Great Faith, or Delusions of Grandeur?

My exit out of Living Word Church (a pseudonym), and Charismania in general, for that matter, was prompted by a handful of what Oprah Winfrey would call “Aha!” moments.  One of those moments, ironically, was born out of a friendship, probably the only true friendship I had at Living Word. 
Living Word Church was NOT a [...]

Read Full Post »

Re-thinking “Smoke ‘n’ Mirrors”

Ever since I put up the Smoke ‘n’ Mirrors post, I’ve been feeling bad.  Publicly suggesting that Pastor Smith (a pseudonym) engineered a fake miracle so that he could kick off Living Word Church’s (another pseudonym) special week of meetings with a bang and drum up more excitement about the annual “Miracle Handkerchief And Anointing [...]

Read Full Post »

One rusty nail…

It’s been awhile since we’ve added anything to the site.  That’s because, in most respects, we feel like we’ve moved on from our experience at Living Word Church (a pseudonym).  We’ve now had a year to process what we witnessed and went through, and after awhile, it’s easy to feel like we’ve figured it all out.
But the funny thing [...]

Read Full Post »

Pastor Smith and his “anointing”

One of the great mysteries we still wonder about is just how much Pastor Smith realizes and understands about the stuff that goes on at Living Word Church (once again, our usual disclaimer:  “Pastor Smith” and “Living Word Church” are both pseudonyms, as are all other names used on this site).
Awhile back, we posted an entry about [...]

Read Full Post »

Talking back to Pastor Smith, part ii

Here is Part 2 of our analysis of Pastor Smith’s (“Pastor Smith” is a pseudonym for our former pastor) sermon on “The Anointing.”  If you haven’t already done so, please take the time to read either the sermon transcript, or Part 1 of our analysis, or both.  We realize that they’re lengthy.  The sermon transcript alone [...]

Read Full Post »

Hooked on a feeling? Or the presence of God?

We’re still working on our analysis of the second half of Pastor Smith’s (a pseudonym) sermon.  We hope to post it either later today or else tomorrow.  But in the meantime, here’s something that’s been on my mind, as I’ve spent more time lately listening to Living Word Church (another pseudonym) on iTunes.
And that is…even now, nearly a year [...]

Read Full Post »

Talking back to Pastor Smith

It’s been quite an interesting exercise, to transcribe the full and exact text of Pastor Smith’s sermon about ”The Anointing” (please note:  “Pastor Smith” is a pseudonym, as are ”Living Word Church” and all other names – aside from those of celebrities – in this post).  We mentioned this in a comment following our last post, but it bears repeating:  hearing Pastor [...]

Read Full Post »

Transcript of Pastor Smith’s “Anointing” sermon

As we promised, here is the transcript of Pastor Smith’s (a pseudonym) recent sermon about “The Anointing.”  We have some commentary that we’ll also post in an upcoming article, but for now, just read it for what it is.  Yes, we’re aware that this is an extremely long post, but we’d really appreciate if you’d take [...]

Read Full Post »

Pastor Smith preaches about the “anointing”

We know we’ve harped on certain subjects here.  Certain aspects of our ”Charismaniac” experience bother us a LOT, and we tend to talk about them a lot.  Several times, we’ve mentioned the Smiths’ practice of taking up birthday offerings for themselves.  In several posts and in many of our responses to your comments, we’ve alluded to the Smiths’ nepotism and how [...]

Read Full Post »

Faulty beliefs beget faulty behavior…how Richard and Lindsay Roberts’ alleged behavior is just the logical outcome of their theology

We continue to follow the ongoing saga of the Oral Roberts University lawsuit.  As we’ve stated before, our former church, Living Word (a pseudonym), has some close ties to this ministry.  Oral Roberts’ cornerstone “Seed Faith” teaching – where you demonstrate your faith by donating a “seed” of money to his ministry – was something [...]

Read Full Post »