We live in an age of "Mega Churches" and "Mega Preachers". The Preachers of some of the large congregations enjoy some really wealthy life styles. I am not against the wealth, but the wealth of a preacher will always spark questions. You see in a time of preachers on TV and in churches making claims of God blessing you with wealth for giving to "them", we need to ask some questions.

One of the questions that we need to ask is, if we follow the lead of Christ what is the amount of money that he ever asked for to spread the Gospel? No where in the scriptures does Christ ever ask for money. Now, I do realize that Paul talks about the support of the apostles and also that it is ok for a preacher to make a living preaching. What comes into play here is this. Is ministry now becoming big business? One of the books that I have written called The Ten Percenters deals with this issue of giving.

In the Gospels by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John it tells of Jesus preaching to the 5,000. Did you notice that not one of them recorded an offering being taken up? As a matter of fact Jesus made it so that all of them where fed. I fear that too many people are looking to make a profit instead of sincerely trying to teach the people the truth of God's word. One of the premises of being in sales on line is to make a website that sells. The focus must be one thing, to make money.

When the Gospel is for sale and we look at the bottom line instead of saving souls, we all miss out. Most of us can testify to the fact that we feel like when we go to some churches that we are being sold a blessing. Give to this and God will bless you or pay your tithes and God will get you out of debt. A lot of us feel this way, but we say very little about it. Some of us will feel like we are going against leadership if we challenge he status quo. We need to realize that leadership the church is there to serve us, not to be served. I will say that again. Leadership in the church is there to serve us, not to be served.

When we try and weigh out preachers being wealthy and the heads of big business another question arises. Is there anything wrong with a preacher using their ministries to create wealth? The bible teaches us not to use godliness as means to wealth. What this means is that we are not to use the word of God as a money making enterprise. Do we need have financial resources to spread the gospel? Of course we do. Do we need to charge appearance fees for preaching? I must say no.