Televangelist accused of stealing idea for text messaging service

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TELEVANGELIST ACCUSED OF STEALING IDEA FOR TEXT MESSAGING SERVICE

ATLANTA, GA - A lawsuit filed in a California accuses Atlanta televangelist Creflo Dollar of stealing a spiritual text message business concept, then marketing the business to his worldwide audience for millions of dollars in revenue.

The lawsuit, filed by Devone Lawson of Marina del Rey, California, accuses Dollar, his son Jeremy Dollar, and other ministry staff of breach of nondisclosure agreement, fraud, unjust enrichment, civil conspiracy, breach of contract and misappropriation of trade secrets.

Starting in 2004, Lawson claims he spent a year working with Dollar's World Changers Church International ministry on a subscription service that would send daily inspirational text messages to church members' cell phones. In the lawsuit, Lawson claims the ministry violated a nondisclosure agreement when it eventually formed another company and launched a similar "Word On the Go" text messaging service in 2006.

Attorneys for Lawson estimate the $4.99 per month subscription service generates more than $50 million a year in revenue.

The Plight of Single Women in the Church

Arthur Burk, a pastor from Anaheim, CA, came out with an intriguing article about "why many single Christian women can't get married." He sees it as a demonic strategy.

Arthur Burk released this on Father's day.

Arthur asks if the desire for marriage is from God, why hasn't there been any fulfillment? Why aren't dreams, visions, prophetic words coming to pass?

This article doesn't give the answer, instead it's a call to BIND THE MESMERIZING SPIRIT CORPORATELY for the next 3 MONTHS and to receive the answer from God. Here's his article:


The Surface Problem

For the last five years, I have been talking to women across the Western world who are of marriageable age but who have not been able to find a husband. What has drawn my attention is the fact that there are so many of them. Women who could not marry have always existed, but there have generally been only a very few of them in any culture, unless it was in a post-war situation where there were no men available.

The present situation represents a massive number of women compared to any historical baseline I can find. This clearly is abnormal and spiritual, not a natural function of social upheaval.

The Deeper Problem

We do not generally get involved in issues just because there is pain. Rather, we are called to speak into the vacant niches in the theology of the Church. It became very evident that the Church as a whole is militantly ignoring this issue. The denial factor of church leadership is simply astounding. By and large, church leaders are treating the single women as though it is their issue, just an individual matter, and not part of a massive pattern in the Body of Christ.

This disconnect from reality on the part of spiritual leaders is cause for deep concern. Further, the overwhelming response of church leaders is to distance themselves from any responsibility for the problem. I know there must be some churches out there that have overtly owned their responsibility to find answers for the single women in their midst, but I have not found them yet. Most of the time, pastors are overt in shoving all the responsibility for singleness back on the women, while they loudly pursue answers for all sorts of other issues in the church body.

This is not right.

A Bigger Perspective

It is my opinion that both the singleness and the denial by leaders is part of a demonic strategy. The church has broadly been willing to address rampant adultery, pornography, divorce, marital abuse, child abuse, child abandonment, and fatherlessness in general as part of the devil’s assault on the institution of marriage. There are hundreds of voices that are speaking to those issues.

I believe that the issue of single women is just another facet of the devil’s assault on godly marriages, and that the church’s silence on the issue is also part of the devil’s premeditated strategy. This issue deserves just as much prominence as any of the other demonic strategies against marriage.

What about the Men?

From time to time a single man will write and ask why I focus all my work on the women, when there are in fact single men who have not been able to find a bride.

My answer is simple: the shame factor. While I acknowledge that there are single men, by and large in the church today there is no stigma attached to a single man of any age. It is considered his choice. On the other hand, the shame factor that women feel -- and that many believers project viciously onto single women -- suggests strongly to me that the women are the major spiritual battlefield. Hence my focus there.

What Has Been Done?

