The apostles of Christ warn us that self-deception is a very real possibility even for Christians (Galatians 6:3,7; James 1:16,26; I Timothy 2:14; 2 Timothy 3:13). What is self-deception? How can a true believer actually be deceived? In our discussions of the Prosperity Doctrine and the Mandatory Tithe, I have noticed that both sides of these issues will, at times, accuse the other side of "being deceived." Here is a case in point: 

Both Craig and C.T.P. left The City Church in Kirkland, WA where Wendell & Gini Smith are the senior pastors.  When asked by Serj why they left, they made the following comments:  

“It’s not about the cars or houses, it’s about deception and manipulation for the end result of fleecing the flock. False doctrine caused me to leave the church…Paul told Timothy to watch his doctrine closely because it would save his soul and those who hear him. Why do people who take doctrine seriously leave that church? You do the math.” (Craig, City Business Church blog, July 21st, 2007 at 12:41 am) 

“My reasons for leaving are closely related to Craig’s. We both saw the deception and the false teaching. The pastors there are not open to hearing any critical voices speak, even if in love - so that gave us no option, but to move on, although it is hard to stop talking about it because of all of our friends that are still there…They [the pastors of the fastest church planting church in the nation] don’t buy $500 trash cans (like City does) or $4,000 flower pots (like City does), and yes that is true - I was a custodian at City so I know.” (C.T.P., City Business Church blog, July 21st, 2007 at 8:54 am).  

After reading what these two former members said about why they left The City Church, I found the following comments from Pastor Wendell Smith, Craig and C.T.P.'s former pastor, most interesting:  

“Over the years, I have known a few men who chose to debate the issue of tithing with me. Rationalizing their view based on their own limited perusing of Scripture, they decided to take a stand against being ‘obligated’ to give ten percent of their income. They believed the New Testament way was to give as the Spirit led. But always, upon review of their financial records after their departure, we discovered they were giving far less. Why would the Holy Spirit lead them to give less than what both Old and New Testament Scriptures teach? I believe the wrong spirit led them to the wrong doctrine and to the wrong decision! They missed the bigger issues of having a right heart attitude toward God, loving His Word, wanting to please Him, and understanding covenant relationship.” Wendell Smith, Prosperity with a Purpose, The City Church, Kirkland, Washington, 2005, p. 158

Both sides in this discussion accuse the other of being involved in some form of deception. Craig and C.T.P. accuse Pastor Wendell of being deceived by false teaching and using it to manipulate his flock for personal financial profit. Pastor Wendell accuses those who questioned his doctrine of tithing of not loving God's Word, and, therefore, opening themselves up to being deceived by a "wrong spirit." In my view, for any Christian to accuse another believer of being deceived is a very serious matter. What do you think?     

I'm curious, did the Washington Huskies stop coming to genchurch or did Judah Smith lose his anointing?  I of course ask this because the Huskies have lost 5 in a row and got dominated last night by the mighty Oregon Ducks. It looked like U of W sent out a JV squad…seriously people…look at this line:

I have been waiting a year to write this blog post, ever since I read that The City Church (of Seattle, Washington) spent 1.4 million on a rowhouse in Washington DC.

Here are the real estate statistics for the zipcode (20003) where the rowhouse is located. These statistics tell you the average property value of homes bought and sold in the Washington DC metro area from September 2006 (when the City Church purchased the rowhouse) to September 2007.

Total Sold Dollar Volume:  -52.63%

Average Sold Price:  -20.63%

Median Sold Price:  -27.36%

If you look closely you will see that the median price for a home bought in September 2006 dropped 27%, year over year. Which means the City Church lost 27% of the value of their rowhouse in just one year.

And 27% of 1.4 million is…. …well, you guessed it… a whole hell of a lot of money.

You see Wendell Smith bought his little home at the peak of the market, in one of the most over-valued residential markets in the country.

