Beware The "Faithful Givers" Manipulation
I was recently driving and listening to a Christian radio station when an announcer came on saying that the station was listener-supported and that they would like to thank all their "faithful supporters". And even though I had heard this term many times in the past from all kinds of churches and ministries (and I am sure most of you have as well), I never really thought about it. But this time it suddenly hit me like a brick and I could see what was really going on. Think about this statement for a moment. What did he actually say? Regardless of any good intentions or not, he basically implied in a subtle way that anyone who is not a regular or consistent giver is unfaithful.
What that means is the poor struggling Christian who sends in a gift every once in awhile stands quietly accused by this station of being unfaithful because he or she is not a regular giver. And the one-time giver who felt inspired to send in a gift is considered unfaithful because he or she is not a consistent giver. Wow, what an incredibly insulting and demeaning way to treat people who have donated money to them! And of course everyone else who listens to the station and doesn't send in any money for whatever personal reason (maybe they can't afford to?) is also basically thought of as unfaithful.
So under the guise of complimenting the “faithful” givers, not only did this station hurl a veiled insult upon everyone else, but they also engaged in a subtle yet powerful form of manipulation to try to pressure inconsistent donors and non-givers into becoming regular supporters. Of course such extortion-like practices, while being very common place today, are totally ungodly and I wouldn't give a penny to such people.
It's almost as if you can't change channels on the radio and just briefly stop on virtually any professing Christian radio show or sermon broadcast today without hearing some kind of subtle of overt manipulation similar to this coming from their desks or pulpits. You often hear basically the same thing when just reviewing a random church sermon on the Internet. It's pretty much the same thing when visiting an average institutional church (denominational or non-denominational) and it's definitely the same thing with, God forbid, the televangelists and TV preachers. All of these people use clever statements like this as well as grossly misinterpreted Bible passages as tools to manipulate their listeners and supporters.
Regardless of how nice and well-meaning that these people may seem, and despite any justifications or claims that they may give to the contrary, there is clearly one and only one goal that is behind this type of behavior: to get more money. It's about greed. And this is totally opposite of what the Bible teaches. God is very opposed to greed and the greedy practices of hucksters and hirelings and He not only forbids such behavior as we see in the Bible, He commands us to have nothing to so with such people, let alone support them!
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one do not even eat. 1Cor 5:11
Setting up a large church or ministry and incurring all kinds of debt, overhead and expenses is not suddenly a license to be greedy. There is no fine print in the Bible where it says that it's okay to be greedy for any reason, let alone under the excuse that there is no choice because of pressure to pay bills. These people create huge messes for themselves and then want everyone else to pay for them. They create their own monsters and then manipulate people out of their hard earned money to pay for these problems. I defy anyone reading this to find a single example in the Bible where Jesus, the Apostles or early disciples ever built a single church building or commercial ministry project, let alone manipulated people to pay for any such thing. They did none of those things. And you would think professing Christians would want to live by their good examples. But sadly few do. Instead most do their own thing and stamp God's name on it, which is very dangerous practice. Nevertheless, people from all walks of life fall for this kind of deception and give money to frauds.
Never mind the fact that the countless poor, overworked and weary souls who listen to those programs and who sit in the seats of those churches are already sacrificing in these hard financial times by giving from the little that they have. Some of them even do without basic needs or foolishly go into debt using charge cards in order to give money to charlatans like this, money that they don't actually have. Now insult is added to injury and these people have to also endure being berated and being made to feel bad for not giving more?! It's outrageous.
Such is the odd little unbiblical world that is typical of commercial ministries and is also typical of institutional building-based churches, totally unabashed systems of men that are nowhere to be found in the Bible. And if all this isn't bad enough, an even worse problem is: by them mixing money and the things of God, these churches and ministries have fallen into compromise and conflicts of interest. This causes a spiritual blindness to where they often stray far from sound doctrine regarding the Gospel and Christian living in general. I think it is clear that they have cursed themselves. None of this is God's doing.
