that grows in strength from trials, and the faith of the woman with the issue of blood - it is all the same thing just exercised in different ways.
Your remark about the disciples inability to overcome the fear of the weather is to trivialise and miss the point - they were afraid of dying which was quite reasonable. There lack of faith which Jesus chastised them for, was in effect because they did not trust or understand that Jesus would save them - whether in an eternal or temporal sense I’m not sure.
Again what concerns many Christians is the marketing of faith to get what individuals want out of God. This is a misuse and abuse that God will not honour. Having faith in God in and of itself will achieve nothing and neither should it - it is not a means to an end but rather God’s rightful due. In fact there are a number of instances in the bible where men and women of “faith” were refused the thing that they wanted.
Would you say David was a man who lacked “faith”? Yet his faith was not enough for God to save his first born son to Bathsheba.
Did Timothy lack faith that he had frequent stomach ailments?
Paul was refused healing or deliverance from a particular afliction precisely to increase his reliance on God’s grace in all things.
Faith is primarily about recognising that God is our Sovereign Lord and Creator and He has us covered - in ALL circumstances give thanks - and living out of that recognition despite whatever the world throws at us.
I agree with you that our faith may be increased, but God uses a variety of things to bring that about. Sometimes that means not getting what we want even though at face value those might be quite good things.
You invoke the promises of God - I am curious what you mean by that - what do you see them as primarily, and how do we “receive” them.
Cheers
MN
July 24th, 2007 at 1:11 am
As far as I can make out, and with respect, mn, you have actually been talked out of faith by doubtful teaching. All that reasoning about Paul’s thorn and Timothy’s stomach are not evidence they they either had no faith for healing, or that faith doesn’t work to heal. Paul’s thorn in the flesh was a messenger of Satan which buffeted him. Nowhere does it say anything about sickness. David was told his firstborn would die because of his murderous antics.
Was Thomas’s doubt considered a good thing or not by Jesus? Yet didn’t Jesus come back for him a week after he met with the others? Grace works with faith. His grace. Our faith. but nevertheless there were degrees of faith even with the apostles.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:56 am
What faith have I been talked out of Facelift?
I take it that the reverse of “faith doesn’t work to heal” is that “faith does work to heal”. If this is so, what do you mean by that?
Cheers
MN
July 24th, 2007 at 4:15 pm
What is the core text for the prosperity preachers?
For Dr. C. Thomas Anderson it is Scrooge McDuck comics :
http://www.cbn.com/700club/guests/bios/CTAnderson112006.aspx
“When he was nine-years old he read a comic book about Scrooge McDuck that would influence him later in life. Uncle Scrooge was very wealthy, but he had a financial setback and lost everything. As he was walking one day, he found a nickel. He saw some kids fishing and bought the fish for a nickel. He turned around and sold the fish for seven dollars. He used this money to buy a scooter. He sold the scooter to someone whose car had broken down. The story went on this way until Uncle Scrooge had all his money back. This story of Uncle Scrooge taught Dr. Anderson some of the characteristics that the wealthy have: look for an opportunity to invest in something; don’t be afraid of failure; and buy low, sell high. It wasn’t until Dr. Anderson was in high school that his family had plumbing in their home – he knew there was something better out there.”
July 27th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
this is a really funny chasers video dealing with evangelicals in America and their money grabbing!
July 28th, 2007 at 5:23 am
The guy in that video, Mike Murdock, is the mate of Robb Thompson…the charalatan who Christian Shitty Church hosted earlier this year.
During his talk at Oxford Falls…..Thompson kept referring to ‘giving gifts that the other person wants…not what you would want to be given.’
That was Thompson’s thwarted attempt to lay the foundation for a financial gift-giving arrangement with CCC…like he has with Mike Murdoch…where Thompson and Murdoch exchange ‘birthday presents’…to shower on each other cars…money etc..generated by funds from each other’s ‘ministries’….so that the tax man (or tax woman…or tax trannie) doesn’t see it.
Come on IRS. Pull your finger out.
August 7th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Hi All,
I posted the following in “Hillsong - the next installment” posts. Obviously I posted it to the wrong posts as everyone ignored it. So I thought I would try again here.
————————————————————————————
Hi All,
I’ve been away for a while. The Signposts group certainly changes rapidly ,with a lot of new people since Tanya was on Denton!
Anyway, I am not sure which post this belongs in but I will do it here.
I was doing the Google thing w.r.t CCC management etc when I found the following site
http://www.mtaustralia.com/download.html
I then found this file which describes
A NFP Growth Plan prepared by Management Training Australia (pdf) at
http://www.mtaustralia.com/upcomingseminars/Christian%20City%20Church%20Whitehorsereport.pdf
It was very interesting reading and even more so especially when I discovered that the author (i.e. the one and only presenter at the
http://www.mtaustralia.com)
is actually a full time pastor at the very same CCC
I do find this somewhat worrying when the biography states about the author that ‘He runs this company as well as still being a “hands on” manager in a large not for profit organisation’
This was all on a downloadable wevb site and so this is all above board! But if you were from church circles then this would not be quite so apparent.
Maybe it is just me but I do find this disturbing in the sensee that it always appears to be about the “business” and making it bigger and more profitable.
Your thoughts and discussions would be of interest.
Cheers,
DB
August 8th, 2007 at 4:24 am
Thanks for posting it again.
http://www.mtaustralia.com/upcomingseminars/Christian%20City%20Church%20Whitehorsereport.pdf
Some interesting bits and pieces about the Christian Shitty Church Whitehoarse (from shouting ‘ay-men’ too often).