The short answer is, “a whole lot of everything.” Individually, many of the ladies I have talked to have invested deeply in personal healing, deliverance, growth in maturity, serving God, waiting in faith, seeing godly counsel, staying under authority, hearing from the prophetic movement, fasting and prayer, praying for their future spouses by faith, making proclamation, etc.

I personally pulled together a group of single women and walked with them for a couple of years, using all of the tools I have and we had no movement with them. They benefitted from the exercises we did, but it did not produce marriages.

The Double Bind

Historically the advice for single women has been to accept that as being from the hand of God and to learn to live a full life in relationship with Jesus, without an earthly husband. Historically, this advice has been embraced by many women, and they have indeed experienced deep fulfillment.

This grace is still available today. I know some women who would very much like to be married, but they have a deep relationship with God, and are finding fulfillment in the work He has called them to do.

The reality, however, is that you cannot go down to Wal-Mart and by three units of that grace and go home to fix the problem of your desires. Today, there are a huge number of women who are caught in a vicious double bind.

On the one hand, they have a craving for marriage and family that is beyond intense – it is consuming. And the longer they go without marriage, the more driven they become with this focus. It becomes a toxic passion which erodes spirit, soul and body all at the same time.

In light of the fact that hope deferred makes the heart sick, many of the ladies have made the decision to lay down their vision, only to find out they cannot. Some have gone through personal exercises in renouncing their right to marriage and making deep proclamations about Jesus being their utter fulfillment. Others have gone so far as to attempt deliverance and inner healing with all of the different flavors of tools out there.

The result is uniformly, no change. They are in anguish if they hold the dream and in double anguish if they try to renounce the dream and go forward.

What About the Prophetic?

The data is indisputable: the prophetic has been hugely discredited in this situation. There have been globally circulated prophecies about “this” (a few years ago) being THE year when the bondage would be broken and thousands of women would be married. There have been endless individual prophecies from the big name prophets and from low profile individuals about this man or that one being absolutely THE man who would propose marriage, this date or that date would bring about an engagement, and they have, almost entirely, been utterly wrong. Measurably, verifiably, wrong!

What About Dreams and Visions?

They too have been discredited. Many women have had clear pictures of the man they would marry. The pictures are so detailed that they would recognize the person on the street in a heartbeat. Others have had visions of a place, or event, or conference where the connection would happen. Again, there have been wholesale verifiable failures of those dreams and visions.

My Conclusion

The short version: this cannot be simply women who can’t get it together. The pattern is consistent in dozens of different streams of faith and different cultures in the Western world. The drive is too intense and too alike from lady to lady to simply be an individual issue. The fact that the demonic realm has co-opted the prophetic movement so massively in this area is another reason to say it is not an individual issue. Given the torment involved, I simply cannot believe this is the way God intended it to be.

As far as I can see, there are only two options.

1) The whole thing is a demonic delusion and we need to find the strategy to break through this and set women free to be able to go on with life, without this consuming, destructive drive gnawing at them day and night.

2) The whole thing is from God since He wants to raise up a new generation of spectacular marriages to defy the devil, and we need to find the strategy to break through the barriers that the devil has erected to keep those marriages from happening.

Either way, the bottom line is that our strategies so far have not worked. I have worked very hard to release some women from the drive for marriage and been totally ineffective. I have worked equally hard with some women to bring about courtship and commitment and I have equally failed there.

As someone once said, “There HAS to be a better way.”

The Visible Culprit

While I am sure that this issue has layers and layers and layers of dynamics, the obvious problem is the mesmerizing spirit.

1. This entity has completely bamboozled the prophetic and corrupted the other revelatory gifts.
2. If the whole thing is a delusion, then this too points to the mesmerizing spirit.
3. And finally, if it is just a demonic strategy to block us, the mesmerizing spirit is being effective at keeping us from seeing what we need to do differently than we have already done.

Again, I don’t think this is the sole culprit, but I do believe it is the beginning place.

