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| Members of Wells Church |
I'd never heard of Wells Church (Nacogdoches, Texas) until recently when some of its members were arrested after they caused a disturbance at the Lakewood Church that's located in Houston, Texas.
For those of you not familiar with Lakewood, it's a popular megachurch pastored by the highly visible and controversial Joel Osteen. Lakewood has thousands of members who come weekly to hear Osteen tell them what a wonderful life they can enjoy if they trust in God to provide for all their material "needs." In the lexicon of the prosperity gospel, needs and wants are synonymous.
Osteen's a prosperity guru and he's very good at preaching the prosperity gospel. Unfortunately, he isn't very good at preaching the biblical gospel that warns people not to put their faith and trust in money and material wealth to achieve personal happiness.
But that's not a gospel that puts thousands of fannies in the seats of expansive auditoriums. However, the prosperity gospel fills auditoriums, especially if that gospel's delivered by a charismatic preacher who speaks and dresses very well. And Joel Osteen speaks and dresses as well as anyone who's in the prosperity gospel business.
Some Wells members traveled to Osteen's palace on Sunday (June 28, 2015) and began loudly voicing their displeasure with the King of Success shortly after he launched into his sermon. Six members were arrested and charged with Class B criminal trespassing, which is a misdemeanor. Though I'm not an expert in the law, the six members will probably be fined and told to stay away from Lakewood if they're either convicted or they plead guilty.
According to people who are familiar with Wells, the church is no stranger to controversy. Some folks label the church a cult, although that's a term applied to a lot of groups these days that take the Bible seriously. Evidently, there are some people who believe the folks at Wells take the Bible a little too seriously.
Matt Slick of www.carm.org, a website that critiques churches and their doctrines, said this about Wells: The Church is very tight knit, and exclusive. This makes sense since they teach that they are among the remnant of God's true believers and that the Christian church has been cursed for the past 2000 years. This is problematic because it lays the intellectual foundation to teach a kind of "restored" or "true" teaching of Scripture. However, this does not automatically make them a cult.
Slick added this: Accusations of brainwashing have been rampant, where at least one set of parents (Andy and Patty Groves) have been prevented from seeing their daughter, Catherine, who gave away everything and joined the group. But, an accusation does not a cult make. Apparently, the daughter does not want to see her parents and she is old enough to make that choice. This alone does not mean it is a cult, but as things begin to add up and suspicious behavior becomes more evident, it makes us wonder what is going on.
A church that believes it alone possesses the truth while all the others embrace a lie is indeed a cult. A church that promotes civil disobedience as a strategy to combat false doctrine being taught in another church not only resorts to an unbiblical method, but it harms its cause and damages its reputation. How many people who witnessed the incident at Lakewood even realized what the protest was all about? Rather, they likely saw the protesters as misfits and clowns who were deserving of contempt.
The Wells members are right to stand up to the false teachings of prosperity gurus such as Osteen. But they're wrong when they go into someone else's church and attempt to disrupt the proceedings. The people who attend churches such as Lakewood desperately need to hear the true gospel of Jesus Christ because they aren't hearing it in those churches.
But they won't listen to fools who look and sound more ridiculous than the people they've come to see. Rather, they'll listen to people who act professionally and sound like they know what they're talking about. That's how you get them away from the big-time showmen and con artists who perform in the pulpits of big churches.
Or, as the apostle Paul wrote a long time ago: "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction." (2 Timothy 4:1-2)
A church that believes it alone possesses the truth while all the others embrace a lie is indeed a cult. A church that promotes civil disobedience as a strategy to combat false doctrine being taught in another church not only resorts to an unbiblical method, but it harms its cause and damages its reputation. How many people who witnessed the incident at Lakewood even realized what the protest was all about? Rather, they likely saw the protesters as misfits and clowns who were deserving of contempt.
The Wells members are right to stand up to the false teachings of prosperity gurus such as Osteen. But they're wrong when they go into someone else's church and attempt to disrupt the proceedings. The people who attend churches such as Lakewood desperately need to hear the true gospel of Jesus Christ because they aren't hearing it in those churches.
But they won't listen to fools who look and sound more ridiculous than the people they've come to see. Rather, they'll listen to people who act professionally and sound like they know what they're talking about. That's how you get them away from the big-time showmen and con artists who perform in the pulpits of big churches.
Or, as the apostle Paul wrote a long time ago: "In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction." (2 Timothy 4:1-2)
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