When you get a chance, listen to Ed Young, Jr. share his thoughts on the difficulties of being a pastor:
Ed Young Video Blog - May 14, 2007
No doubt he is very sincere and he does correctly point out some of the trials of being a pastor. Anyone who has been in churches, especially smaller churches where the pastor does not have a fully staffed office suite consisting of wife, son secretary and marketing consultants, knows how difficult a pastor's job can be as they juggle so many responsibilities in the church. But I offer this clip because I think it gives us a very rare glimpse into the thought process and logic that these mega church pastors use to justify their enormous salaries and benefit packages. Ed Young Jr's message here is that our job is so tough, tougher than you can ever know, so tough that you need to pay us extremely well. Notice how even his body language and dress and posture serves to communicate the message that there is no job on earth as tough as theirs; I mean he looks like he's been up reading Lamentations all night and might be on the verge of a nervous breakdown!
Of particular interest is his view of the pastor being the "franchise player" who is "responsible every year...to raise money...because we are the ones responsible before God for raising money.....every year I've stared a lot of money in the face and I know at the end of the day its up to me to raise that money....and that's a taxing thing." That is twisted logic. Firstly, he is really not "raising" money. He has people coming to his church that believe they are "giving to God" and they drop their money in the plate. He obviously has no clue what it is like to REALLY have to raise money for a cause, or even more difficult how to generate revenue in a business enterprise to keep it viable and a source of jobs for people who are depending on the business. Secondly, for the pastor to view themselves as "franchise players raising money" ignores the scriptural truth that the church's ministries are financed by God's people giving out of their thankful hearts to God, prompted by the Holy Spirit and really its not a pastor's job to raise the money. As it relates to finances, a pastor's primary responsibility is to be a very good steward of the money that God BRINGS TO HIM. A pastor is to make sure that the faithful people who donated money can rest assured that the money they give is going to ministry and not to enrich a pastor or his family, or that its going to a slick marketing firm in Nashville to design the best looking logos for the next sermon series. If the pastor views themselves as the "franchise player raising the money" then of course they will not have a problem taking a large salary, nor will they have a problem with taking church funds for their own favorite ministry projects that are outside the ministry of the local church.
Of course if a mega church pastor views it as their responsibility to "raise that money", they will have a hard time seeing it as unethical to accept a $300,000 gift from one of the donors to their non-profit organization that they are to lead. If Mac views himself as being responsible for raising $15 million per year to fund the operations of FBC Jax, what could possibly be wrong will taking $300,000 from a church donor? This is why it was so disturbing to hear Mac Brunson at the Pastor's Conference call his son to the platform and proclaim to everyone that "Trey raised over $100,000 by himself to help defray the costs of the conference." This leads me to believe that perhaps Mac shares this view of Ed Young, Jr of the pastor being the "fund raiser" of the church.
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Does Mac Follow the Holy Spirit or the A-Group?
While Team Brunson is out on their 2-week Mediterranean vacation, let's talk about the A-Group.
Church, as I've reported here numerous times, and as was reported in the previous FBC Jax blog in early 2007, one of Mac's very first moves as pastor of our church was to hand over the church "marketing", including the design and management of our website, to a man named Maurilio Amorim and his so called "church marketing" firm "The A Group" (Click here to visit their website). It has been reported by several posters here and on the previous blog that The A Group was used by Mac both in Dallas and in Jacksonville to do staffing studies and determine what positions needed to be "re-staffed", or done away with completely. Since we voted for Mac to be our pastor, Maurillio's company has been responsible for our website that we all know is so far behind any other mega church website in its function and usefulness that its pathetic.
I would like for you to take a minute and browse The A Group's website. What you will see will either make you sick, or make you cry, perhaps both.There you will see beautiful, fit and trim, tanned Marillio Amorim using our church materials in his "portfolio" to further market himself to other churches to do their promos and marketing and websites for them. Certainly if he has done such great work for the influential FBC Jax, other pastors would want to purchase his services, right? Much of the artwork in his portfolio will look familiar to you...your tithes and offerings were used to pay Maurillio's firm to to do that awfully hard Christian work that only a Nashville marketing firm can do, that is design artwork and come up with catchy slogans for preacher sermon series and special events. Thank God for the A-Group, what WOULD we have done without them the last two years? Church how low have we sunk that we have to pay some out of town marketing group in Nashville that is totally unfamiliar with our church, our city and its needs, to do all of our artwork and concepts rather than using our own staff and maybe even our own church members, or perhaps local companies that likely would charge much less and are familiar with our city and its needs? I for one know plenty of talented, artistic people who could do this work in our church. Would someone on the finance committee please post here anonymously and tell us how much of our tithes and offerings are going to this marketing firm?