A Call to Arms

Therefore, since everything we know how to do has not worked yet, it is time to pursue new strategy. I am inviting all of you who have a vested interest in this battle to join me in a unified prayer strategy for the months of July, August and September, crying out to God to bind the mesmerizing spirit and to shine His light on the truths He wants us to see. God absolutely knows the way out of this double bind.

If you are not familiar with my teaching on the mesmerizing spirit and how it comes into our lives, I suggest you get the album “Life, Dominion and Honor. ” Also, there are more recent discoveries about the mesmerizing spirit in the video library including information about how we can be controlled by this entity. It will do little good to pray about this demon if you are controlled by it because you have not closed the open door.

So join me in daily crying out to God for His light to shine. We absolutely have to have clarity on which way to go with the battle, and what tools to use. There is no demonic strategy that is greater than God’s dominion. We simply need to see a bigger picture.

Arthur Burk
June 21, 2009

Here's Lou's two cents here:

I feel that Satan has intensified his attack on marriages and on prospective marriages, if only to thwart the work that two joined together as one will have against the kingdom of darkness.

I believe that God desires to have end-time marriages so powerful in anointing that they do major damage to Satan's kingdom. And that knowledge is causing Satan to tremble and to bring an all-out-war against the church. But as the church today comes to better understand that Jesus has given all authority and power to his bride (but still Jesus is the Head in this relationship); so should Spirit-filled women come to their rightful place alongside Spirit-filled men in a marriage-ministry that will be the absolute physical pattern of Christ and the Church.

These end-time marriages will not be like what we see patterned after the world’s ways. These Holy-Spirit-filled marriages will openly represent the physical pattern of the love and respect between Jesus and the church. Even secular people will marvel over the way these spouses treat each other and they will declare, "I want what you have. I want a relationship like that!"

And, we’ll be able to say, “Let Jesus take part in your relationships. Let Him be the one who directs you to him or her. And, when God finds him or her, get yourself out of the way. Treat him or her at least equal or better than yourselves and you’ll have a heavenly relationship – one that everyone has always wanted but we’ve gotten ourselves too much in the way to make it work.”

But again, I say that the potential is great in this hour for true Christians to stop patterning their ways after the world (divorce is as bad in the church today as out!) and to become as Jesus would have us become. The onus is on the church now to really cultivate relationships the way Jesus intended: husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church; and wives, respect your husbands as you do the Lord.

The Case for a Creator

I think you need a reality break!

You've been looking at the news and wondering how much more this country can go into debt. You're amazed that the news media can be so crooked to the point of being scandalous -- and without anyone in the world caring. You marvel as to how long we can last as a society without God.

So it's time you took a break. Take a look at this wonderful series of YouTube videos on The Case for a Creator. It'll gladden your heart.

Lee Strobel, a journalist from the Chicago Tribune, went on a search for truth (imagine that, a journalist with a desire for truth!). He wanted to find out -- from scientific fact -- whether a plausible rationale can be made for God who created the world. And, in the process, he debunks evolution as well.

He uncovers a great deal of scientific evidence that you don't normally find in your children's schools; and he shares it with us in this series of videos. So, get your kids to watch this too. This scientific documentary is so refreshing because it doesn't bend scientific evidence to distort the truth -- as do most atheistic-backed, evolution-driven, so-called "educational" programs. Don't you wish ALL documentaries on TV and in academia can be produced without prejudice or flaws in reasoning?

Enjoy! [You can buy the dvd by clicking on the title of this article.]

The Blurring of News and Politics

The hubris of the liberal media has got to stop!

Drudge Report, in a headline today, states that ABC has gone into a partnership with the White House to promote President Obama's national health care agenda.

Never in the history of U.S. media has a news organization come under the direct influence of the White House. We are not Cuba. We are not Communist China. ABC is now simply doing outwardly and opening what they've already been doing -- supporting liberal causes in their newscasts. Now they seem to have no fear of charges of bias.

