Court Evangelicals: In All Things, Trump Must Have the Preeminence.

Last weekend, Donald Trump’s evangelical advisors met with him to talk over impeachment strategy. Here is a picture of group on Family Research Council president Tony Perkins’ twitter feed.

I see Gateway Church pastor Robert Morris, James Dobson, Robert Jeffress, Paula White, and AACC owner Tim Clinton among others.

Perkins says the reason the Democrats want to impeach Trump is due to his support for pro-life, pro-family policies. Odd, absolutely nothing has been mentioned about those policies in the numerous depositions taken so far. Everything has been about the president’s effort to manipulate Ukraine’s president to start an investigation of Hunter Biden in order to get dirt on Joe Biden. The president has stonewalled Congress and engaged in activities to cover up his activities. I believe the attempt to get a foreign government help to win an American election is an impeachable offense.

American evangelical leaders will have to answer for their blind trust in a political leader. I didn’t think evangelical leaders could get much lower but they have. Even if they don’t think what Trump did is impeachable, they should not excuse it. It is as if the Constitution or framers’ intent don’t matter anymore. The only thing that matters is protecting Donald Trump.

Gateway Church Pranked with Alternative Voter Guides

Over the weekend, Gateway Church hoped to guide members in the way they should vote by providing voter guides. After all, who doesn’t need a little political guidance with their spiritual guidance?

Things didn’t go exactly as planned. At some point after many guides had been distributed, someone noticed that the guides were very un-Gateway like. According to a reader, here is what was mixed in with Gateway’s guides:

Below is how Gateway wants members to vote.

This was a pretty elaborate prank. The guides look very similar in these pictures and must have cost a lot to produce. Someone wanted to make a point.

One of the individuals lamenting this turn of events pointed church members to vote.gatewaypeople.com which contains links to the approved Vision America voter guides.

Politicians in Church

Not all Gateway folk are happy with obvious Republican politicking in the church. On a church social media site, two people expressed reservations about the voter guides.

Politicians in church; one can’t escape that at Gateway Church. They even tell you how to vote.

One principle from the page has been violated by the Gateway effort:

Here’s one more point: Don’t align yourself too closely with a political party or a politician. That is unwise because we need to be free to call all political parties and politicians to repentance when they step outside of biblical morality and principle.

It is possible that the anonymous prankster wanted to get across something like this with the alt-voter guide. There is more than one way to look at biblical principles when it comes to politics and policy.

Gateway Business Leaders to Feature Credit Card Mogul

_MG_2556Remember the Gateway Church program that puts a bullseye on rich people? Despite (or maybe because of) the layoffs and other woes at Gateway, the church is still hunting for rich folks via the Gateway Business Leaders program. On March 1, Gateway will feature two successful businessmen as a way to attract “C-level” business leaders with, as former Gateway pastor Bobby Bogard put it, “influence and large capacities of wealth.”

Gateway Business Leaders

Here is the announcement:
Gateway Biz Leaders
Notice that the last fellow, Jimmy Blanchard, started the largest credit card company in the world. This should make him less than a popular figure around the Gateway ranch since the church has been a big fan of Dave Ramsey’s credit card discouraging financial advice. However, given his influence and large capacity for wealth, he probably has one rather large bullseye on him.

Healthy in So Many Different Ways?

Not so long ago in January of 2017, Pastor Bobby Bogard was touting the health of Gateway. Now, with the layoffs of about 35% of the staff, he is no longer at the church. As a reminder of the rationale for the Gateway Business Leaders program, here is Bogard talking about Gateway’s “grace lane” to the rich and influential.

Transcript:

