Promises Pt. 01

Introduction

This story does not challenge man's faith in God. It does not challenge the Christian faith in Jesus Christ. It does however, challenge some organisations among those that call themselves a 'Church of God'. It does challenge man's abuse of Scripture for profit, in particular it challenges that section of the Christian church, the so-called 'Prosperity Doctrine' churches, which prey on their members' greed and hopes of financial reward to be gained, not from hard toil, but from God's generosity. It does challenge the use of 'Instant Coffee Theology', its contextually inaccurate interpretation of the Scriptures used to support its teachings, ideology, liturgy, worship practises and promises.

The church service at the beginning of this story, as well as many of the references to teachings, was inspired by, but not limited to, my personal experience with several such churches.

But most of all this story explores human emotions. It is a story of greed, greed so powerful that it leads to the taking of life. It is a story of love in many forms. And it is a story of hope.

This story will polarise opinion, and for that I make no apology. There will be those who will read this, and say that I have thought this through, and researched it fully, before formulating my arguments. Then there will be those who will read a small part of it and label it as a work of a blasphemer. If this is the case, then I wear the blasphemer tag with pride. To these people I will ask; 'What are you afraid of?' I paraphrase Paul in his letter to the Romans (12:2) when he tells us that just because things are done in a certain way, doesn't make them right, and that we should think about them and test them, so that we can know God's will.

History has shown us that the majority of wars have been fought because of religion or greed. When these two are combined they form a potent force for evil, as in this case.

I emphasise that this is a work of fiction. The characters and situations, while many of them may appear familiar, because, let's face it we've all heard them, are fictitious, and any resemblance to any person, either living or dead, is coincidental.

CM

*****

Chapter 1:

The proposition:

If a church makes promises that it knowingly cannot keep, and this involves the collection of a large amount of money, can it be sued for dishonouring those promises?

"Good morning, Shining Light Christian Church, bless you for calling us, how may I be of assistance?" The voice of the receptionist had an earnestness that had been inculcated into her by much teaching.

"Good morning. My name is William Vickary, would it be possible for me to arrange an appointment with your Senior Pastor, now what is his name again?" Bill asked. He had a job to do, and that was to have a face to face meeting with Pastor Mayotte, the Senior Pastor. He had noticed that Mayotte's car was not parked in its reserved park, he would have to entice him to the church.

"That would be Pastor Mayotte. What is the purpose of your visit?"

"It is a personal matter that I am not at liberty to discuss with anyone else."

"I'm sorry but Pastor Mayotte doesn't see anyone without first knowing the reason for the visit."

"I really don't care much about your rules here, the purpose of this appointment is a matter that cannot be discussed with anyone else." This was a deliberately aggressive and confrontational approach, in contrast with the sweetness displayed by the receptionist.

"Sir, you must appreciate that Pastor Mayotte is a very busy man, and if he had to make time for everyone who wants an appointment, he would never have time for God's work. Surely you can discuss this matter with one of the other Pastors?" She was beginning to get a little upset at the caller's insistence, her job was to screen incoming calls and, if possible redirect them to one of the other Pastors.

"I'm afraid that I just have to reiterate, this matter is for Pastor Mayotte only, and no-one else within your organization has the authority to discuss this matter. Now do I have to go over your head to a higher authority or will you arrange this appointment?"

"Please hold sir." She was replaced by a recording of the church's worship team belting its way through a series of repetitive up-tempo choruses. Several minutes later the chorus stopped abruptly and another female voice cut in.

"Good morning Mister Vickary, I am Pastor Mayotte's Personal Assistant, how may I help you?"

"And your name is?"

"Janine Elliot."

"Janine, that's a nice name and you sound like a very nice person, but I need an appointment with Pastor Mayotte and Pastor Mayotte only."

"I appreciate that sir, but church protocol is that we must screen all calls and only schedule appointments with Pastor Mayotte if the matter cannot be dealt with by another Pastor. I'm sure that you appreciate the Pastor Mayotte's time is precious to him, he is our spiritual leader and much of his time is taken up with spiritual matters, the administration of this church is handled by our Leadership team."

"Very well then, it would appear that the only way that I can get to see Pastor Mayotte is to convince your leadership team that the matter is of such importance that he, and only he, can deal with it. Let me speak with whoever I need to speak with."

"Please hold." Again the worship team flooded his senses with upbeat music.

"Mister Vickary, my name is Pastor Fenton, how may I be of assistance?"

"Pastor Fenton," the voice had an exasperated tone, "You can be of assistance by getting off your backside and arranging the appointment I require with Pastor Mayotte."

"I'm sorry sir, but our church policy is that there is a chain of command and no-one but no-one can get an appointment with Pastor Mayotte without first going through the formal lines of communication."

"Tell me Pastor Fenton, if I was to tell you that the reason for my wanting to speak face to face with Pastor Mayotte has extremely important financial ramifications for your church, and that I can only discuss it with him personally, would I then be able to see him?" He could almost hear the cash register spring into life.

"In that case I will see what I can do. Leave it with me and I'll speak to Pastor Mayotte and get back to you. May I have a number on which I can contact you?"