And when you go to their web site, you'll see something else that sickens you. Along side the FBC Jax pieces of his "portfolio" is the work that Maurillio does for Calvin Klein and Tommy Bahama...so Mac has joined our church with a marketing firm that also does work for Calvin Klein and Tommy Bahama! Does this surprise you? Visit the Tommy Bahama website managed by our consultant Maurillio if you ever need to buy a "beer pilsner set" for $49, or a "Wine Away" bottle for your favorite wine for $10, or maybe your home bar needs a "tropical shot glass set" for $39. I myself have purchased the "Embossed 5 oz flask" so I can carry around my Jack Daniels in my bible pouch along with my Christian tracts for those late night Tuesday visitations....and of course no home is complete without their "brown leather cigar and flask set" for $98. Maurillio - are you a church marketing firm or are you a commercial marketing firm helping to peddle alcohol and tobacco paraphernalia? You don't seem to be such a smart marketer after all, since you seem to be diluting your brand of Christian marketing by doing work in the secular arena possibly confusing your clientelle of your company's position in the market.
Hey Mac and Trey, I'm sure you'll be reading this while your family is on their 2-week Mediterranean vacation (by the way, too bad the start of your vacation interfered this morning with your ability to meet our visitors on the one day that we arguably have the largest numbers of visitors - we definitely see where your priorities lie when you cancel the visitor's reception on such an important day so you can get that early head start to Europe!) you said if Homer came back he'd want to know why you only got 50 men to pray with you. Something tells me that if he came back he'd have just a few questions for YOU dear sir about how you dole out God's money to marketing firms.
Have a great vacation Team Brunson, we'll hold the fort down for you until you get back. Maurillio is hard at work designing the logos for your next sermon series, and I'm sure those proofs will be on your desk when you get back.
Maurillio - since your Mac's marketing consultant...can you please explain to him the power of a "personal touch"....that on the one single day of the year when we have the most visitors in our church that he should absolutely make time to get to the visitor's reception? If I was a visitor today on Easter and wanted to meet the pastor but heard him tell me he and his family were headed on vacation to Europe and didn't have time to shake my hand at the reception...well, that would probably confirm many of the things I had been reading on this blog and hoped weren't true.
Church, as I've reported here numerous times, and as was reported in the previous FBC Jax blog in early 2007, one of Mac's very first moves as pastor of our church was to hand over the church "marketing", including the design and management of our website, to a man named Maurilio Amorim and his so called "church marketing" firm "The A Group" (Click here to visit their website). It has been reported by several posters here and on the previous blog that The A Group was used by Mac both in Dallas and in Jacksonville to do staffing studies and determine what positions needed to be "re-staffed", or done away with completely. Since we voted for Mac to be our pastor, Maurillio's company has been responsible for our website that we all know is so far behind any other mega church website in its function and usefulness that its pathetic.
I would like for you to take a minute and browse The A Group's website. What you will see will either make you sick, or make you cry, perhaps both.There you will see beautiful, fit and trim, tanned Marillio Amorim using our church materials in his "portfolio" to further market himself to other churches to do their promos and marketing and websites for them. Certainly if he has done such great work for the influential FBC Jax, other pastors would want to purchase his services, right? Much of the artwork in his portfolio will look familiar to you...your tithes and offerings were used to pay Maurillio's firm to to do that awfully hard Christian work that only a Nashville marketing firm can do, that is design artwork and come up with catchy slogans for preacher sermon series and special events. Thank God for the A-Group, what WOULD we have done without them the last two years? Church how low have we sunk that we have to pay some out of town marketing group in Nashville that is totally unfamiliar with our church, our city and its needs, to do all of our artwork and concepts rather than using our own staff and maybe even our own church members, or perhaps local companies that likely would charge much less and are familiar with our city and its needs? I for one know plenty of talented, artistic people who could do this work in our church. Would someone on the finance committee please post here anonymously and tell us how much of our tithes and offerings are going to this marketing firm?
