I had an on and off GF for a few years in the early 2000's and on one of the occasions we were a couple I went with her to her newly found church. We had attended my church when we were a couple a few months before, but she was a cat lady type and my pastor made her angry when he spoke out against gay marriage, saying the next step will be people wanting to marry their pets. Heh Heh.
So anyways, I went to her Church 2 weeks in a row then insisted we return to my church. Her church was owned by Sam Hinn (Bennie's brother) which was built as a mosque, which sold to him when they couldn't meet their financial obligations, his "Ministry" bought it and rented time back to the Muslims.
I only went the two times because both times they passed the plate around twice. The first time the music pastor was moving to a new ministry and the second plate around was a " love offering" for his move. Note: His salary was quite good. The second time was a Lady prophet who told a few stories of how prophetic she was and prophesying for a few "inner circle" congregation members, seemed very palm reader to me, using a combination of info she gained and telling them things they want to hear. One of her stories was how this computer professional in another country got a huge contract in the millions of whatever his countries currency was. I looked up the exchange rate and it was 1000 bucks....
I have a lot of similar experiences with other scams, but I don't want to write a novel. Suffice it to say what goes on in front of the church and where the offerings are counted are quite different. Often a guest pastor, speaker, or musician, guesting at a church only gets the money from their merch., the money taken up in the plate for them stays with the pastor...
Yikes! My worst experience with a “church” was when they trotted out a black guest speaker during the George Floyd thing and told a 99% white congregation all about how police were racist and harassed his son. I almost got up and yelled “bullshit” . Ain’t no white police harassing a black kid right after the Floyd incident.
History is repeating itself…wake up Christians…islam conquered you previously…
Crusades 1.0 was defense. Time for crusades 2.0:
https://i0.wp.com/www.bookwormroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Muslim-conquest-v-Crusade-battles.jpg
Appeasement with Islam never works. There is no co-existence with those who have but one goal - to bring the entire world under Islam. It's either conquer or be conquered.
plenty of woke mainline denominational pastors want Muslim communities in the USA, gotta let them in or else it’s discrimination, love your [new] neighbor as yourself (oops, I think I added a word in there!)
The fact that the GF's church was affiliated with Hinn is already sus for grift. Your entire experience there fits the normal MO of the prosperity gospel crowd - especially the "love offerings" and their so called prophets. They pray upon the desperate and vulnerable sheep through manipulation. Hinn and his ministries are certainly no stranger to scandals. No doubt his brother learned the tricks of the trade.
This was in Orlando, so I already knew about Hinn who had moved his Headquarters away from Orlando a few years earlier. A few years before the move I worked at a Hilton and we had guests in Wheelchairs that frequently stayed in our hotel and tried to get healed. The Orange County Sheriff's Dept has a lot of sidework in Orlando doing private security, and that included security at his church.
I worked at another hotel in the 2000's in the I-Drive area. Many school groups and other groups of children use security to supliment the chaperones. Some use Corrections officers, some use deputies, some use regular security guards, and some use none. I knew a couple, both deputies who bought a beach condo in Daytona doing the security gigs. The idea is to avoid cross gender contamination at night.
There was a big stink when the Sheriff wanted to increase the charge above the 35 bucks an hour at the time. The OCSD kept 3 bucks an hour (for the use of equipment and cars, and the officers got 32.) The Florida State Troopers said they would be glad to have those contracts (Florida, at that time, paid troopers a lot less than the OCSD)