Gateway Church will be 17 years old this Easter.  We’re a spirit filled Charismatic church without the weird or the goofy.  I’ve seen the weird and the goofy, believe me in  my charismania days.  Um, we have over 30 thousand in attendance on a weekly basis.  That’s six campuses, with 26 services. I say all that to say this, big is not always better.  Big is not better. But what we are at Gateway Church is we’re healthy and I wanna talk to you about healthy church.  We’re healthy in so many different ways.  And health is probably one of the main ingredients of our success.  In all of the growth that we’ve taken place we’ve remained a healthy organization and a healthy church.  A healthy ministry.  A healthy people.  A healthy staff.  Healthy pace.  And so, part of our secret sauce is that we’re healthy.  Our goal is to become healthy, not to fill buildings with people.  Because here’s the deal.  If we can become healthy, we will see people filled with God, and then the principle of ‘healthy things grow’ right?  So that’s a value that we hold.  Healthy things grow.  And so church growth is really a byproduct of a healthy church.
Number two is people.  We’re all about people.  That’s our slogan, it’s been our slogan from the very  beginning.  I’m gonna drill down to some of this in just a minute.  I wanna fly by on a 30,000 foot view, okay?   But, we’r e all about people.  And the reason we’re all about people is because  God’s all about people. Am I right?  And so if we’re all about people because God’s all about people, it’s because we know God loves people, and if God loves people  we need to love people.  But how many of you know, sometimes, in our journey we love Jesus with all of our heart.   Right?  It’s just some of the people He hangs out with that we have a  problem.  C’mon somebody?  And so, God loves people.  I love what Johnny shared, man.  I love the fact that John Maxwell is passionate about a million souls, because souls are people.  People have problems.  People have issues. People have transition.  But God loves them in every season of their life.  He never turns himself away from people.  And so, if you help people, God will send you more people, because God loves people. I’ll say that again.  If you love people and you help people, God will send you more people.  Why?  Because God loves people.
And so as we, as we, look at health, and as we look at people, there are some considerations that we go after in preparing ourselves to be healthy and to love people.  And that’s number one is: We’re always asking ourself, who is are target?  Who’s our bullseye?  Do you know who your bullseye is?  Your bullseye, not that you’re not gonna reach all people, because we’re gonna reach all people.  We’re gonna be all things to all people, to reach all people.  But there’s something that God has gifted you with.  There’s a Grace Lane that you have.  And that Grace Lane is directed to a bullseye.  And who is your bullseye?  Who are the people God’s called you to reach?
And so, as we look at our bullseye, God has called us, to reach professional people.  That’s our bullseye.  We’re still gonna help the down and out.  We do it every week.  We’re still gonna help single moms.  We do it every week.  We-we’re still going to uh, look and help marriages and blended families.  We’re gonna work through their issues.  But our bullseye is the business professionals.  Matter fact, in one of our depart- we have a whole department that’s built towards reaching business people.  I’m talking about people with influence and large capacities of wealth.  That’s our bullseye because we feel like that’s something God’s graced us to do.  And if we can reach our bullseye, it will create a ripple, if you will, so that we can reach the others more effectively.

 

Top Ten Blog Posts of 2017

In 2017, the following ten posts received the most page views:
10. K-LOVE’s Pledge Drive: Money Behind the Music (2017)
9. Former Newsping Pastor Perry Noble Incorporates Second Change Church (2017)
8. American College of Pediatricians v. American Academy of Pediatrics: Who Leads and Who Follows? (2011)
7. After the Demise of Mars Hill Church Mark Driscoll Landed on His Feet with Over One Million in Donations (2017)
6. IRS and Postal Service Agents on Scene at Benny Hinn’s Office (2017)
5. Mark Driscoll Spins the End of Mars Hill Church (2017)
4. A Major Study of Child Abuse and Homosexuality Revisited (2009)
3. Former CFO at Turning Point Claims David Jeremiah Used Questionable Methods to Secure a Spot on Best Seller Lists (2015)
2. What’s Going on at Harvest Bible Fellowship? James MacDonald Resigns as President of HBF (2017)
and the #1 post is:

  1. Open Letter to Gateway Pastor Robert Morris from a Former Member of Mars Hill Church (2014)

 
Some past posts have aged well. The 2009 post regarding child abuse and non-heterosexuality has been in the top ten nearly every year since 2009.counseling image 2 Readers continue to be interested in Mars Hill Church and various players surrounding the demise of that church.
Although the page views don’t show it, the story that continues to be covered here and almost nowhere else is the Gospel for Asia saga. The target of federal scrutiny and two RICO lawsuits in the U.S., GFA has also initiated and been involved in various legal actions in India. Although the scope of the GFA empire dwarfs other organizations I have examined, it continues to fly along under the radar.
For a profile of my work and the role blogging has played in it, see this lengthy article by Jon Ward in Yahoo News earlier this month.

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To like the Facebook page dedicated to the book Getting Jefferson Right, click here.
The learn more about the sexual identity therapy framework, go here.

Robert Morris Announces The Table Church Plant in Austin

In September, I first disclosed that Gateway Church founding pastor Robert Morris’ son Josh was going to plant a church in Austin, TX. This news represented a sea change at Gateway because the plan had always been for Josh to take over Gateway when Robert retired. This past weekend, the elder Morris made it official and announced to the Gateway congregation that the plant in Austin was happening.
The church, to be called The Table Church, is slated in early 2019 to open in the second wealthiest area of Austin: the Lakeway/Bee Cave area.  Morris will be assisted by Chad Sykes and Cole Novak. Morris disclosed this change and others this weekend and posted his announcement on the church Facebook page earlier today:

(Transcript at the end of the post)
It will interesting to see how this happens over time. Planting a church requires financial commitments and this means that Gateway is apparently going to expand just after a significant and painful staff downsizing.
Morris then outlined the new lineup of campus pastors.
GW pastors
Looks like there are already several good churches in the neighborhood. I wonder why Morris targeted this one?
 
