Episcopal Church approves same-sex blessing rite – USATODAY.com

Episcopal Church approves same-sex blessing rite – USATODAY.com

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Pastor Creflo Dollar Responds to Charges

COLLEGE PARK, Ga. — Megachurch pastor Creflo Dollar staunchly denied Sunday that he punched and choked his 15-year-old daughter in an argument, telling his congregation the allegations made in a police report are nothing but "exaggeration and sensationalism."

"I will say this emphatically: I should have never been arrested," Dollar said in his first public appearance two days after police charged him with misdemeanor counts of simple battery and cruelty to children.

The pastor got an enthusiastic ovation from the packed church as he took the pulpit Sunday at the World Changers Church International in metro Atlanta. He addressed the criminal charges head-on for several minutes before moving on to his sermon.

"I want you all to hear personally from me that all is well in the Dollar household," Dollar said.

The 50-year-old Dollar is one of the most prominent African-American preachers based around Atlanta, with 30,000 members in the Atlanta area and a ministry of satellite churches across the U.S.

He was arrested after his 15-year-old daughter called 911 at about 1 a.m. Friday and told a Fayette County sheriff's deputy that she and her father argued when he said she couldn't go to a party. A police report says the girl told a deputy her father charged at her, put his hands around her throat, began to punch her and started hitting her with his shoe. The deputy noted a scratch on her neck.

The report said the deputy also interviewed Dollar's 19-year-old daughter, who said her father grabbed her sister's shoulders and slapped her in the face and choked her for about five seconds. She said her sister tried to break free, but did not fight back. When her father threw the 15-year-old on the floor, the older girl ran to get her mother. Dollar's wife, Taffi, told the deputy she did not see the fight.

Dollar launched into a lengthy denial of the allegations from the pulpit Sunday.

"The truth is that a family conversation with our youngest daughter got emotional," he said. "And emotions got involved and things escalated from there."

He said the mark on his daughter's neck had been there for about 10 years and was caused by a skin condition, eczema.

"The truth is she was not choked, she was not punched. There were not any scratches on her neck," Dollar said. "But the only thing on her neck was a prior skin abrasion from eczema. Anything else is exaggeration and sensationalism."

Dollar's 15-year-old daughter is the one who called authorities and told them her father punched and choked her. Her 19-year-old sister corroborated the story. But Dollar didn't publicly display any anger toward his children.

"I will never put any fault on my children, as Jesus would never put any fault on me," he said.

Dollar's wife, Taffi, is a co-pastor at the church. She addressed the congregation before her husband but did not touch on the allegations.

Dollar's congregation appeared supportive Sunday, giving him sustained applause as he took the stage. As he spoke, people in the sanctuary yelled encouragement: "We love you!" and "We've got your back!" As he talked about the difficulty dealing with teenage children in a "culture of disrespect," many in the crowd nodded in agreement.

Members of the church seemed to close ranks around Dollar even before he addressed them from the pulpit Sunday. Dozens of people approached by The Associated Press as they arrived for the service declined to comment, and the few who did expressed support. After the service, many were still reluctant to comment, but those who did said they were satisfied with their pastor's comments.

"When I first heard what he was accused of, I didn't believe it. I knew there had to be more to the story," said Phyllissa Wolley, 23, a daycare worker who has attended the church for about five years. "I felt like he addressed the accusations today, and I believe what he said. To hear from him personally, I really appreciated that. I was glad to hear his side of the story."

Others said the media blew the accusations out of proportion without having all the facts and they felt vindicated after hearing Dollar speak.

"I think you're looking at a bunch of sensationalism," said George Blake of Ellenwood, adding that he thought the media rushed to tell the story without knowing the full story. The 49-year-old said he never questioned his pastor of eight years.

"It's not up to me to be satisfied with what he had to say," Blake said. "This is a man of God spreading the word of God."

Dollar, who has five children, is a native of College Park and says he received a vision for the church in 1986. He held the first service in front of eight people in an elementary school cafeteria. His ministry grew quickly and the church moved into its present location, an 8,500-seat sanctuary, on Dec. 24, 1995.