“Report to the board of Christian City Church Whitehorse by Management Training Australia September 2005″
“CCCW resembles a stage III business referred to by Churchill and Lewis (1983). There has been enough success to enable the founder to disengage and the church still grow, provided the management factors needed as detailed in Exhibit 5 occur. These are a quality and diversity of people, strategic planning, systems and controls, and the owner’s ability to delegate.
CCCW also resembles a business that McMahon (2001) calls “capped growth” where the
operating preferences of the owner/manager are significant. The owner/ manager has a
proclivity for entrepreneurship according to Stewart et al (1998). He exhibits high
achievement motivation, risk-taking propensity and is developing a preference for innovation.”
“The accumulation and distribution of money is not CCCW’s primary aim, it is a means to an
end of having people attend its program. Like any organization, CCCW needs money. CCCW
receives almost all of its income from its member’s contributions. Referring to figure 13, more
donations means a better quality staff (R14, the peanuts/monkeys reinforcing loop), better
quality facilities (R12, facility loop), and better resources (R13, fund program loop). There are
a number of nuances surrounding money. Firstly, people only have a finite amount of it at any
point in time. All other things being equal, people have fixed assets and fixed income, so have
fixed ability to give. This is represented by the balancing loop “B2 finite money”. When people
have given more, they have less to give. Secondly, the causal link between donations and
quality of facilities has considerable delay. It takes some time to raise money to buy/ develop
new facilities. Thirdly, giving capacity can increase through training. When a person increases
their education and ability through training, they earn more and then can give more. This also
has a delay associated with it, as it takes time to develop one’s income earning capacity.
Fourthly, people give donations because they have “bought in” to the church, as a result of
believing in the quality of the program…..
……
Implications for planning
1. Continue to realise the importance of money on quality of staff, facilities and program
2. Introduce training for financial capacity increase of members for long term financing of
the church
3. Pay more to get/ keep quality staff
4. Measure donations per attender as an indicator of member buy-in
5. Continue long range planning to buy/ upgrade facilities”
“CCCW has about 25 paid staff members, and spends about 50% of its operating budget on staff salaries. Internal staff recruitment is driven by “member buy-in”. Church staff are often paid a lot less than they would receive in a similar position in business, so a staff member recruited from the facilitators needs to have exhibited a high level of commitment. Staff training also drives the quality of staff.”
“Network marketing leader leaves (1997)
The network marketing leader (NML) leaving impacts the model in several ways. Firstly, the rumors spread by him involves the “key leader doing something stupid” flow that decreases reputation and program attractiveness and attendance. This impact would be balanced by the B1 balancing loop if the number of facilitators remained the same.
However, the NML been a program attender, added to program quality, leadership strength and inspiration. He effectively lead many of the network marketers in the church, so his change of attitude reduced the leadership strength, inspiration and energy reserves of the church directly, as those in his “downline” left the church. As discussed, energy level is an important factor in affecting the facilitator/ attender ratio. The reduction in the program quality when 380 people left the church, made the reinforcing loop R2 – the vibe a negative reinforcing loop on inspiration as those who remained were less inspired and had less energy.”
“Since the “business” of the church is about program attendance, the horizons revolve around building people.”
——-
And in a hundred years, all the heritage-listed early 21st century church buildings they’ve built will be restaurants, nightclubs and offices (or their 22nd century equivalent)…and all the people who never learned the deep gospel truths about the grace found through Christ - while the church crafted its ‘attractive programs’ and it’s ‘business’ - will be dead.
August 8th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
Wow… just… wow.
We the punters think we are going along for worship, and yet we are being analysed and categorised in some massive machine. I searched in vain for the word “Jesus” in this report. There were three mentions of “God” more as a secondary contributor to one of the feedback loops after the “Vibe” which is the main contributor.
And this is just scary:
CCCW does not just exist for its members. It exists also to help others to become program attenders. It wants to grow the number of attenders because its belief that it has something to offer the community. It believes this on the basis of the stories of those it has already helped.
August 8th, 2007 at 7:00 pm
Hi Again,
Just another observation. When you go to the cccw website about senior pastors
http://www.cccw.org.au/?q=pastoral/senior
guess who is the only one not to have a bio nor a photo? yes! The guy who runs his own busines at http://www.mtaustralia.com while being a full time pastor at that church.
Maybe, I am paranoid but that also strikes me as strange for a church that talks about integrity and openness.
DB
August 8th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
Well it is hardly surprising. This is standard fare for penties. E.g. Doesn’t Mr Baker run training for business leaders? What is his expertise in running a business? His church? Or his “speaking ministry” company?
Then again the cccw site has a training link, to the school of empowered ministry and the school of empowered business - where some standard high school business stuff is presented - along with “the gift of giving” - as “kingdom business ethics” or something. Now that’s not to raise the “buy in” or “giving capacity” by any chance?
And as for that report (paying your self twice?Once as a pastor, another time as a “consultant”?) - that as much pure gold as it is disgusting.
It’s like take a few text books and replace some bits with references to cccw et voila: ccc’s ecclesiology. But it is also illuminating for that reason - all that talk of inspiration increasing energy reserves and energy reserves (high for converts etc) are what drives recruitment (as best form of recruitment in not quality programs but people bringing others to church)….and there, in all that management-speak and gobbledy gook you have a great illustration of Tanya Levin’s contention that Hillsong (or in this case CCCW, and I would say , many Aussie pente and mega churches) is about “recruitment and fundraising”.
In a bizarre way, this reminds me, from a different angle, of (yes, my favourite) the apostate ECUSA leadership which has mission statements which read like they are only there to promote their own existence.
The circle is complete.