Reformed. Christianity. Evangelism. Modern Culture.
A recent trend these days in Evangelicalism is to endorse a celebrity and in return a preacher gets publicly affirmed. Another version of this trend is to preach (weak and neutral soppy messages) pandering to people’s feeling and sentiments so as to get recognition. These trends are mostly seen among prosperity and word of faith preachers and broad casters. When prosperity guru T.D Jakes was endorsed by multi millionaire P. Diddy, I saw a few people get excited. They said, “Oh look! Now surely there are going to be multitudes coming to church too after seeing their celebrity in church.” The rationale is usually and sometimes is that the celebrity becomes a draw string to bring people to their church. One ill advised pastor revved up his church by inviting a Hip hop artist to share his pulpit while another mega church pastor invited a popular talk show hostess and on and on the brouhaha goes.
Recently “word of faith” and prosperity teacher Joyce Meyer’s teachings got a public nod from an elated celebrity known for her explicitly raunchy music. Had the message of sin, righteousness and judgement self esteem, health and wealth struck a chord of contention or agreement?
Rihanna’s spiritual beliefs may have raised questions for some in the past, but the 24-year-old singer is not afraid to admit that she is a fan of Christian minister and author Joyce Meyer.
This month, the record-breaking Barbadian singer has been using her Twitter account to spread Meyer’s teachings.
“If Satan can defeat you in your thoughts then he can defeat you anywhere else as well,” reads a message written by Meyer and re-tweeted by Rihanna on June 4.
To underline her point, the singer sent a tweet to Meyer directly.
“@JoyceMeyer you’re awesome,” Rihanna told the minister via Twitter on the following day.
When one of Rihanna’s fans tweeted about Meyer being …Read More!
Enough of all this banter against modern Christendom’s latest prodigal and most loved opulent brat. Ed Young Jr. is officially the most google-d and U-tubed Christian celebrity pastor. Gone are the boring days of being an obscure youth pastor left to follow up new converts and pray for toddlers who don’t finish their breakfast cereal in the church back garden. Gone are the days of watching re-runs of Veggie Tales and Tom and Jerry in Sunday school.
The other day he took a bold step in being the honest and transparent man of God that he has become and indulged viewers in a personal tour of his parsonage or is it vicarage. And look how many bloggers treated him as though he had invited Bin Laden to the White House. He had simply allowed a TV Crew to have a glimpse of his humble 10,000 square foot, $1.5 million estate. Read More
What do you do when Summer is coming to an end and the cold breeze of Autumn begins to make your dwindling congregation hanker for more novel things to excite them into coming back to church? No don’t tell me you go back to teaching and preaching the bible. When you have a mega church there are is a show to run and you have to be pragmatic creative to keep the numbers up. There was a time when the church grew to maturity by relentless exposition of scripture and sound doctrine. No, not nowadays but you will puke at love the sound of this surely ….
Fellowship Church has announced that Rev Run, will appear live at the church’s Miami campus as part of a teaching series called Run to the House. Rev Run is best known as being a founding member of hip hop group Run DMC, and reality TV star of MTV’s “Run’s House.” Rev has helped break down walls and build bridges between races and cultures through music and fashion.
For Pastor Ed Young, Senior Pastor of Fellowship Church, bringing in Rev Run to share a message of strength, direction and wisdom at Fellowship Church seemed a perfect fit. Rev Run’s humorous outlook on life is something that appeals to everyone. …Read More!
I do not always agree with J. Lee Grady but this time (as a brother in the Lord) I like his honesty. This time he looks into the recent death of Pastor Zachery Tims and gives the charismatic community a heads up that I think we can all learn from…
Zachery Tims [is said to have] met Jesus and was saved from a life of crime and drugs. He and his wife, Riva, moved from Baltimore to Orlando, Fla., in 1996 to launch a church that aimed to restore families and pull teens out of trouble. New Destiny Christian Center grew fast, mostly because of Tims’ passionate preaching. He was soon a regular on Christian television.
But things unraveled in 2009 when Tims was caught carrying on a yearlong affair with a stripper he met in France. He admitted to an “indiscretion” and got a few weeks of counseling, but he didn’t take serious time off for rehabilitation. Riva divorced him for his infidelity. The billboards that once featured photos of the happy couple were changed. By 2011 the roadside ads featured a shot of Tims by himself, with this slogan: “A Family Church Meeting Family Needs.”This story did not end well. On Aug. 12, Tims was found dead–at age 42–in a New York City hotel room. His four children lost their dad, and his church lost their beloved leader. But while Tims’ family and friends are grieving their loss (and I’m not minimizing that because the pain is real), I’m also grieving over the fact that the wider body of Christ has yet another embarrassing religious scandal to explain. We can’t gloss over this.There are so many aspects of this story that should cause us to lament. How did a preacher get involved with a stripper? Why didn’t Tims put himself on the bench for at least a year after his sin was exposed? Why did Christian television keep him on the air after his affair became public? …Read More!
It seems I am always the last one to hear of trends in Evangelicalism. Just when I was thinking the new year is going to be tranquil and serene. Then prime time news spits out the most repulsive of headlines. It beggars belief that men who should be exegeting the word of God and teaching with zeal and fervour seem to be bent on spitting in the face of morality and bending every norm so as to improve the ratings of a television network (or is it spreading their ministry). Speaking of which, it seems Ted Haggard is making loads of friends and promising to please network affiliates who have never hesitated to sign up a wily ‘hireling shepherd’ willing to make fun twiddling his rod and staff for pagans to laugh at. Read More
During an economic down time, most church members trudge to church to pray for God’s providence to sustain them in times of need. Most of these folks may not even get so much as a handshake as they walk in and take a back seat. Others have lost their jobs and are considering relocating. The body of Christ is the church. They fellowship together and pray together in good and bad times. They seek God’s face and intercede for each other. But most important and above all things-the church has a commission to preach the gospel. Does the gospel message change when a celebrity comes to a church meeting? Do we bring out the bells and whistles so that we can show how hip and cool we are? Well I will leave the answer to the well placed celebrity pastors:
It appears Puff Daddy AKA Diddy stopped by Bishop T.D. Jakes’ Potters House for Sunday morning worship last Sunday. Following Diddy’s tweets it’s apparent that he’s been thinking about God a lot lately.
The week before the Superbowl Diddy started a Christian frenzy when he tweeted that he wanted to fill his I-Pod up with Gospel music. He asked Twitter followers what artists should he download. Comments started pouring in. More Diddy
Enough of all this banter against modern Christendom’s latest prodigal and most loved opulent brat. Ed Young Jr. is officially the most google-d and U-tubed Christian celebrity pastor. Gone are the boring days of being an obscure youth pastor left to follow up new converts and pray for toddlers who don’t finish their breakfast cereal in the church back garden. Gone are the days of watching re-runs of Veggie Tales and Tom and Jerry in Sunday school.
The other day he took a bold step in being the honest and transparent man of God that he has become and indulged viewers in a personal tour of his parsonage or is it vicarage. And look how many bloggers treated him as though he had invited Bin Laden to the White House. He had simply allowed a TV Crew to have a glimpse of his humble 10,000 square foot, $1.5 million estate. Read More
A Twisted Crown of Thorns ® 