Dollar said in a 2007 interview with The Associated Press that he renounced his church salary, and his income only comes from personal investments, including a real estate residential property business and horse breeding company called Dollar Ranch. He's also published more than 30 books, focusing mostly on family and life issues, including debt management.

He said he also sometimes got up to $100,000 for a single appearance on his packed schedule of speaking engagements.

Along with Bishop Eddie Long, Dollar is one of the most prominent African-American preachers based around Atlanta who have built successful ministries on the prosperity gospel, which teaches that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches. Ministers in this tradition often hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works.

[By KATE BRUMBACK 06/10/12 05:11 PM ET ]

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Study Resource Sites

CLICK:

American Theological Library Association

Billy Graham Center Archives

Canadian Journal of Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity
E-Journal (English and French)

Church of God of Prophecy Archives

Consortium of Pentecostal Archives

Dixon Pentecostal Research Center: Online catalog

David J. du Plessis Archive
Official repository for the Society for Pentecostal Studies

Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
Register for access to online copies of early AG periodicals;
online catalog and credit card purchases.

H-Pentecostalism Online Discussion Network

Holy Spirit Research Center at Oral Roberts University

International Pentecostal Holiness Church Archives and Research Center
Digital copies of early IPHC disciplines and select publications.

Nazarene Archives

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

Society of American Archivists

The Wesley Center for Applied Theology

Today's Quote

Just because your dream is delayed doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen.

'State of emergency' re: healthcare mandate (OneNewsNow.com)

'State of emergency' re: healthcare mandate (OneNewsNow.com)

Pastor T. D. Jakes

Today, Pastor T. D. Jakes spoke a powerful word at the funeral of singer Whitney Houston.

Pastor Thomas Dexter "T. D." Jakes Sr. (born June 9, 1957) is the chief pastor of The Potter's House, a non-denominational Pentecostal megachurch, with 30,000 members, located in Dallas, Texas.  His church services and evangelistic sermons are broadcast on The Potter's Touch, which airs on the Trinity Broadcasting Network, Black Entertainment Television, the Daystar Television Network, The Word Network and The Miracle Channel in Canada.

Other aspects of Pastor Jakes' ministry include an annual revival called "MegaFest" (which draws more than 100,000 people during that period of time), an annual women's conference called "Woman Thou Art Loosed", and gospel music recordings.

Pastor Marvin Winans

Today, Pastor Marvin Winans preached the eulogy at Whitney Houston's funeral at New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey.

Pastor Winans founded The Perfecting Church in Detroit, Michigan in the early 1990s, and released an album with the church's choir in 1992 entitled Introducing Perfected Praise.  A second album, Friends, appeared in 2001.  His 2007 release, Alone but Not Alone, was nominated for a Grammy award for Best Contemporary R&B Gospel Album.

Pastor Winans is a Pentecostal preacher.  Bishop Marvin Lawrence Winans (born March 5, 1958) is also known for his recurring role in the hit show Tyler Perry's House of Payne.

Leadership Principles

Four universal moral principles (figure below), honored by people of all cultures and creeds, are the foundation for organizational success and the health of the global economy.  Demonstrating integrity generates trust.  Practicing forgiveness for well-intentioned mistakes is necessary for innovation to flourish.  Compassion – caring for others as human beings vs. just a means to an end – has a direct impact on the retention of talent.  And finally, demonstrating responsibility by admitting mistakes, and showing that you “care for the commons” – or care about “leaving the world a better place” – inspires and energizes people.  “Caring for the commons” is more often known as “corporate social responsibility.”

