What to Do After Asking for $1 Million Cash

Immediately after our Chest of Joash service on Sunday September 27th in which Mac was attempting to collect 1 million dollars CASH MONEY for facility maintenance, and after a series of sermons prompting his church members to give more to the church, what did Mac Brunson do?

Why, do what any very rich mega church pastor would do! Take a two-week vacation to Europe! Go shopping in Milan, Italy! See ya later, suckers!

Yep, after his sermon series to tell us that we are spending our money carelessly because we're only giving on average 3% of our income to Mac's church, after poor-mouthing about how we have to get by with only $15 million in our budget because the 5000 "giving units" of our church aren't tithing...Mac packs his bags with his wife and heads off on a two-week vacation to Europe.

Mac likes to do that apparently, after asking for special offerings to fleece his sheep he heads out of town, out of COUNTRY, on expensive vacations that most of his congregation could only dream of. While we're staying in Jax and maybe splurging to see a movie after we gave sacrificially for the maintenance of our facilities, Mac heads off to Europe - what a tough life he has as our pastor. He did it on Easter Sunday - asked for $180,000 to put himself on nationwide TV, and left actually before the service was even concluded to begin his Mediterranean cruise. Then two weeks ago he asks us to give $1 million for church maintenance that our church failed to take care of with the $45 million that we have given since Mac arrived as pastor...Mac and Honey bolt for Europe. Must be that beating the sheep for money is very tiring, necessitating a long vacation after he gets us to open up our wallets.

And to top it off...Mac has the church show a video on the Sunday he is gone telling everyone how much he and Honey care for the poor:

"This Christmas season Debbie and I are going to man one of those kettles, and we're doing it in the name of Jesus Christ [actually, in the name of "FBC Jacksonville"] and I'm asking everyone of you in this congregation to join Debbie and myself in being a part of this...we care about those who have so much less than we do."

Yeah, right.

So FBC Jax Cares for the Poor?

"What an important thing we can do for this community, what a message it would send to the city for them to see the First Baptist Church of Jacksonville out there joining hands with other Christian churches saying 'We care about those who have so much less than we do'.
Mac Brunson on the Salvation Army Kettle Drive

Interesting that Mac declares that by us manning a Salvation Army Kettle at the Avenues Mall near our new satellite campus that we are showing the community how much we care about the poor.

Really? Is that what this kettle drive says? A 25,000 member, $15 million annual budget church manning a kettle to generate a net $3000 for the poor in our city?

I find no fault with the church coordinating a kettle drive. Its a great idea. We can do it with no problem at all. Its the least we can do. With our numbers we could man 3 or 4 kettles. We should do it. And we can feel good about it.

But let's be straight: it in no way tells our community that we care for the poor despite what our pastor says in his Santa Hat and Salvation Army Apron. As I said in my previous post the net contribution of our manning the kettle will be around $3000.

Mac a few Sundays ago used a pie chart to guilt us all, the church's "giving units" he called us...into giving more to the church. His pie chart showed what terrible givers we are, that we only give on average 3% or our total income to charity. We sat there stunned. No attempt to remind his church about the New Testament principles of giving. No loving reminder of how much we are indebted to Christ. No, Mac closed out his sermon with a pie chart to show that we are spending so poorly, and declaring "you're not going broke by giving to the church."

Click here to listen to Mac lecture us with his pie chart

So Mac likes to use pie charts? That's great. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

Below is our own little chart. Not of the pie variety like Mac's, but of the bar variety.

Conservatively we can estimate the salary and benefits of Team Brunson to be $300,000. A wealthy member offered Mac a $275,000 piece of land upon his arrival in Jacksonville, and Mac accepted it. On Easter Sunday, Mac used the largest crowd of the year in an attempt to raise a special offering of $180,000 to put himself back on national TV on the INSP.

Got that Jacksonville? Mac held a special offering to get $180,000 to put himself on national TV on a Christian channel, even though we can reach nationwide through the Internet.

Salary of pastor and family: $300,000.

Land gift from wealthy member to newly hired pastor: $275,000

Money for TV broadcasts of pastor: $180,000.

Funds to Build Pastor's Lavish Office Suite: $100,000

Amount raised for the poor: $3000

Mac's claim that we care about the poor: PRICELESS

Salvation Army Kettle - New Marketing Gimmick for Satellite Campus

I don't know if this is the brain child of our marketing consultant Maurilio Amorim, but I find it quite interesting:

First Baptist Jacksonville is "sponsoring" a Salvation Army Kettle at the Avenues Mall in Southern Jacksonville - we have committed to "man" the kettle for the entire holiday season and church members can sign up for an hour slot at the FBC Jax website.