I feel like I woke up into the Twilight Zone with this news. Something has to be done about it -- this has to be aborted!

And wouldn't you know it? Most of the nation is conservative -- not liberal! See the latest Gallup Poll. Where are all the conservative voices that need to be raised right now?

Just Show Me the Stuff

At long last, after a well deserved vacation, here we go again -- with a great new article by Matt Sorger. If you're looking for a genuine minister with high moral integrity -- check out Matt. Here's his latest article that has really gotten quite a bit of positive feedback from readers. [see his website at www.mattsorger.com]

Just Show Me the Stuff!

Personal Reflections by Matt Sorger

I am witnessing an alarming trend in some of our charismatic circles and services. I travel full time on the road all across the United States and other parts of the world. Each week I am ministering in another state to a new group of hungry believers wanting to live in the fullness of God’s Spirit. Several times in the last few months I have encountered a disturbing and grievous observation. Before I share it with you, let me give you some of my personal background.

A FIRM FOUNDATION

I was saved at the age of 14. I am thankful to have been raised in a solid Bible preaching, Spirit-filled church. The word was always given a priority. An understanding of living a holy, sanctified life was always preached with conviction. I took my first steps of walking, living and ministering in the Spirit there. As a young pastor I was given some room to begin to spread my wings as the anointing and power of God began to move through my life. I took full flight when I launched out from pastoring six years ago to travel full time in a “prophetic revival” ministry.

My years before pastoring were spent seeking God as a young person, spending time in personal devotion and study of the word, as well as nearly four years in a great Bible school in Rhode Island where I served as class president during my time there. Upon graduation I stepped into the pastoral ministry. I learned many valuable things during those years that I carry with me to this day. Life experiences have a way of shaping you into the person God has called you to be.

I want to define to you what I consider “prophetic revival” ministry. For me “prophetic” means hearing and then declaring a true word from God, either through preaching and teaching God’s heart as revealed in His word, or declaring and speaking forth an unctioned word from His heart. But even that kind of prophetic word will be solidly rooted and grounded in scripture. “Revival” holds a dual meaning for me. I see it as stirring up the church for a deeper passion for God and learning to live and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit and then seeing that passion overflow through the lives of believers into the world around us. The power of God in the life of the believer cannot be contained by oneself. It must overflow and impact the world around us.

AN ALARMING TREND

Now I must share with you an alarming trend I have witnessed taking place. I have even experienced it in my own meetings! Because this is hitting so close to home I can no longer be silent. I am a man of deep convictions. And it is time for me to share them with you. Recently, after a meeting I was standing near my resource table greeting people. A woman approached me to share of the wonderful overflow of the Holy Spirit she had experienced from the meeting the day before. She could sense a whole new level of God’s presence with her. It was clear she had been deeply touched. But she proceeded to share something with me that caused me to raise a “red flag.”

She said, “You know, when you started preaching, I thought, I have heard this before. I really came looking to hear something I had never heard before. But the presence of God in the meeting did have a profound impact on me, and I am not the same.” I rejoiced over what the Lord had done for her, but at the same time I grieved.

That same week a pastor I was having lunch with shared with me his thoughts concerning the meetings we were holding. We had only finished one day of meetings when he shared his thoughts with me. The night before I had preached a word the Holy Spirit had placed on my heart. After the preaching of the word I proceeded to be led by the Spirit in calling some folks out from the audience and prayed for them with a clear demonstration of God’s presence and power. I left the meeting rejoicing.

The pastor didn’t quite feel the same. He said to me, “You know, if the preaching of the gospel could have gotten the job done, it would have been done a long time ago. What we need are the signs. I just want to see the stuff. I don’t want you preaching. Preach just a few minutes. We want the miracles.” Only once before had I had such pressure put on me to “perform." It became apparent very quickly to me that what they were really wanting was a charismatic show. They wanted the “signs following” with no preaching of the word. I’m sorry; but I am making an announcement to the world. I am a WORD preacher.