"Surely, I will be out of my office for most of the day so I'll leave you my mobile number, do you have a pen and paper handy?" When the affirmative answer was given he recited the number, confirmed it correct, and hung up. Now all that he had to do was to wait. He knew what would happen next, a call would be made to the Pastor's home number and the Pastor would then drive to the church office to discuss the call with his Personal Assistant, and his Associate Pastor, before making a decision on whether to take the appointment.

The Senior Pastor's BMW (new 7 Series) pulled into his reserved parking space. Bill got out of his vehicle parked between the parking space and the staff entrance to the church complex, in his hand was an envelope. "Pastor Mayotte?"

"What do you want?" There was a smile on his face but his voice was brusque.

"This is for you." He handed the Pastor the envelope and walked back to his vehicle. Mayotte stared at the envelope for a minute or two before opening it.

"What the hell is this?" He ran into the building. He stopped long enough at the reception desk to shout to the receptionist, "I want all Pastors and senior staff in my office immediately!" and ran toward his suite of offices.

Two Sundays ago:

It was time to begin, the last few stragglers entered the auditorium and the doors were closed. The music DVD that had provided background noise and clean cut images of clean cut singers while the audience had filed in, faded to a close. The house lights dimmed and the stage lights rose. The musicians were arranged around a stage designed to enhance the effect that everything about this church was beautiful. The lead singers were uniformly attractive, the two female leads were young and slim, one blonde, the other brunette, and the male lead was clean cut and conservatively dressed. The backing vocalists were on a raised platform at the rear of the stage, with the attractive arranged in front of the less so.

The musicians were arranged around the edges of the stage, keyboards to the left of the vocal trio, guitar and bass at the rear except for the lead guitarist who stood beside the blonde singer making minute tuning adjustments to his instrument, clearly a professional, and his every move drawing attention to his professionalism. Centre stage rear, behind a clear plastic screen sat the anomaly, the drummer. His hair was slightly longer than the other male musicians, his clothes a little more casual, a diamond glinted from his ear lobe, and he was ready for action.

The light show projection on the walls of the stage burst into life. The concert was about to begin.

The Praise and Worship Leader for the day stood behind his keyboard and moved his mike closer. "I can feel God's presence in the house today!" He shouted. The congregation burst into loud cries, the spontaneity of which was a result of years of practice. He held up his hand and a spontaneously expectant hush settled over the crowd of worshippers. "The Bible says to us; 'Come let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song!'" He counted the musicians in before hitting a dramatic chord on his keyboard, the drummer bringing both hands down at the same time as his foot hit the pedal of the big bass drum, and the entire band and choir launched into a chorus from their latest CD, one that had become a favourite with the congregation.

Two repetitions later the musicians moved seamlessly into the next chorus. After several minutes and another two repetitions, there was a guitar solo by Charles 'Chuck' Mayotte, Pastor Matthew Mayotte's second son. Joan McIvor caught a puzzled expression on her husband Frank's face. She tapped his arm and cast a questioning glance at him. Frank mouthed the words; 'I'll explain later.' The solo finished to rapturous applause from the mosh pit of the faithful youth, arranged at the right of the centre bank of seats, and who were in awe of Chuck's expertise as a guitarist. The Praise and Worship team led the congregation in a further repetition of the chorus.

A third chorus followed and continued until the obligatory forty minute set had been completed, it was then that an almost imperceptible signal brought proceedings to a halt. It was the cue for the Associate Pastor Graham Fenton to take the stage. The mood of the congregation changed. They all knew what was coming next; communion, a stalling of the feeling of well being as the communion elements were distributed by the horde of helpers.

"At the Last Supper, Jesus took the bread and broke it." This was delivered in Pastor Fenton's uncomfortably forced style, "He said to His disciples, this is my body, eat this in remembrance of me. We take this bread, and remember that He died on the cross for us, and as we eat, we give thanks for His sacrifice, and that on the third day He rose from the dead to lead us into eternal life." He paused while the congregation ate the small bread cubes. "He then took the cup and blessed it and passed it to His disciples, telling them, 'This is my blood, shed for you, take this cup and drink in remembrance of me.' As we drink of the cup we give thanks that His blood was shed on the cross for us. We give thanks to God that He sacrificed His only Son so that we may receive the gift of eternal life." Again a pause while the small plastic cups of grape juice were consumed and the cups passed to the end of the row for collection.

"We have many new friends in our church today, I would ask them to stand so that we can all extend the hand of friendship to them." He paused while around twenty people rose to their feet. "Those nearest to them, I want you to take their hands and welcome them into our church family, while the rest of you can give them a warm welcome." Those not nearest to these new friends cheered and clapped a welcome to them. "After the meeting the new friends are invited to join our leadership team in our 'new friends' lounge for coffee."

The big screens lit up as the 'Shining News', a weekly program of amusing stories, interviews and general good news, put together by the Media Pastor, Michael Simon, that took the congregation through five minutes of 'Gee aren't we awesome, aren't we in touch', propaganda.

The attendants moved around the auditorium with the collection buckets ready to pass them from row to row.

