Pastor Shares How to Identify a Prosperity Gospel Church

While there are numerous prosperity gospel churches around the
world, they don’t advertise themselves as one. But one pastor is
offering some guidance on how to tell if a church promotes the
“health and wealth” gospel.

Tim Challies, a pastor at Grace Fellowship Church in Canada and
an author, cited Kate Bowler’s book, Blessed, to compile his list
and the first thing people should watch out for, he said, is the
church’s name.

“Words like ‘victory,’ ‘abundant,’ or ‘conquerors’
provide what may be key information,” Challies wrote in his
blog.

During church services, people can also determine whether the
language used emphasizes “their core conviction that faith is the
instrument through which believers attain their desires.” Key
phrases that may be used include “releasing your faith,” “speaking
your faith,” or “believing God for” things.

A church’s website is another place one can gain clues as to
whether the church may be a prosperity gospel one. Challies noted
that if a website “prominently features the pastor,” that may be an
indication that it’s part of the prosperity gospel movement.

“Prosperity churches tend to align their identity with their
senior pastor,” Challies said, noting that “71 percent of American
prosperity megachurches use the image of the senior pastor as the
primary advertisers.com.ng on the church’s
homepage.”

Also, prosperity gospel churches usually offer books by some of
the leading personalities of the movement. Challies identified Joel
Osteen, Joyce Meyer, Paula White, Benny Hinn, or T.D. Jakes as
among those leaders.

He also noted that the “few superstars” who are in the
prosperity gospel movement “tend to appear at the majority of the
big events.”

Education is another indicator. Prosperity gospel preachers
usually come from a “limited number of educational institutions
such as Rhema Bible Training College or Oral Roberts
University.”

Furthermore, prosperity gospel churches are not affiliated with
denominations, but to less-formal networks or associations,
including the Association of Faith Churches and Ministers and
Creflo Dollar’s Ministerial Association.

Bowler’s book was released in 2013 and is described as “the
first comprehensive” American history of prosperity gospel.

“Introducing readers to its most famous faces—celebrities like
Joel Osteen, Joyce Meyer, T.D. Jakes, and Paula White—this book
gives an intellectual framework for understanding the theology and
everyday lives of people who tune in to hear its familiar message:
God desires to bless you,” says an introduction to the book posted
on her website.

Influential evangelical John Piper, the chancellor of Bethlehem
College & Seminary, has also spoken about ways to identify
prosperity gospel churches.

Piper said to look for the absence of a serious doctrine of the
biblical necessity and normalcy of suffering, the absence of a
doctrine of suffering; the absence of a clear and prominent
doctrine of self denial; the absence of serious exposition of
Scripture; the absence of dealing with tensions in Scripture;
exorbitant lifestyles of church leaders; and preachers’ prominence
of self and a marginalization of the greatness of God.