Transcript:

I want to let you know, some changes, that are coming up, before I go into the message. And that is, that, um, we’re making some transitions with some campus pastors, so I’m gonna introduce to you all the campus pastors in a moment, just by at least showing you their pictures.  Most of them are not able to be here.  They’re at the campus. But we’re also making a transition here at the uh, Southlake campus with our campus pastor.
Pastor Josh Morris has been serving as the campus pastor of the Southlake Campus uh, but I wanna get you the, give ya a little behind the scenes, um, information on this.  Uh, about 3 to 4 years ago, um, I started feeling like that Pastor Josh might be, in 10 to 12 years, my successor and to take the church here.  And so I talked to the Elders about it. And we began preparing him for that. Putting him in, in different departments. We have two succession plans in essence.  One for when I’m 63-65, which is like 30 years from now, ya know, so.
But, ha, but the other uh emergency plan, ya know, if an airplane went down or something like that and um.  And it’s like life insurance. Ya hope ya never have to use it but ya oughta be wise and have it in place. So, uh, we were preparing him for that. And in August he came and met with me and said, ‘Dad, I just um, I just don’t have peace about, uh, taking the church at, just,  I feel stress when I think about it. And, um, I’ve been talking with Hannah and Hannah asked me, ‘would you ever want to plant a church.’ And he said, I actually said, ‘No. I don’t think I want to do that’. And he said but it’s been kind of going off in me and now the Lord’s actually put a city on my heart. And, but I need to talk to you and see what God is saying. Ya know, through you.
And I said, ‘Well, I think then since God is stirring this, then that’s the way we need to go. Um, God will take care of whoever is to uh,  take my place when it’s time. Uh, we’ll get back on a succession plan, for whoever God says.  Uh, but he’s praying about it.  I felt strongly as well, that this is what God is speaking to the Elders, all the Elders prayed.  We felt the word from the Lord.  So, next summer, they’re goin- Josh and Hannah, will move to Austin, Texas and plant a church in our state capital.
So, also Chad Sykes will be an Associate Pastor there and then Cole Novak is going to go to be the worship pastor, Cole wrote the song Open the Heavens that we sing, that’s all over now. I was actually listening on uh, the uh Christian radio station that’s on the XM Satellite and I thought, I know that song.  And I know that kid too, ya know, so uh, so, I just, I know these people. So, ah. Um, so anyway.  So we’re beginning to start making that transition. It won’t be called Gateway Church because there’s already a Gateway Church in Austin and it might be confusing, we felt like. Um and like  we pra- planted Preston, and we, we called that Gateway Church. But we planted Tim Ross in Irving and called it Embassy Church. So It’s going to be called Table Church.  Uh, ya know Pastor Josh has something in his heart about coming to the table and the Lord’s table.  And then just fellowship around the table.
So it’ll actually be Table dot Church. So if you know of someone in Austin, the church will probably start around the first of 2019, but there are a lot of moving parts to that. But they’ll move this next summer to get started and build the Lead Team and things like that. So, I’m, I’m excited about it. I really am.
We still have an emergency succession plan in place, just so ya know, if something did happen to me. Um, a guy with a little bit of experience, Pastor Jimmy Evans, would actually step in. And take the church as the interim pastor and then, we’d find ya know, what God is saying.  So but.  Nothing’s going to happened ahem, so.  I’ll be around.  So.
Uh, but I wanted to let you know who then will be stepping in as the Southlake campus pastor. And so, you just stand up there, Pastor Mark Jobe, is gonna be the new Southlake campus pastor. So, uh. And I, uh, I prayed about it and I’ve known Pastor Mark for many years and of course Pastor Mark and Sandy and then you probably very familiar with Kari Jobe, his daughter and one of th-our worship pastors that travels and ministers and now lives in Nashville so she can travel more and do what God has called her to do with her husband.
And so, anyway. Um, uh, but, so I just wanted you to know all the campus pastors cuz there’s been some switching some around.  So if we can put that up. Where you an kind of see. So uh, the Dallas Campus, of course, is Pastor Tom Lane.  Uh, at the Frisco Campus, Jelaini Lewis, NOW at the Grand Prairie Campus there’s Pastor Steve Thompson stepping in for Pastor Mark Jobe. At the North Ft Worth Campus Pastor Mondoe Davis. Uhm, and then at the North Richland Hills, Pastor Stokes Collins and just to comment at North Ft Worth it was Pastor Marcus Brecheen.  He’s helping us now in the church network that we’re starting to help other churches. And then Pastor Stokes it was Pastor Byron Copeland. Pastor Byron is now overseeing all of the campus, campuses and campus pastors. You have to have someone in that spot to be able to oversee all of them. And then Mark Jobe at the Southlake campus.  So, I just wanted to make you aware of what was going on.
And then just put Josh and Hannah on your radar. I think, uh, you know, umm, I don’t mean to say this wrong. Lemme say this the right way.  The Enemy targets state capitals. (nods head) Would you agree with that? So, why not a church, let’s target it for the Kingdom of God. And um, see what we can make a difference there. So.
And the church is actually gonna be west.  Kind of west of Austin. But take in that whole west Austin portion Bee Cave Lakeway, if you’ve ever been down there it’s just a huge grow- growing area so. Awright.