I see an alarming trend. In the prophetic movement, it seems we may be unintentionally cultivating a mindset where the truth of the power of the cross and blood of Christ are no longer good enough. We need signs, signs and more signs. A life transformed by the power of God’s amazing word is no longer enough. “Let me hear and see something new. Something I have never heard or seen before, something that will wow me!” So we have hundreds of hungry believers fascinated by and following stories of supernatural encounters that have been, at times, exaggerated by charismatic personalities. Trust me when I say I have seen stories stretched and exaggerated to be something they never originally were. And I have seen people eat it up like popcorn and cotton candy. I want you to hear my heart in this. I am all for supernatural encounters. I have had many myself and I know of others in ministry that have had some beautiful, real, life-changing supernatural encounters with God. But I am not into charismatic hype or manipulation. Just say it like it is. Don’t exaggerate, add to or blow something up just to make a good story or to sell a bunch of CD’s. I am not being negative. I am seeking to bring balance back into a movement I am so proud to be a part of -- a movement that didn’t just want to hear empty words, but wanted it backed up with real substance, power and glory.

I want the real thing! I want the real manifest presence of God. I want the real miracles, the real signs and wonders, the real angelic encounters (as God chooses to give them to me.) I don’t want a hyped-up version. I don’t want to just hear something new and different, just for the sake of hearing something I have never heard before. I want my everyday life encountered in a real way by God’s word and anointing. I want to hear something that I can apply to my life. I want the fullness of God’s word to renew my mind, change me from the inside out and fill my life with real power and glory.

People who only want to hear something they have never heard before are in serious danger of opening themselves up to a gospel that is different from the one we find in scripture. If you are running around only looking for a new revelation without first putting into practice the hundreds of revelations given to us in God’s word, you are looking in the wrong direction. God has not called us to be flakey. He has called us to be solidly grounded in Him, to preach the gospel in season and out and to impact the world around us as salt and light.

I love the prophetic. I love the supernatural. But the moment we start wanting signs without the word of God, we are in trouble. And this is what I have been seeing. Recently I had two pastors in different parts of the United States both proceed to tell me that they wanted the preaching of the word to be kept to a bare minimum with an emphasis placed on the signs and the wonders. I need to set the record straight. Signs FOLLOW the preaching of the word. If you become a sign seeker apart from the word of God, you will become ungrounded and will reproduce that in your ministry. It will build an unhealthy and weak foundation in people’s lives.

THE MOST PRECIOUS SIGN

The sign I am most after these days is the sign of a life transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to see people hungry to truly apply the word of God to their lives and not just want to hear something new, but put into practice what they already know. I want to see people walking in love. I want to see people living righteously. I want to see people knowing who they are in Christ so the devil can’t continually beat them up. I want to see people experience the abundant life Jesus came to give them. I want to see people preaching the gospel in power, laying hands on the sick, casting out demons and raising the dead. But we can never forget that the power of the gospel is revealed through the foolishness of preaching. Not just preaching our good stories, but preaching the word of God with power and authority. A sign without the word points nowhere.

I want to encourage the body of Christ in these days to evaluate everything you have believed and be sure it is pure gospel. Go back and read the New Testament from cover to cover and ask the Holy Spirit to write upon your heart the full counsel of God’s word as revealed in the New Covenant. Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into all truth and to be sure your foundations are strong and solid. Never neglect God’s word. It has the power to change your life. As you soak in God’s word and in His presence, you will truly live a Spirit-filled, Spirit-empowered life that will make a real difference in the world around you. Go and be the salt and light God has called you to be. And always remember, there is power in God’s word and in the Holy Spirit to give you power for life!

[That last line is a reference to Matt's TV program POWER FOR LIFE, seen on God TV, every Monday morning at 8:30 am, est. ]