Back in the early days of the site, I toyed with the idea of audio clips of me and various other folks. This one, a tirade against the pimps, is pretty much the only one I did. And let me tell you - it took a lot of work. I couldn’t just wait until the anointing hit. I had to lay out what I wanted to say. I actually had to walk through it a couple of times to make sure it said what I wanted it to say.

The speech (I still hesitate to call these things sermons) lays out verbally the reasons for the site, attempting to address the proliferation of knee-jerk responses the site drew.

Melvin’s Rant - Click Here

Interestingly, I could almost feel some spirit trying to take control of me and have me tell you “Turn to you neighbor and say ‘Ain’t no pimp gonna take advantage of me!!!!’” But as you can see, I was able to successfully fight off that particular urge.

Christian Living, Pulpit Pimps | 17 Comments »

Every once in a while I get a comment that is so brimming with wisdom and a true understanding of the Christian life that I have to publish it as a posting. Then I get comments that are just the opposite, like the one below. In their writings (and rantings) you can see just what the pimps are doing to the men and women who sit under the pimps and pimpettes’ “teaching.” They have a whole set of phrases and concepts that appeared to be totally ingrained. The comment was made in response to the “Pimp U.” posting involving Bishop Meares, the leader of Evangel Temple Church and the seminar he held to teach pimples how to become full blown pimps.

Some of you people are crazy. Why are you worried about what others are doing, more importantly Pastors? I work VERY close to my pastor, and some of you couldn’t fathom what they go through, just for our souls.

Why does it seem the only thing these people seem to conclude is that I am simply being nosy about what people are doing? How are they able to completely ignore the facts, the ones that so clearly contradict the teachings of the Bible? At times I think the sheeple are getting exactly what they deserve. But it just seems too cruel to sit by silently while the poor dumb sheeple are devoured by the wolves.

Some of us wouldn’t be blessed if it had not been for them, others wouldn’t even be alive. As much as these pastors make, please believe that they give a lot too. At least Bishop Meares and his proteges do.

Notice how the writer seems to have substituted Meares for God. And they really don’t seem to be able to figure out that generally the bishop is just giving back the money he shouldn’t have had in the first place.

Let you run a church with 2000+ people, pray for them all, hold counseling sessions, give your hard earned money in need, deal with your personal life, and still study to give a Word that could change someone’s life.

Of course, the first question here could easily be: Why have a single church with 2000+ parishioners? While I’m not automatically opposed to a sizable congregation, it seems unlikely the bishop is working all that much. If he is, then he’s doing a lousy job of appointing elders.

Some of you people should be ashamed of yourselves. Stop worrying about what the pastor’s are doing, and focus on yourself. Because God rewards those whose hearts are sincere in what their doing. If you are giving your last, God will honor that; I know, trust me.

Again, it seems the true issue escapes this person. Pimp University appears to be all about how to get the congregation to give more, not how to encourage the congregation to lay down their lives for Christ. It appears to be all about building a big building, not about using the individual stones (each of us) to build a strong church.

If you don’t want to give, don’t. They ain’t begging you, nor putting a gun to your head. I’m sure MANY of his congregation can attest for his dynamic preaching. If they couldn’t then he wouldn’t have such a huge church.

Again, he must be a Mand o’Gawd because he has such a huge following. Hmm. I guess that makes Mohammed a godly man too. Or Louis “Calypso Louie” Farrakhan must be on target since he has so many followers.

Do your research in the Bible, people. Throughout, where ever there’s a huge work God need to be taken care of, he adds increase. Moses, Joshua, John the Baptist, Jesus… And if you noticed, none of them worried about eating, or being taken care of. Why? Because that adds a different kind of stress… Jesus even had a treasurer in Judas, even though he didn’t need one.

There isn’t a whole lot I can say about this. I’m laughing too hard to type much more.

My question to you is why did the disciples have a treasurer, even though Jesus could feed five thousand, four thousand, AND make money appear in the fish’s mouth for Peter to pay the taxes? Wanna know why? Because people GAVE. They sowed into his life. ALTHOUGH HE DIDN’T NEED IT, they showed him appreciation. That they loved him. He never said give.. And get this; no one back then was calling ANYONE a pulpit pimp; they weren’t worried about the money, because they honored God through his Son. Except Judas.