ChristiansFree.com
I was recently driving and listening to a Christian radio station when an announcer came on saying that the station was listener-supported and that they would like to thank all their "faithful supporters". And even though I had heard this term many times in the past from all kinds of churches and ministries (and I am sure most of you have as well), I never really thought about it. But this time it suddenly hit me like a brick and I could see what was really going on. Think about this statement for a moment. What did he actually say? Regardless of any good intentions or not, he basically implied in a subtle way that anyone who is not a regular or consistent giver is unfaithful.
What that means is the poor struggling Christian who sends in a gift every once in awhile stands quietly accused by this station of being unfaithful because he or she is not a regular giver. And the one-time giver who felt inspired to send in a gift is considered unfaithful because he or she is not a consistent giver. Wow, what an incredibly insulting and demeaning way to treat people who have donated money to them! And of course everyone else who listens to the station and doesn't send in any money for whatever personal reason (maybe they can't afford to?) is also basically thought of as unfaithful.
So under the guise of complimenting the “faithful” givers, not only did this station hurl a veiled insult upon everyone else, but they also engaged in a subtle yet powerful form of manipulation to try to pressure inconsistent donors and non-givers into becoming regular supporters. Of course such extortion-like practices, while being very common place today, are totally ungodly and I wouldn't give a penny to such people.
It's almost as if you can't change channels on the radio and just briefly stop on virtually any professing Christian radio show or sermon broadcast today without hearing some kind of subtle of overt manipulation similar to this coming from their desks or pulpits. You often hear basically the same thing when just reviewing a random church sermon on the Internet. It's pretty much the same thing when visiting an average institutional church (denominational or non-denominational) and it's definitely the same thing with, God forbid, the televangelists and TV preachers. All of these people use clever statements like this as well as grossly misinterpreted Bible passages as tools to manipulate their listeners and supporters.
Regardless of how nice and well-meaning that these people may seem, and despite any justifications or claims that they may give to the contrary, there is clearly one and only one goal that is behind this type of behavior: to get more money. It's about greed. And this is totally opposite of what the Bible teaches. God is very opposed to greed and the greedy practices of hucksters and hirelings and He not only forbids such behavior as we see in the Bible, He commands us to have nothing to so with such people, let alone support them!
But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one do not even eat. 1Cor 5:11
Setting up a large church or ministry and incurring all kinds of debt, overhead and expenses is not suddenly a license to be greedy. There is no fine print in the Bible where it says that it's okay to be greedy for any reason, let alone under the excuse that there is no choice because of pressure to pay bills. These people create huge messes for themselves and then want everyone else to pay for them. They create their own monsters and then manipulate people out of their hard earned money to pay for these problems. I defy anyone reading this to find a single example in the Bible where Jesus, the Apostles or early disciples ever built a single church building or commercial ministry project, let alone manipulated people to pay for any such thing. They did none of those things. And you would think professing Christians would want to live by their good examples. But sadly few do. Instead most do their own thing and stamp God's name on it, which is very dangerous practice. Nevertheless, people from all walks of life fall for this kind of deception and give money to frauds.
Never mind the fact that the countless poor, overworked and weary souls who listen to those programs and who sit in the seats of those churches are already sacrificing in these hard financial times by giving from the little that they have. Some of them even do without basic needs or foolishly go into debt using charge cards in order to give money to charlatans like this, money that they don't actually have. Now insult is added to injury and these people have to also endure being berated and being made to feel bad for not giving more?! It's outrageous.
Such is the odd little unbiblical world that is typical of commercial ministries and is also typical of institutional building-based churches, totally unabashed systems of men that are nowhere to be found in the Bible. And if all this isn't bad enough, an even worse problem is: by them mixing money and the things of God, these churches and ministries have fallen into compromise and conflicts of interest. This causes a spiritual blindness to where they often stray far from sound doctrine regarding the Gospel and Christian living in general. I think it is clear that they have cursed themselves. None of this is God's doing.
ChristiansFree.com