"The Bible tells us that when Abraham returned victorious from war he gave a tenth of the spoils of war to his king, Melchizedek, telling him that he was keeping nothing that didn't belong to him. Now Melchizedek was a Priest King and, in doing this, Abraham was giving a tenth of what he had taken from battle to God. He didn't have to do this, but he has set an example to us that we should willingly give a tenth of our finances to God. In the Book of Malachi, God tells us that if we bring our whole tithe into the storehouse, 'test Me on this said the Lord God Almighty, and see if I will not open the floodgates and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it!' If you give diligently of your full tithe, God will reward you, He will increase your finances seven-fold, a hundred-fold. This is His promise to you."

The buckets had completed their circuit of the congregation and the Stewards began the procession to the counting room, escorted by a team of black clad security guards. There was a lot of money involved, usually something like $50,000 plus.

His duty done, Pastor Fenton nodded to the Praise and Worship leader and left the stage. Another chorus burst forth until Pastor Mayotte leaned to his wife Cynthia, and brushed her cheek with his lips. He then rose during the second repetition, took the stage and launched into his impassioned message.

"My friends, my message for today was meant to be a continuation of my series on prophecy, but during the week I was humbled when the powerful presence of God came to me and instructed me to bring to you a different message. I didn't have time to write down everything that I have to say today, so I'm just going to rely on God to inspire me."

From the front row of the audience came cries of 'Right on Brother', Halleluiah, 'Praise God' and other carefully rehearsed ad lib type supportive phrases. Under normal circumstances these would have hardly been heard by the congregation, but strategically placed microphones fed the cries through amplifiers and into the stage speakers.

"When I first came to the Lord many years ago, I was unsure what role He had for me. I was young and newly married and had a good job with a good future in the retail industry, but God encouraged me to give up that career and enter, willingly I might add, into His service."

"While times were tough at first, I never regretted that decision, and by faith I was chosen to birth this church. Again it was tough going at first, I had a family to consider and let me tell you that there were times when I was close to giving it all up, to place my family first, but in those times God would come to me and say to me, 'Have faith, you good and faithful servant, you have been chosen for great things.'" The auditorium erupted in supportive shouts.

"I had faith and things got better. I gathered around me a team of awesome men and women of God, and together we have built this church into the magnificent building that you see around you today, a church whose influence has reached out to the four corners of the world. We have affiliate churches in England and America who call on me to talk to them. I have only to ask, and awesome men of God come to us to share their experiences and their testimonies. None of this would have been possible if it wasn't for God's plan for us and my faith, and that of all of you, in Him."

"And now my friends, it is time for all of us to move on to a new level of service to God. We are going to literally move up to the next level of service to Him." A buzz of excitement spread over the audience. "You are all aware that the upper level of this building has been under-utilized, it has only been used effectively when we have had special functions, special services, but we are rapidly outgrowing the area that we have available for us on this level."

"The decision has been made that we should move up to the next level sooner rather than leaving it until we are forced by circumstance to move. So over the next month we will be taking up 'Miracle Offerings' so that we can begin the transition as soon as possible."

"If you think that the Praise and Worship of this church can't get any better, be prepared for an awesome experience, it will rock!" Loud shouts emerged from the youth section of the congregation. "Our music team led by Pastor Wayne and my son Chuck are busy writing new material for our next CD!" Loud cheers erupted from the faithful youth. "This CD will be recorded in our new church, on our new sound equipment! We will be recording it as well on DVD so that you can watch it as well as enjoy it!"

"In keeping with our 'Spirit of Excellence' we have gathered around us the very best sound and lighting engineers, who have volunteered their time and expertise, to set up a truly awesome system that will blow your minds! We have also negotiated with suppliers who have agreed to either donate the equipment that we need, or supply it at cost! We have tradesmen who will donate their time and expertise to carry out any necessary structural changes!"

"Our Finance Team have advised that, as this process fits the definition of a 'Building Fund' any monies that you give are tax deductable, all that we ask is that you place the money in the special envelopes that we have had printed for the occasion and, if you require a tax receipt, just write your name and address on the envelope and we will post your receipt to you. If you are paying by credit card, include your card details on the envelope along with your address, and we will process the transaction as per your request."

"The area that we are now using will be transformed into the most amazing Children's Church that you have ever seen. There will be activity centres for all ages along with a mini-cinema where we can show Christian films. This cinema will also be used during the week as a part of our Bible School, and because of this, we have applied for development funding from the government to help us with the costs involved."

"For those of you who are interested, we have models of the developments set up in the foyer."

"Another development under consideration is, in addition to the coffee franchise that was so kindly donated and is set up in the foyer, a café where you can bring your friends during the week as well as on Sundays, sit down with them, have a cup of excellent coffee and light refreshments, and just chat. It will be a social space, but one over which God will look for the opportunity to tap into any revealed resources, so if you have any friends with skills that this church can utilize, by all means invite them to the café and God will do the rest."

"As well as your financial gifts we would also call on you to join us in prayer for the success of these projects."

Mayotte paused and raised his arms over his head;

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