And when you go to their web site, you'll see something else that sickens you. Along side the FBC Jax pieces of his "portfolio" is the work that Maurillio does for Calvin Klein and Tommy Bahama...so Mac has joined our church with a marketing firm that also does work for Calvin Klein and Tommy Bahama! Does this surprise you? Visit the Tommy Bahama website managed by our consultant Maurillio if you ever need to buy a "beer pilsner set" for $49, or a "Wine Away" bottle for your favorite wine for $10, or maybe your home bar needs a "tropical shot glass set" for $39. I myself have purchased the "Embossed 5 oz flask" so I can carry around my Jack Daniels in my bible pouch along with my Christian tracts for those late night Tuesday visitations....and of course no home is complete without their "brown leather cigar and flask set" for $98. Maurillio - are you a church marketing firm or are you a commercial marketing firm helping to peddle alcohol and tobacco paraphernalia? You don't seem to be such a smart marketer after all, since you seem to be diluting your brand of Christian marketing by doing work in the secular arena possibly confusing your clientelle of your company's position in the market.
Hey Mac and Trey, I'm sure you'll be reading this while your family is on their 2-week Mediterranean vacation (by the way, too bad the start of your vacation interfered this morning with your ability to meet our visitors on the one day that we arguably have the largest numbers of visitors - we definitely see where your priorities lie when you cancel the visitor's reception on such an important day so you can get that early head start to Europe!) you said if Homer came back he'd want to know why you only got 50 men to pray with you. Something tells me that if he came back he'd have just a few questions for YOU dear sir about how you dole out God's money to marketing firms.
Have a great vacation Team Brunson, we'll hold the fort down for you until you get back. Maurillio is hard at work designing the logos for your next sermon series, and I'm sure those proofs will be on your desk when you get back.
Maurillio - since your Mac's marketing consultant...can you please explain to him the power of a "personal touch"....that on the one single day of the year when we have the most visitors in our church that he should absolutely make time to get to the visitor's reception? If I was a visitor today on Easter and wanted to meet the pastor but heard him tell me he and his family were headed on vacation to Europe and didn't have time to shake my hand at the reception...well, that would probably confirm many of the things I had been reading on this blog and hoped weren't true.
Update on Pastor Daniel Jones?
During the Sunday evening service September 30, 2007, Mac brought up Pastor Daniel Jones to the platform and explained how our church was going to assist Pastor Jones in the rebuilding of his church that had been nearly destroyed by arson earlier that year. Mac then told us all how Trey had been instrumental in "negotiating reduced prices for air conditioners" for Pastor Jones' church and we were going to help him get his church building functional again. As you might recall Mac even called out men from the congregation to help Pastor Jones go "door to door" to get his congregants back (but of course this was before Mac proclaimed that "people aren't home anymore" and door to door evangelism doesn't work). This was during the emphasis on giving and Mac was trying to show how we use our church funds to help others in need. In fact that morning he had some pastor from New Orleans stand up and Mac proudly proclaimed "See that guy, we pay his salary." Got the picture?
You can read the Watchdog's original article on the Pastor Daniel Jones assistance here.
Why am I dredging this up you ask?
Today (Sunday 3/23/08) in the Times Union there is an article by Jeff Brumley (the reporter who wrote the Mac Brunson article in 2006 telling everyone of Mac's "blazing oratory") about churches in our area that have burned and the struggles the pastors are facing in rebuilding.
Sure enough, Brumley reports that Pastor Daniel Jones is still holding church services in a tent, and he does not have his building functional yet. In fact, here's what Brumley writes:
It's been a tough, day-to-day struggle toward getting the building ready, Jones said. While a new roof has been added and other work has progressed to restore the sanctuary, Jones said it will take about $45,000 to make the structure usable. It would take another $100,000 or so to get the structure into pristine condition, he said. The church has received about $9,000 in donations.
Did we get the church air conditioners? Did our church help them like Mac said we would last fall? If we did how much did we help with and why is Pastor Jones still not in his building now a full year after the fire, and 6 months after Mac committed the church to help?
Mac, since you brought Pastor Jones to the church that night and publicly offered our church to help him, perhaps you owe us an update now that Pastor Jones is back in the news and seemingly no closer to getting into his building than he was last September. But we won't hold our breath waiting.