Yesterday at the beginning of the service we were treated with a video promo piece for this "ministry" featuring Mac in a Santa's hat and Salvation Army apron in his swank library in his office suite, where Mac unveiled this incredibly generous gesture on the part of FBC Jacksonville. The kettle poster has the FBC Jax logo on it so that donors will know we are from FBC Jax...and Mac said this is a great way to spread the gospel - but didn't say exactly how we would spread the gospel by having church members ring a bell.

But here's an excerpt from the FBC Jax Website that shows Mac's real motive for having us ring the bell:

Our kettle will be located at the Avenues Mall off of Philips [sic] Hwy. and Southside Blvd. just south of I-95 (Food Court area). This will allow some exposure in the area of the new south campus. All proceeds will got [sic] to help the Salvation Army'd [sic] effort to help the needy families with food, toys, etc. during the Christmas season.

How can we get "exposure" for our new campus? Let's ring the bell for the Salvation Army at the Avenues Mall! We can get our "brand" down there! Free exposure!

Since this is a marketing move, we need to maximize the FBC Jax brand exposure, and we need to make sure we have coordinated marketing messages to those who put coins in our bucket. So for those of you ringing the bell, the Watchdog has just received from the A-Group some of the scripts you can use while ringing the bell that will help draw people to our new satellite campus:

"Ring a ring....Merry Christmas! Thanks for the change and digging deep, come hear Mac Brunson at our new campus, he'll be beating his sheep!"

"Ring a ring...Thank you for sharing your money with the poor...visit our south campus on Easter and Mac will be asking for more!"

"Ring a ring, ring...Have a blessed Christmas season...that gift you gave sure was swell...our new satellite campus will be where you can hear Mac yell."

"Ho, Ho, Ho...Merry Christmas, thanks for the coin, visit our satellite and agree to tithe, and you will be welcome to join!"

"Happy Holidays...isn't the weather getting cool? Drop in a quarter, and let me tell you about our new for-the-rich downtown school!"

"Ring, Ring, Ring....thanks for the dime even though you're short on money these days...by the way our pastor says 'Praise Jesus you got no raise'!!"

"Merry Christmas - we're starting a satellite campus and that ain't no lie...come and visit and you'll see Jim Smryl preach without that legalistic tie."

A Hint of Things to Come? Mac says "Let's See if I Make It Here..."

In our Chest of Joash service September 28th, right before Mac left on a two-week vacation (what's up with Mac always taking a vacation immediately after asking us to dig deep for a "special offering"?), Mac said the following near the beginning of his sermon:

"This past Monday morning by eight-o-clock I had been to two different hospitals and had listened to Dr. Lindsay's sermon on this passage [2 Kings 6], all before eight this past Monday morning. And God just used his message - one day down the road I'm gonna share with you something that God said to my heart out of that message but I'm not gonna do it for a while, let me get, uh, let me see if I make it here for a while, if I do I'll share with you what God said to me out of what Dr. Lindsay said. It spoke, really, to my heart..."

Listen to Mac Yourself

Very interesting. Why would he tell his church that he has to see if "he'll make it here a while" before he tells us what God said to him? Why not just tell us? Was it similar to what God told him while riding the camel in the Holy Land in December 2005?

Is he saying that he might be leaving soon? Does he sense his job is in jeopardy? Or is it him signaling that he's just so fed up with his recalcitrant sheep that he doesn't know how much longer he can take it?

He leaves it up to his listeners to assume what he means. I've never heard one of our pastors plant doubt about his tenure at our church - at least not in a serious way. Mac was serious when he said it. He wasn't kidding when he spoke these words. If you want to hear the clip in its complete context, go to Mac's website http://www.inlight.org/ and you can hear it. He says it in the first two minutes of his sermon "The Iron Did Swim".

I'll go ahead and assume what he means...even though as Jim Smyrl says "assumption is the lowest form of knowledge." But Mac must want us to have to assume what he means, else why utter such a statement planting the thought with his sheep without explaining it?

My assumption is that he wants to plant the thought with his congregation that he's the embattled pastor, trying to do the right thing, but there are those out to remove him and he's not sure how much longer he can hold on. Another attempt at garnering sympathy, to tell us just how darn tough it is to be our pastor. Why tell us twice in the same sentence that he was busy visiting two hospitals and listening to a Dr. Lindsay sermon all before eight? "Here I am busting my butt to be your pastor, getting up early, visiting the sick and infirmed, and you guys want me out and I'm not sure if I'm even going to be here long."

By the way, did anyone hear the dollar amount we gave to the special offering for maintenance of our buildings? I was shocked that we didn't get an update in church yesterday. I'm sure Mac will tell us when he gets back next week.

