Ready for the Fleecing

One of the problems created when a pastor accepts land gifts worth $300,000 when they come to town, immediately and brazenly begins to use nepotism, lies with disdain about a woman who is in conflict with one of Mac's friends, talks his congregation down behind our backs and then allows the bylaws to be changed giving him even MORE power than previous pastors and taking rights away from deacons and congregation without a single word of explanation to the congregation...and when he stands in the pulpit and demands we fork over 1 million dollars in two weeks to fix repairs of the facility that he SHOULD have included in the church budget...one of the problems these abuses and others create is a lack of trust between pastor and congregation.

Trust between congregation and pastor is important.

I don't trust Mac Brunson. After nearly 3 years, I and others are conditioned to look closely at MOTIVES. I refuse to drink the Mac Brunson Kool Aid and place the same trust in him as was placed in previous pastors.

When a church is "pastor led" as ours has been for decades - that is he has sole authority to hire/fire staff, appoints his trustees, has a provision in the bylaws stating that members are to "love and esteem" the Pastor and to "manifest a tender regard for his reputation"...it requires the congregation to have immense TRUST in the leadership, motives, and direction of the pastor of the church. This worked very well under Lindsay and Vines. Men of high integrity - who didn't use their positions as pastor to give "splash over" blessings to their family through nepotism - and who demonstrated their love for the congregation over and over and actually earned their trust. They didn't give their wives a co-pastor position and use the TV ministry to give their wife airtime as now is happening on our TV broadcasts (if she is Mac's co-pastor, can't we just admit it like so many other mega ministries have -like Joel Osteen has?).

My point: this hyper "pastor led" system doesn't work with Team Brunson.

While obviously many still do trust them, its obvious that many more are catching on and either are completely disgusted and have left, or they are scratching their heads and holding on, hoping that nothing here on this blog is true.

I say all of that to say that when Mac expresses concern in January about how we spend our money (after thanking Jesus in the fall that we aren't getting raises), and assumes in the pulpit that we're all a bunch of mindless overspenders - and is going to force us in our Sunday School to look at financial matters in February...I ask, WHY? What are his motives? Does he love us, and want the best for us and our families financially? Or is this part of he and the Nashville marketing firm's fund raising technique this spring culminating in the grand fleecing of getting us to give $20 million dollars so we don't go into debt to implement his "vision"?

Mac's sermon on 1/4 I think is the "kick off" for the campaign to get us to give money to support his vision...and it will be cast in this light: if you want to keep the church out of debt, if you love the church, and if you respect Lindsay and Vines, you will fall in line with all of his vision. By the way, if you read about the vision on the website, it calls for satellites in all sides of town - not church plants but satellits to spread the FBC/Brunson brand...must be there are so many "sorry" churches in town that just aren't reaching Jacksonville with the gospel. Mac I predict will continue to attack our spending habits and money management, will load us with guilt about our lifestyles...it all just rings hollow while he and his wife are living in a million dollar home, using our church website to entice the wealthier members to spend thousands to accompany them and the "Brunson family" to the Holy Land. Why, yes, a call for prudence and a halt to the over-spending....of course after they have already "gotten theirs" - by accepting the land gift from one of our wealthy members and putting the family on the pay roll. Sounds great.

I predict the next three months will be the execution of one long promotions plan developed by our church marketers to maximize revenue to the $20 million vision. Small groups will be used to help shape people's views. Instead of casting the vision to everyone and letting the Holy Spirit work on us and letting us begin to give money out of our convictions and promptings of the Holy Spirit, the vision is in full swing - and we will either pay for it or we will go into debt.

Below is a collection of clips from the 1/4 sermon...with some commentary on the hypocrisy and condescension of Mac Brunson contained therein. This is a taste of what you will hear over the next few months as Mac tries to get us to support his vision and to give the money to support it - and when he gets done executing the strategy in March - IT WILL BE OFF TO THE HOLY LAND with the wealthier members of the church while the plebe stay back state-side and work and look for jobs to pay for the vision.