You can read the Watchdog's original article on the Pastor Daniel Jones assistance here.
Why am I dredging this up you ask?
Today (Sunday 3/23/08) in the Times Union there is an article by Jeff Brumley (the reporter who wrote the Mac Brunson article in 2006 telling everyone of Mac's "blazing oratory") about churches in our area that have burned and the struggles the pastors are facing in rebuilding.
Sure enough, Brumley reports that Pastor Daniel Jones is still holding church services in a tent, and he does not have his building functional yet. In fact, here's what Brumley writes:
It's been a tough, day-to-day struggle toward getting the building ready, Jones said. While a new roof has been added and other work has progressed to restore the sanctuary, Jones said it will take about $45,000 to make the structure usable. It would take another $100,000 or so to get the structure into pristine condition, he said. The church has received about $9,000 in donations.
Did we get the church air conditioners? Did our church help them like Mac said we would last fall? If we did how much did we help with and why is Pastor Jones still not in his building now a full year after the fire, and 6 months after Mac committed the church to help?
Mac, since you brought Pastor Jones to the church that night and publicly offered our church to help him, perhaps you owe us an update now that Pastor Jones is back in the news and seemingly no closer to getting into his building than he was last September. But we won't hold our breath waiting.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Just What is the "Media Evangelism" Offering For?
Mac and the A-Group are masterful marketers. Look at the "Media Evangelism" promo banner on the FBC Jax website and you'll see icons showing people using various media. The "sell" that Mac and the A-Group are trying to make to us is that this offering is for "cutting edge technology" ministry.
Unfortunately, that's not what the offering is for.
According to Mac's letter (which is now available on the FBC Jax website), the offering is for:
- buying local TV and radio advertising
- paying for special mailers
- putting Mac's sermons on the Inspiration network nationwide
Nothing innovative, certainly nothing cutting-edge there. We've included advertising and TV time in our budget for 3 decades as they are a very important activity to reaching those in our area. We have never gone onto a nationwide network with our broadcasts because we've never viewed our church and our pastors have never viewed themselves as "televangelist" in nature - as Dr. Vines used to say, when a person gets sick or experiences the loss of a loved on, the TV church and preacher and staff ain't going to be ministering to you. So we've always kept our TV ministry local. If Mac himself wants to go nationwide to build his personal brand, that's fine and he has the right to do it as his sermons are his intellectual property. Let him (or Trey) raise the funds to start a nationwide "Mac Brunson Sermon Broadcast" on a network, but please Team Brunson hold don't your hand out asking FBC Jax members to fund it. Like the school, its not really part of our church's ministry, and will reach very few people in our area for a huge expenditure.
I'd like to point something out for FBC Jax members to consider: in Mac's letter note how he uses the words "our podcast" and "our services" and "our broadcast". No, the podcast is not "ours"...it is the "Mac Brunson Podcast" with a full Mac Brunson mug logo, and its part of a separate 501(c)3 organization called Inlight Ministries. When he says we need to broadcast "our services" nationwide, he's not talking our services, he's talking his sermons. But its convenient and a clever marketing gimmick to use the words "our" in order to compel you to give to his project.
About the "The Mac Brunson Podcast": this offering is not either to pay for Mac's podcast, since that is already up and running and I assume our church has been paying for "The Mac Brunson Podcast" for some time. But there are some problems with that: he and the A-Group controls which sermons are available (for instance the 3/11 "I can't get 50 men and Homer would want to know why" and "your job is to listen" sermon was up only for a few days until someone wisely decided to pull it), there are no original broadcast dates with them (only dates posted to I-Tunes), and its called the "Mac Brunson Podcast", not the "First Baptist Church Jacksonville Podcast". If its "our" podcast and if our church is going to fund it, then change the name to "First Baptist Jacksonville Podcast", put our church logo on it, and put it on our church website with our church logo and not on Mac's Inlight.org webiste. This is an example of how Mac talks out of both sides of his mouth. He loves to say that church is not about personalities, that we don't come to church to hear from a man but to hear from God - sounds good, but then if he truly believes this why is his full face used as an icon and why is the podcast called "The Mac Brunson Podcast" when our church is funding it and its therefore a ministry of our church?