Welcome Dr. David Allen

This Sunday Dr. Allen will be preaching at FBC Jacksonville in the absence of our pastor Mac Brunson who is on vacation. Our church has always been very fond of Dr. Allen's preaching and we look forward to having him at our church on Sunday. He is the Dean of the Southwestern Theological Seminary in Dallas, Texas.

Dr. Allen preached a number of times in advance of Mac Brunson coming to our church in the spring of 2006. After we voted to call Team Brunson to our church, it took nearly two months for them to come to Jacksonville in which time we had a number of very high profile preachers "preparing the way" for Mac.

Those of us present back then will remember the theme of Dr. Allen's messages, that the cloud would move again for our church - according to Dr. Allen God was going to again begin moving in our midst once Mac came. Those 2 months between calling Mac and him actually arriving were great months of anticipation in our church. Most of the preachers devoted parts of their sermon to heap praise on our new pastor, and we were so hopeful.

Mac finally arrived in April 2006, and it didn't take long to see that maybe the cloud wasn't going anywhere too quickly. In fact after about a year, it seemed that the only cloud moving was the steam coming from Mac's head as he raked us over the coals. Instead of a pastor coming to love us and get busy ministering to our church and our community, it seemed like we were viewed more as a source of capital for the projects and promotion of Mac Brunson and a new market for the Brunson brand than we were a church in need of a loving shepherd to move us into the next generation.

Dr. Allen, Mac tells us that you are one of his closest friends, that you were Mac's prayer partner as he considered the call to come here. We know that perhaps you are getting one side of the story of his first 2 1/2 years, and we want you to know a few things as you come to preach to us:

- its been a rocky 2 1/2 years for our church to say the least. Although Mac has told you and Paige Patterson that he never got a honeymoon at our church, that is a lie so please don't believe that. Our church welcomed Mac with open arms, we prepared a lush office suite for him, put wife and son on staff, and he was given the reigns of our church. We introduced him to the community on Father's Day by renting our minor league baseball stadium. He had our full support. We even allowed him to bring his marketing consultant and put him on our payroll. There were some people alarmed over Mac using the NASB, but that was a small minority and that might be expected in a church that has used the KJV for decades. So we were behind Mac fully, but within the first few months he squandered the good will through his tepid effort at pastoring and preaching and his acceptance of land gifts and free rent at ocean front condos upon his arrival - made all the worse when we found out he counsels pastors in his pastor guidebook to NOT do the very things he did when he came to our church.

- Mac has likely told you that he has been opposed at every turn, that he has had a rough time for the last 2 years, we want you to know it has been EQUALLY as hard on us. Mac has preached hard. Not hard on sin, but hard on people. Not only have we had to deal with the departure of most of our staff in the first year and a half, but we've had to deal with Mac slandering us when preaching at other churches. We're used to pastors preaching the truth in love, but we're getting preaching of some truth, lots of history and legalism, and unhealthy does of pastoral anger. We're not used to it. He has told us that we are worshipping the past, that we are worshipping previous pastors. He hired one of our favorite "preacher boys" Jim Smyrl who many thought was Vines-esque when he served under Vines, but now Smyrl has followed Brunson in the style of hard-on-people preaching with very little love and even less wisdom. We've seen Smyrl transformed right before our eyes under the tutelage of Brunson.

- And we've had to deal with a pastor who seems to be a legalist. While he denounces legalism, and even declares that we are a "hotbed of legalism", he himself preaches legalism in the areas of service and giving in the church and church discipline. Our previous pastors did preach tithing, but they also balanced this with the New Testament principle of giving out of love for our Savior. But we don't get that from Mac.

So many of us are hurting. We feel like we've been brought an uncaring, self-serving preacher who wants to exert his will on the church. He changed our bylaws without even explaining why, and didn't even care enough to hold an honest vote on starting a school. We've been told that if we don't follow his lead and direction we are sinning.

We are praying Dr. Allen that you are bringing a message of hope to our church this Sunday. We've had Mac bring in preachers in his absence that also preached hard on us in defense of Mac - even our own former pastor Dr. Vines came in February 2007 and angrily preached to us about anonymous emails and people complaining about the pastor's salary - with the disgusting sight of the two men high-fiving each other on the platform after Vines declared about a troublesome church member "...I don't get paid enough to be yo pastor, bruther." Some laughed. Many of us cried at that sight.

We hope you aren't going to come in and judge us. We are a loving people. We aren't legalists. We want to follow a loving pastor-shepherd. We hope you can speak the truth to Brunson about his actions these first 2 1/2 years - and on Sunday we hope you can speak some love and truth to us.

After all, its been 2 1/2 years, and we are still waiting for the "cloud to move".