What a ex-Mega Church goers have to say...

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I read with interest the comments of 1 ex-mega church goer named Takumi who commented in an online article. This is what Takumi has to says:

"It is not the amount of money collected that should be under scrutiny, rather the way it is collected. Being from an ex mega-church member, I’ve seen firsthand the methods they employed to achieve their aims.

1) Admonish members who do not tithe as lacking faith, often implying that God is watching and displeased. Works wonders with regards to the faithful and devout.

2) Conduct regular campaigns on top of monthly tithing which ‘encourages’ members to donate beyond their means as a ‘test of faith’. The more you donate beyond your means, the ‘greater’ your faith. You get to go up on stage and be praised and congratulated by the senior pastors and the audience. Works wonders for people with low self esteem.

3) Implying (implicitly or otherwise) that God will repay(in monetary riches or equivalent) manifolds your sacrifice. This is essentially lying as nowhere in the bible does it state that God will financially reward those who donate to the church. The verse that has any remote resemblance goes like this: “for those who have, more will be given.” Those who do not know the true meaning of that verse should leave the church immediately. Craving for monetary riches is completely opposite to what the bible teaches. Anyway this works well for members who are there for the ‘prosperity’ aspect.

4)Using appropriate smoothing music (violins and pianos work best), hypnotic chanting and silent introspective prayers (indoctrination in effect) in harmony with the above tactics can create the essential feel good, faithfulness or guilt associated emotions that can make these members emotionally or psychologically vulnerable to persuasion and/or coercion.
Works well with everyone. It has been proven experimentally that , when we are exposed to certain auditory/visual stimuli, our emotions can be manipulated subconsciously. This method has been routinely employed by politicians, salesmen, hypnotists and of course church pastors.

Add in mass indoctrination, force of habit and peer pressure, you can understand why their members willingly hand out their hard earned money to these pastors without bothering about how it will be spent.

It is a pity that none of these tactics has any legal implications simply because their claims (of god and rewards) are not based on evidence and therefore cannot be challenged."

Takumi commented in an article regarding the investment of City Harvest Church which you can read about Here