Since we've never gone nationwide with a TV ministry from our church (as I said if Mac wants to do that with his sermons, he's free to raise funds and start a Mac Brunson TV ministry), that doesn't mean we can't use technology to have nationwide and world-wide reach. Live streaming is great, but we can do much, much more at a relatively low cost as compared to buying TV time. After all, in many parts of the world our services are streamed live at inconvenient times.
We can archive our sermons video and make them available 24/7. I want to offer to you three examples of how churches are using technology to provide video streams of their full services, made available 24/7 world-wide. Consider the following examples:
1. First Baptist Church Woodstock: FBC Woodstock makes available online all church services for the past three months - not just Johnny Hunt's sermons (its not the "Johnny Hunt Broadcast" its the "FBC Woodstock" broadcast), but all sermons, even when Jerry Vines is preaching or one of the other ministers fills in. I'm talking full video of the entire service, praise music, preaching, invitation, and even an up front promo highlighting the ministries of the church. They even hyperlink in sermon notes. Click here to see it:
FBC Woodstock On-Demand Video Ministry
While there click on the Jerry Vines 3/2/08 sermon to see and hear a great Bible sermon. Listen to this sermon and you'll be happy to see he has hardly lost a step since retiring. Powerful message on the love of God.
2. First Baptist Church Dallas: The next one that I want you to see is how FBC Dallas makes their services available. They utilize a service called "316 network" to make there services available online:
First Baptist Dallas On-Demand Video Ministry
Notice on the viewing banner Robert Jeffress picture is there, but its the FBC Dallas logo, and the "tools" on the site are all hyperlinks highlighting the ministry of the church. Viewers can even click a link to submit a prayer request, or find information out about the church's ministries. Its not a ministry of just Robert Jeffress, its a ministry of the church that is funding it.
3. Northpoint Community Church: For a third example, take a look at Northpoint Church, the Atlanta church started by Andy Stanley in the 90's. At their website they archive all sermons (not the music), but they have a very unique and innovative interface that lists each sermon, its date, speaker, and three options for viewing. Take a look at the third option, that has the red "f" icon (for flash)...it is a viewer in which the wide screen sermon is viewed, with tools on the viewer to allow notes to be taken and emailed to one's self, hyperlinks to the previous parts of the sermon series, and pdf files for sermon outlines.
North Point Church On-Demand Video
Notice again: this is not the "Andy Stanley Video Broadcast", its the Northpoint Church broadcast at their website, and all sermons not just Andy Stanley's are put there for viewing.
So church, don't be duped. Giving to the "Media Evangelism" offering this Sunday will only be paying for advertising that should already be in our budget, and to pay for broadcast of Mac Brunson sermons nationwide when we FIRST need to make our full worship services (not just Mac's sermons) available on demand on the Internet.
Unfortunately, that's not what the offering is for.
According to Mac's letter (which is now available on the FBC Jax website), the offering is for:
- buying local TV and radio advertising
- paying for special mailers
- putting Mac's sermons on the Inspiration network nationwide
Nothing innovative, certainly nothing cutting-edge there. We've included advertising and TV time in our budget for 3 decades as they are a very important activity to reaching those in our area. We have never gone onto a nationwide network with our broadcasts because we've never viewed our church and our pastors have never viewed themselves as "televangelist" in nature - as Dr. Vines used to say, when a person gets sick or experiences the loss of a loved on, the TV church and preacher and staff ain't going to be ministering to you. So we've always kept our TV ministry local. If Mac himself wants to go nationwide to build his personal brand, that's fine and he has the right to do it as his sermons are his intellectual property. Let him (or Trey) raise the funds to start a nationwide "Mac Brunson Sermon Broadcast" on a network, but please Team Brunson hold don't your hand out asking FBC Jax members to fund it. Like the school, its not really part of our church's ministry, and will reach very few people in our area for a huge expenditure.
I'd like to point something out for FBC Jax members to consider: in Mac's letter note how he uses the words "our podcast" and "our services" and "our broadcast". No, the podcast is not "ours"...it is the "Mac Brunson Podcast" with a full Mac Brunson mug logo, and its part of a separate 501(c)3 organization called Inlight Ministries. When he says we need to broadcast "our services" nationwide, he's not talking our services, he's talking his sermons. But its convenient and a clever marketing gimmick to use the words "our" in order to compel you to give to his project.