And in two years, when this property has dropped another 20% in value, and Barack Obama is President of the United States, and the Democrats have overwhelming control of Congress, and Wendell Smith's goal of being an influential person in DC is completely moot…

…it is then that I will get down on my knees, and say,

"Dear Jesus, thank you for being a Just and Wonderful God who despises the proud and gives grace to the humble. You have given me more joy than I can possibly imagine, and for that I will always love you. And thank you for your wonderful sense of humor, it please me so much.

Sincerely, your servant,

-Justin."

There is a great article in The Daily World today discussing Doug Cotton's return to the Harbor.

From the paper:

Doug Cotton, the former pastor of Christian Life Fellowship in Central Park, will help launch a Harbor branch of a huge Kirkland-based church next month.

It will be called Harbor City Church, with the first services scheduled for Sept. 30.

Using financial resources from The City Church, which has a regular weekly attendance of 7,000, according to Anderson, Cotton has leased the former Alexander Young Elementary School at the foot of Scammel Hill.

The Aberdeen School District is charging the church $3,000 a month, according to Tom Laufmann, finance director for the district. It’s an 11-month lease that starts in September and ends on July 31, 2008. The church will have an option to renew and it will pay all utilities.

I encourage you to read the whole article, it confirms a lot of what has been said in the comments of this blog.

I would also like to thank all our readers, because you were partly responsible for tipping off the reporter to Doug Cottons' return.

From the article:

The Daily World learned about Cotton’s affiliation with the new church through calls from readers and a blog entry at www.citybusinesschurch.org.

We also received an email from the reporter thanking us for the blog entry that led him to write this follow up story.

Well done, readers, well done.

Judah Smith…

Wendell Smith in a recent sermon had this to say about September 11:

I believe that tens of thousands of lives were saved that morning because television sets came on and people all across American began to pray. Did you pray? Because we prayed and interceded. I believe people escaped those buildings. And people escaped those streets. And I believe the other plane went down and did not go into the place where it was intended all because of intercession.

I'm sure the families of those on United Flight 93 are comforted to know that Wendell's prayers caused that plane to crash.

"Guess who's back? Back again. Cotton's back. Tell a friend."

As some of you may recall, several months ago Doug Cotton was removed from his church Christian Life Fellowship on charges of abuse. Many of Mr. Cotton's parishoners felt he behaved in an inappropriate manner, and they convinced the elders of CLF to remove Cotton from his pastoral position.

Mr. Cotton felt wrongly ousted and went to Minister Fellowship International, asking for their help.  Wendell Smith, who is the co-chairman of MFI,  threatened to sue the church if they did not re-instate Mr. Cotton.

The elders balked, and a reader offers this insight into what happened next:

Subsquently, Wendell held a meeting with the CLF elders. During the meeting he asked the elders to trust him. When it was pointed out that he threatened to sue the church and the elders individually, he admitted his threats were a bluff.

Now, according to this same reader, MFI is going to re-instate Cotton in a new church in Gray's Harbor.

I don't have a problem with Doug Cotton starting another church. If he can convince people to follow him, than so be it.

I do, however, have a problem with MFI backing an abusive pastor over the church elders and its members.  I am rather surprised that some ministers continue to maintain membership in MFI, an association that puts power over accountability. (Yeah, I'm talking about you Bob MacGregor).

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will Doug Cotton be able to convince the residents of Gray's Harbor that he's changed? Will anyone in MFI ever stand-up to Wendell Smith?

Stay tuned.

I wasted a lot of time in high-school listening to youth pastors.

That's the lesson I took away from GC Pastor Wes Dunn's recent 40 minute diatribe errr sermon he called  Five Lessons on Authority. 

Here they are:  

1. Ask for help and listen
2. Surround yourself with authority who will help you get where you want
3. Learn to be teachable
4. Allow leaders to come in and cut away things
5. Honor your parents

Yeah, doesn't make much sense to me either. And Mr. Dunn spent the majority of that sermon telling stories about food. Which, of course, led me to imagine a rather portly Mr. Dunn huffing and puffing around the stage.