Man!! Talk about reading back into Scripture that which the pimps have pounded into your head.

Melvin, and all of your followers - are you a group of Judases?

Pulpit Pimps | 31 Comments »

I took part of the day off a couple of days ago, and while I was doing my best impersonation of a couch potato (I was actually sitting in my easy chair) guess who appears on my television? The Houston Perimeter Pimp, I.V. and Bridget Hilliard his co-pimpette. He, as always, was telling us about how rich God wants us to be (diamond rings and associated bling flashing in the studio lights) and she was introducing her “Circle of Friends” ministry.

What? You’ve not been told about Bridget’s circle of friends? Well, pull up a chair and relax while I fill you in on this dynamic and meaningful ministry.

If you are a part of this ministry you get the following:

1. Monthly MP3 downloads (probably of her telling you how you can enjoy the excesses of materialism just like she does)

2. Access to a weekly blog by Bridget in which she tells you how wonderfully God has blessed her and her husband in their pursuit of materialism

3. Monthly confessions – I have no idea what this is, unless it’s a list of her sycophantic readers telling how well her materialistic principals are operating in their lives

4. Access to a QUARTERLY TELECONFERNCE with Lady Bridget. I doubt you get to say anything or really deal with anything substantive, but hey, you get to hear Lady Bridget’s voice and know that she is on the other end of the line

5. Finally, by being a member of Lady Bridget’s circle of friends, you get discounts…(er, not discounts, that sounds so worldly)…you get MEMBERSHIP ONLINE PRICING on Lady Bridget’s books and teaching series.

And all of this will only cost you $19.95 a month. That’s just shy of $20 every month, $240 per year. If even five hundred women are stupid enough to sign up, that’s $120,000 per year. That is just about enough for me to buy a Liberty XL2. And the next year would pay for maintenance and insurance for ten or twelve years after that. And if a thousand women are stupid enough, we’re talking a low end, used SR22.

Click here so you can see an image of the her “Circle of Friends” web site. Most of the pimps at least mention God. A couple of the more brazen ones even mention Jesus Christ. But the really presumptuous ones, the ones totally committed to separating you from your money, keep it in your face and don’t say anything about God/Jesus Christ/Holy Spirit. The site you see is naked, unbridled marketing.

A long time ago, I was in the theater waiting for a movie to start. In the row in front of me there sat three or four little girls, around age eleven. Another girl came up and tried to talk to one of the girls in the group. The leader of the deadly little pack informed one of the girls sitting there that she could not be the leader’s friend if she was going to be a friend of the girl who was standing there. In other words, if the little girl sitting there wanted to be a part of the dictator’s circle of friends, she would have to make a choice between the kid standing there and the little tyrant. Unfortunately, the girl with the group chose the little tyrant. I got all kinds of lessons out of that little scene, the least of which was the innate evil humans are capable of. But I also got to see that people love to have people follow them.

And apparently it doesn’t change when you turn 52 or 53.

We get to be a part of Lady Bridget’s “Circle of Friends.” And I assume we also get to be immersed in the “Women Who Win” (Link here: ) ministry as well. Of course the WWW deal is just a feeder into the Circle of Friends…and Women Who Win conferences…and DVDs and other AV material from the WWW conference, priced from $30 to $100. And of course each of the products has lots of pictures of a stylishly dressed “Lady B” her husband and a couple of their kids, bling ablaze. Didn’t peter say something about being known for your character and not your silver and gold?

One of my complaints about the pimps and pimpettes is that they really seem to push for such an anti-Christian attitude among their followers. DO these people really think the basis of “Women Who Win” or the “Lady Bridget’s Circle of Friend” is in any way consistent with the Bible’s teaching on the goals and behavior of Christian women, or Christian men for that matter?

I kind of suspect if Lady Bridget was paying any real attention to Christ in her life she probably would have come up with a couple of gimmicks that might look more like this.

I suspect I. V. and Bridget are doing nothing more than building a following for themselves and leading people away from truly following Jesus Christ. But that’s just me.

Christian Living, Pulpit Pimps, The Hilliards | 33 Comments »