About the "The Mac Brunson Podcast": this offering is not either to pay for Mac's podcast, since that is already up and running and I assume our church has been paying for "The Mac Brunson Podcast" for some time. But there are some problems with that: he and the A-Group controls which sermons are available (for instance the 3/11 "I can't get 50 men and Homer would want to know why" and "your job is to listen" sermon was up only for a few days until someone wisely decided to pull it), there are no original broadcast dates with them (only dates posted to I-Tunes), and its called the "Mac Brunson Podcast", not the "First Baptist Church Jacksonville Podcast". If its "our" podcast and if our church is going to fund it, then change the name to "First Baptist Jacksonville Podcast", put our church logo on it, and put it on our church website with our church logo and not on Mac's Inlight.org webiste. This is an example of how Mac talks out of both sides of his mouth. He loves to say that church is not about personalities, that we don't come to church to hear from a man but to hear from God - sounds good, but then if he truly believes this why is his full face used as an icon and why is the podcast called "The Mac Brunson Podcast" when our church is funding it and its therefore a ministry of our church?
Since we've never gone nationwide with a TV ministry from our church (as I said if Mac wants to do that with his sermons, he's free to raise funds and start a Mac Brunson TV ministry), that doesn't mean we can't use technology to have nationwide and world-wide reach. Live streaming is great, but we can do much, much more at a relatively low cost as compared to buying TV time. After all, in many parts of the world our services are streamed live at inconvenient times.
We can archive our sermons video and make them available 24/7. I want to offer to you three examples of how churches are using technology to provide video streams of their full services, made available 24/7 world-wide. Consider the following examples:
1. First Baptist Church Woodstock: FBC Woodstock makes available online all church services for the past three months - not just Johnny Hunt's sermons (its not the "Johnny Hunt Broadcast" its the "FBC Woodstock" broadcast), but all sermons, even when Jerry Vines is preaching or one of the other ministers fills in. I'm talking full video of the entire service, praise music, preaching, invitation, and even an up front promo highlighting the ministries of the church. They even hyperlink in sermon notes. Click here to see it:
FBC Woodstock On-Demand Video Ministry
While there click on the Jerry Vines 3/2/08 sermon to see and hear a great Bible sermon. Listen to this sermon and you'll be happy to see he has hardly lost a step since retiring. Powerful message on the love of God.
2. First Baptist Church Dallas: The next one that I want you to see is how FBC Dallas makes their services available. They utilize a service called "316 network" to make there services available online:
First Baptist Dallas On-Demand Video Ministry
Notice on the viewing banner Robert Jeffress picture is there, but its the FBC Dallas logo, and the "tools" on the site are all hyperlinks highlighting the ministry of the church. Viewers can even click a link to submit a prayer request, or find information out about the church's ministries. Its not a ministry of just Robert Jeffress, its a ministry of the church that is funding it.
3. Northpoint Community Church: For a third example, take a look at Northpoint Church, the Atlanta church started by Andy Stanley in the 90's. At their website they archive all sermons (not the music), but they have a very unique and innovative interface that lists each sermon, its date, speaker, and three options for viewing. Take a look at the third option, that has the red "f" icon (for flash)...it is a viewer in which the wide screen sermon is viewed, with tools on the viewer to allow notes to be taken and emailed to one's self, hyperlinks to the previous parts of the sermon series, and pdf files for sermon outlines.
North Point Church On-Demand Video
Notice again: this is not the "Andy Stanley Video Broadcast", its the Northpoint Church broadcast at their website, and all sermons not just Andy Stanley's are put there for viewing.
So church, don't be duped. Giving to the "Media Evangelism" offering this Sunday will only be paying for advertising that should already be in our budget, and to pay for broadcast of Mac Brunson sermons nationwide when we FIRST need to make our full worship services (not just Mac's sermons) available on demand on the Internet.
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Just Say No to "Media Evangelism" Offering
Everyone by now probably has received their letter from Mac Brunson about the "Media Evangelism" special offering to be taken this Sunday.
Church, I sure hope you decide to NOT give ONE DIME to this offering.