But here are a few random unrelated thoughts  I took away, while the preacher weighed the pro's and con's of using a simmering sauce over a dipping sauce: 

- The GC folk call their small groups, "Cadre's". This is, to put it mildly, lame. It is clearly one of those words the pastoral staff thought up, and then convinced all the kids that it was a normal word, and so it no longer sounds weird to them. But to me, listening to it for the first time, it sounds kind of creepy. Like, "Let's go out in the woods  and drink Kool-Aid" creepy.

- Mr. Dunn compares getting a tattoo to circumcision. He says they're the same. hmmm. At the risk of revealing to much info, I will admit that I have no personal experience with tattoos or circumcision. I will say; however, that given a choice, I will take a tattoo EVERY FREAKING TIME. I will take getting an intricate life-size portrait of the Mona Lisa tattooed all over my back, before I let anyone get close to me with a circumcision knife.

That's just, you know, an fyi.

- As in all sermons involving authority, Mr. Dunn tells the kids they need to let their leaders cut out certain parts of their life.

(He says this after the Tattoo/circumcision comparison. So I'm wincing and reaching down to protect myself from any hypothetical circumcisions that might take place at my desk.) 

And in all such "authority sermons", the aspects of life that need to be cut out are relationships and music. However, Mr. Dunn also includes an interesting twist and ads clothes as something to be cut out, leading to this statement:

Have you ever heard God say, "Get rid of those Jeans, I don't like them?"

WHAT!?!

"Um, No. I haven't. Because I'm NOT CRAZY."

Mr. Dunn ends the lesson with some soft piano music playing in the background and a prayer.

I felt manipulated in high-school listening to these sermons. And I feel manipulated now. Seriously, it was a waste of my time.

Here is something interesting from the Snohomish County Business Journal.

Trinity Lutheran College is relocating and…

Money for the relocation will come from the $23.5 million sale of Trinity’s current campus to The City Church of Kirkland. The college must move by 2009 under that agreement.

This is nice addition to their Capitol Hill rowhouse. And it will be like two bookends of prosperity keeping our country together.

The Seattle Newspaper that reviewed several Seattle churches a couple weeks ago, recently received this letter from the Church Council in response to their article:

Dear Stranger Editor,

I’ve now spoken to several pastors whose congregations were featured as part of your “Month of Sundays” article. Most of the pastors are disappointed, some are hurt, others are angry. Would it be possible to have a meeting with Dan Savage and other Stranger executives so we could discuss this and other issues? My hope is that it would be possible to build a more positive relationship between congregations in Seattle and The Stranger newspaper, and I believe a meeting could help. It looks to me like we could gather ten or more pastors of the churches you covered and that a meeting might be very helpful to us all.

Thank you for your consideration of this request. I look forward to your response.

Rev. Sandy Brown
Executive Director
Church Council of Greater Seattle

To which the editor responds:

Dear Sandy,

I don’t see the point of a meeting. Anyone upset by “Month of Sundays” is welcome to send a letter, which we will publish. But a sit-down to discuss “this and other issues”? Can you be more specific about what those “other issues” are? And how a meeting would be helpful to you? I certainly don’t see how it would be helpful to us.

The package stands on its own: some of the pieces were respectful, some were irreverent.

I’m frequently disappointed, hurt, and angered by things that are said by pastors in churches all over Seattle. I doubt very much that Seattle pastors would be willing to sit down with me once a week to “discuss” their most recent sermons simply because I was disappointed, hurt, or angry.

It wouldn’t occur to me to ask for such a meeting, however, because I recognize that Seattle pastors have a right to say whatever they like. I trust that Seattle pastors recognize that we have a right to publish whatever we like.

Sincerely,

Dan Savage
Editor
The Stranger

Couldn't have said it better myself.

(A tip of the cap to C-Sneth)