Pastors

Former Crystal Cathedral pastor Robert A. Schuller is renting out rooms in his pristine Laguna Beach, Calif., home for $700 a night, or $5,000 a week, as part of a spiritual retreat package.

The former pastor turned television executive has placed an advertisement for his South Laguna home on the popular online service Airbnb.

Airbnb matches people seeking vacation or short-term rentals to those, generally private parties, who have accommodations to offer. more >>

The U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) slapped Ephren Taylor, a businessman already facing civil lawsuits for alleged million-dollar financial fraud, with a federal suit in Atlanta, Ga., Thursday, revealing a major affinity fraud allegedly carried out by Taylor targeting mostly African-American church congregations.

Eddie Long's New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, Ga., and Joel Osteen's Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, were two out of at least five churches Taylor allegedly targeted in what the SEC estimates to be an $11 million Ponzi scheme. The alleged perpetrator also targeted "a number of Church of Christ churches" and some secular individuals via radio advertisement and other methods, SEC told The Christian Post Friday.

Taylor, 29, a charismatic entrepreneur, speaker and former CEO of City Capital Corporation, and the company's chief operating officer, Wendy Connor, were charged with soliciting the money from at least 350 people, SEC said. A great majority of these people had one thing in common – they were practicing Christians. more >>

When Christians become discouraged it should be taken as an opportunity to learn what God is teaching them about their priorities, a prominent Presbyterian minister said before a large crowd of church leaders.

"God wants us to learn things in our disappointments," Ligon Duncan, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss., told some 8,000 pastors and ministry leaders at the Together for the Gospel conference held this week in Louisville, Ky.

"Discouragement is no stranger to the lives of faithful pastors and Christians," Duncan explained. "God wants us to study our disappointments because if we look at our disappointments … when the bottom falls out, you will learn things about what you love that you never knew before." more >>

A recent survey conducted by LifeWay Research found that while a majority of Protestant pastors believe Christianity is the only way to obtain eternal life, there is a small percentage who strongly feel other religions offer eternal salvation as well.

The survey asked 1,000 Protestant pastors the question, "If a person is sincerely seeking God, he/she can obtain eternal life through religions other than Christianity."

Seventy-seven percent of the pastors questioned said that they strongly disagree with the statement and seven percent somewhat disagreed. Another seven percent somewhat agreed and five percent strongly agreed. Three percent said they are not sure. more >>

Prominent evangelical pastor C.J. Mahaney knows a thing or two about losing heart, having just returned earlier this year after temporarily stepping down from leading Sovereign Grace Ministries over allegations of character flaws by former SGM leaders. Mahaney delivered an emotional message on the opening day of the Together for the Gospel conference during which he immersed the attendees in studying the letter of Apostle Paul to the church in Corinth about not losing heart.

While Mahaney did not speak in detail or directly about his leave of absence and the drama surrounding that decision during his hour-long message on Tuesday, he did repeatedly talk about pastors being discouraged by opposition and at one point made a general statement that pastors can lose heart if the person that helped co-found the church leaves and slanders them, or if a staff member leaves and slanders them.

"Pastors, we can easily get discouraged. I find myself so easily discouraged. It is pathetic how easily I can be discouraged – easily discouraged by resistance, easily discouraged by opposition, easily discouraged by hardness of heart, easily discouraged by blindness," said Mahaney to some 8,000 pastors and church leaders gathered in Louisville, Ky., for the biennial event. "Look, pastoral ministry is a sacrificial call with unique challenges. We are called to take the Gospel to those with hard hearts and blind eyes. And we are called to proclaim and apply this message to those who have been regenerated, given sight, as well, for their hearts are prone to wander." more >>

False conversions are a serious problem that could lead not only to the "suicide of the church" but also to the defaming of God's name, an evangelical pastor warned.

Mark Dever, senior pastor of Capitol Hill Baptist Church in Washington, D.C., told some 8,000 ministers Tuesday at the Together for the Gospel conference that he fears there are thousands, if not millions, of people in churches who are not truly converted.

"My fellow pastors, could it be that many of our hearers each week aren't saved, even many of our members?" more >>