- Mac just a week ago held an unannounced business meeting to ask for the church to vote on giving $500,000 for start-up costs for the First Baptist Academy. He asked us in December to pray that "God would unleash the financial resources of the church", and it sure looks like instead of waiting for God to "unleash", Mac took matters into his own hands and himself unleashed them in a quickie business meeting moderated by the president of the Trustees. Although Mac has repeatedly told us that the school is absolutely necessary in order for us to reach people for Christ, we know that is not true. The school may very well be a great idea, but to take $500,000 from money given by God's people for the ministry of our church in order to fund a school start-up is not right. I submit that the $500,000 would pay for any of the local media evangelism that he proposes. Mac has it backwards - instead of siphoning off money for ministry given by God's people to fund a school start up, let's instead use special offerings for new ministries or capital projects such as schools and pay from the budget those ongoing ministerial expenses like advertising and TV air time.
- Mac says that we should be on the cutting edge of using technology to reach people. Is he really interested in "cutting edge" technology, or getting himself on TV to a nationwide audience? If he is interested in "cutting edge" technology to maximize our reach an obvious question is: Why are we not maximizing the reach of our church's music and preaching ministry by making our recorded church services available 24/7 on-demand either at our website or at the 316network website, like most every other mega church?
- Mac says that giving is up. If so, and if we've always paid for our TV and advertising in our regular budget, then why now do we need a special offering for local media evangelism? Where did this money previous earmarked for local media expenses go? Are we perhaps paying too much to the Agroup for their "marketing" services?
Bottom line: don't take $500,000 from our church Mac for a school that is NOT necessary to reach people for Christ despite your insistence that it is, and which will provide a ministry to relatively very few people in our local area (most of whom will be the very wealthy who can afford $8k per child tuition), and then come holding your hand out for a special offering for items that should be in the budget anyways since they reach poentially thousands world wide! Particularly when we aren't fully utilizing our infrastructure to maximize our reach through the Internet and archiving all video streams for 24/7 world-wide viewing.
Consider this church: after the sermons he's preached lately blasting his congregation and talking to us like we're biblically illiterate morons, how excited are YOU about funding nationwide broadcasts of those sermons?
Just my opinion.
Church, I sure hope you decide to NOT give ONE DIME to this offering.
- Mac just a week ago held an unannounced business meeting to ask for the church to vote on giving $500,000 for start-up costs for the First Baptist Academy. He asked us in December to pray that "God would unleash the financial resources of the church", and it sure looks like instead of waiting for God to "unleash", Mac took matters into his own hands and himself unleashed them in a quickie business meeting moderated by the president of the Trustees. Although Mac has repeatedly told us that the school is absolutely necessary in order for us to reach people for Christ, we know that is not true. The school may very well be a great idea, but to take $500,000 from money given by God's people for the ministry of our church in order to fund a school start-up is not right. I submit that the $500,000 would pay for any of the local media evangelism that he proposes. Mac has it backwards - instead of siphoning off money for ministry given by God's people to fund a school start up, let's instead use special offerings for new ministries or capital projects such as schools and pay from the budget those ongoing ministerial expenses like advertising and TV air time.
- Mac says that we should be on the cutting edge of using technology to reach people. Is he really interested in "cutting edge" technology, or getting himself on TV to a nationwide audience? If he is interested in "cutting edge" technology to maximize our reach an obvious question is: Why are we not maximizing the reach of our church's music and preaching ministry by making our recorded church services available 24/7 on-demand either at our website or at the 316network website, like most every other mega church?
- Mac says that giving is up. If so, and if we've always paid for our TV and advertising in our regular budget, then why now do we need a special offering for local media evangelism? Where did this money previous earmarked for local media expenses go? Are we perhaps paying too much to the Agroup for their "marketing" services?
Bottom line: don't take $500,000 from our church Mac for a school that is NOT necessary to reach people for Christ despite your insistence that it is, and which will provide a ministry to relatively very few people in our local area (most of whom will be the very wealthy who can afford $8k per child tuition), and then come holding your hand out for a special offering for items that should be in the budget anyways since they reach poentially thousands world wide! Particularly when we aren't fully utilizing our infrastructure to maximize our reach through the Internet and archiving all video streams for 24/7 world-wide viewing.
Consider this church: after the sermons he's preached lately blasting his congregation and talking to us like we're biblically illiterate morons, how excited are YOU about funding nationwide broadcasts of those sermons?
Just my opinion.
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