[by Fred Kiel, Ph.D. & Doug Lennick:]

Top 10 Mobile Apps for Church Leaders

1. The Bible - When you can carry 800,000 words in your pocket, with lightning fast access to any book and verse (Do kids today even know what “sword drills” are anymore?), a church leader would be remiss to not have one of the hundreds of Bible apps installed on their phone. YouVersion, Olive Tree, The Voice, Logos, and the ESV Study Bible are all popular. Bible.is will even read the Bible to you!
2. Evernote - Evernote is a notepad on steroids who only drinks creatine shakes while striding down the beach in his muscle shirt, kicking sand in nerds’ faces. I would extol its benefits, but I still have sand in my eye. Michael Hyatt has a whole series of informative posts about Evernote. If you don’t have a central repository for all of the information you accrue as a church leader, this app could be just what you need. The fact that it seamlessly syncs your notes across platforms (mobile, desktop, web) is only the first of many wonders when it comes to this app.
3. Twitter and Facebook - If you haven’t jumped on the social media bandwagon yet, there’s always room for more. Whether you send out quotes from what you’re reading, updates from your blog, or pictures from your daily life, Twitter and Facebook, for better or for worse, are arguably the top two modes of communication for our current age. Whether you prefer Twitter’s in-house apps or third-party apps like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite, these apps can help you stay connected to your team, your tribe, your church, and your friends. Need help with being consistent on Twitter, or only have certain times of the day to tweet? Try Buffer, an indispensable twitter-scheduling web app.
4. E-book Reader - You may be a Kindle guy. You may be a Nook girl. Regardless, e-readers are a necessity for church leaders. With instant access to millions of books both past and present, e-readers allow you to get inspired so you can inspire others. And, since many of the classics of Christianity are public domain, hundreds of them are free for the taking.
5. Leadia - Leadia is a new app, just released in September 2011 by Leadership Network, that provides invaluable leadership development resources. With four “experiences” currently available on the app at $5.99 apiece, from church leaders like Mac Lake, Stacy Spencer, Will Mancini, and Scott Wilson, the price of admission to hear from these leaders, through text, audio, and video, is quite low for its return on investment. As the app adds more “experiences,” it’s sure to be an integral resource for church leaders. The Catalyst Leader app is another useful church leader mobile application that offers articles, videos, and podcasts from a number of well-known church leaders.
6. Fighter Verses - Do you have trouble memorizing scripture? Fighter Verses is an app that provides a variety of ways for you to memorize Bible verses, like leaving multiple blanks in the verse, offering a multiple choice quiz for different words in a verse, and allowing you to set the verse as your lock screen.
7. Clips - If you like to incorporate visual illustrations from popular movies, Clips can be your virtual sermon illustration assistant. This app is a database of teachable moments from hundreds of movies. While the app doesn’t provide actual video, it does provide a description of the movie moment, the start and end times for the clip, a topical search, and discussion questions.
8. GoodReader - Pastors, small group leaders, and other church leaders who want to deliver their message via an iPhone of iPad may want to check out GoodReader, a robust PDF reader that allows for annotations. JR Vassar wrote a post detailing how he uses GoodReader, including screenshots of the app as he used it for a sermon on Hosea. Some church leaders use Apple’s Pages app that enables you to work in Word or Pages on your laptop, then upload to iPad via iTunes.
9. Siri / Dragon Dictation - With the release of the iPhone 4s and the hubbub over Siri, voice dictation is taking center-stage as the next evolution of how we interact with our mobile devices. (As my pastor recently warned us, “This is how the robots start the takeover.”) If you can’t get Siri-ous, Dragon Dictation has been around for quite some time, and they offer both a free mobile app as well as a robust desktop app for purchase. If you’re a pastor on the move, talking your thoughts into an app that can transcribe them for you may be just the help you need.
10. Angry Birds - No top ten list of mobile apps would be complete without the inclusion of Angry Birds. Just don’t make the mistake of playing Angry Birds when your iPhone is plugged into the church’s sound system. The unmistakable squawk-squee-squawk of a launched bird and the resultant sneering snort of a defiant pig might cause a distraction. If this happens to you, be sure to yell into the horrified silence . . . “I got all three stars!”

What are your favorite apps as a church leader? Which ones did we miss?

[by Blake Atwood]