Yep, Mark preached from the Bible all the time. Its what motivated me to go to that church. But after while you didn’t hear about the Bible too much. There was always some reference to scripture, but lalter much of what Mark had to say was about finances. Somewhere near the start of a message and he would excitedly say how popular MH was and how fast its growing…and then give numbers. Eventually it was, “we are the fastest growing church in the country”, but then he would also put down other churches and call out those ministers. It was always to elevate MH. Then you would hear how many downloads his messages were getting each week This is all to say that the bible was taking a second seat to what Mark had to say about MH. But it was also about himself. Every Wed. he would set the day aside to do interviews around the country. He would make a point to share this with us. Then Mark was rarely speaking at MH (main campus). This went for weeks….then months. He was gone more and more. Finally he was gone for good. A friend and I often talk about Mark and the bible themed messages and how we missed all that. We still talk about the Bible and how Mark would go through whole books and chapters. But then how he got away from all that….and it became something else…..something that eventually led to the demise of the whole church (and Mark).

Sadly, MD is far from alone: I gather that ministers of religion (along with CEOs, lawyers and police officers) as a group are ‘over-represented’ in this area, in the view of some researchers. Perhaps it is to be expected in a way, especially when a minister is also in effect running a business …

Thank you for explaining. That is a very true statement. Until I received therapy and healing from my past abuse I definitely wasn’t seeing MD’s narcissism (and I would agree, psychopathic tendencies) clearly.

Thank you for your comment. I don’t want to speak for your new worship pastor but I will say that him and his family are some of our favorite people. I would definitely encourage you to ask him these questions. I am confident he would be happy to sit down and share his story through all of this situation and how they decided to take this new job.