Pursuing the Position: Using People to Make Jesus Famous

Making Jesus Famous

By: Susan Deborah Schiller

Photo Credit: Jesus Daily   In the "Passion for God" series.

"Welcome to the team!" read the subject line of an email from an international ministry. What is this? I called to my husband, "Did you volunteer us for something?" Yep. So I opened the email and inside was a database along with quite a few documents with instructions for setting up business – I mean, ministry. We had been given a territory of nine states to cover, and by 2009 it would include ten states.

There were several thousand names in the database, representing conference and school attendees who had previously purchased products or courses from the ministry. As I read through the instructions, I realized our job was to call each person and initiate connection, build rapport, and establish a profile for each customer.

Relationship Marketing 101. "We're going to make Jesus famous."

"We're going to make Jesus famous!" are the operative words among several ministries, these days. There is a strategy we utilized to make it happen. Using the database and profiling, we organized intimate, local get-together's. From the get togethers we set up regional conferences.

We gathered personal information at the conferences and added the information to the database. We were told to call each person after one month's time to ask for a monthly pledge beginning at $25/month, payable to the international ministry. It took about a year of consistant networking to get to this point.

Expose. Involve. Upgrade.

This is a marketing technique employed in some multi-level marketing companies and corporations all across the globe. "Relationship Marketing" is the broad term, and it's quite effective. The strategy is to expose your prospects to information, based on the intelligence you've gathered in the initial cold call so that you can direct them to the information that is most relevant to them.

Next, you involve them. Usually this means a presentation or a free gift of some kind. This builds rapport, and because it's a spiritual operation, trust naturally results. Once you have their trust, you "upgrade" by inviting them  to a seminar, at a minimal cost of $45-$80. That's just the beginning.

For just $10/month they can have access to 24/7 recorded programming. "We've got a corner on the market – no other ministry offers as much programming as we do for such a low cost!" I heard a ministry leader in charge of the communications division say to our team. For $25 a month you can support missions and get the 24/7 programming for free.

Marketing 201: Gain the competitive edge.

Now your team is beginning to feel like "family" and when they return for conferences, it feels like a family reunion. Greater rapport and trust are established. Once they feel they are "in" – which is the great human need, for connection – you set the bar higher. You offer a host of "schools" where you can purchase tickets for weekend events. At every event, it's important to have a mobile book store, to increase revenue. 

Marketing 301: Create Loyal Customers Who are Happy to Give You Repeat Sales

Your most ardent supporters will become word-of-mouth advertising agents, volunteering at events and working behind the scenes to assure each event is a lasting success. You reward the volunteers with recognition and behind the scenes prayer ministry, where they can receive the anointing that everyone craves.

Marketing 401: Create a Passionate Fan Base using "Big Names". Loyalty has its rewards.

I had been trained by Dani Johnson in multi-level marketing, so I recognized the strategies right away. For business, it's wonderful – it's ethical – and it's effective. The marketer gets compensated for doing the work, and the better she does her work, the bigger the compensation.

In ministry, the "marketer" – or in this case, the regional coordinator – gets a minimal set percentage. It's so minimal that when you add up the hours you've labored and deduct your personal financial investment, it's a negative amount. You're in the red. It's considered your "sacrifice of love" for the privilege of being involved in the ministry. 

The national leader explained it to me, in great detail, via cell phone as we were driving across country. "You guys are my frontline sales team. I know you haven't been getting paid very well, so I want you to know I'm putting together a plan to boost your compensation. I really need you guys to come to ___ for the national meeting, because that's where I'll be unveiling the new compensation plan."

Cult Recruiting 101: Give a new prospect a position.

A few months prior to this "opportunity" I had been asked to give up my business so that my previously disabled husband who I had been taking care of for several years, could attend ministry school and start a new life for himself. They never asked about me – if I liked what I was already doing. Business was considered inferior to ministry. Two national leaders approached me privately, with the admonition that my business was "ungodly" and that I needed to back up my husband.

My desire to earn money to pay our bills was getting in the way, they said. Can't I just trust God and live by faith? I really did admire people who live by faith, so I agreed. For my husband's sake, I laid down my life, not for the first time, sold our house, and moved into an RV and traveled back and forth across the country.

That was my worst mistake, but I had been laying down my life for over 20-years, as a mother and a wife. It was my pattern to put aside my own needs and wants to support my family in their dreams. I knew how to sacrifice. I knew how to work hard. I didn't know how to choose myself. In the process, I lost my identity, but that's another story for another time.

I worked hard and everyone patted us on the backs for quickly establishing several thriving "prayer centers". We were administrating, leading, and teaching seminars one to two weekends out of every month, living off our house money. I did all of the administrative work while my husband found people to hang out with. He was so much fun to be around, no one thought twice about me being left with the lion's share of the work, cut off from the business that had given me such an incredible sense of hope and life. I knew we were operating in the red and it terrified me! At the same time, I was handling litigation in cooperation with three different attorneys, for three lawsuits on behalf of my husband. It was mentally and emotionally exhausting. Fortunately, for my husband, the third settlement arrived just before he divorced me. I do not share in any of those rewards.

After the first two years I felt completely used up. My husband was ready to move on, as well, and he received an invitation to move to Wyoming and work on a ranch. It was promised to be a "ministry ranch" and a "house of prayer" but that all changed soon after we arrived. We became ranch managers, which could have been ideal… but the call to ministry was in my husband's blood and he soon returned to traveling.

I learned to cowgirl up, because just like my first year in hazmat, when my husband became mysteriously ill and I had to step up and take his place, managing the site and doing a good part of his job as well as my own job. The same dynamic continued at the ranch, as my husband began leaving on trips, leaving me alone as the Lone Rancher, plus continuing regional coordination from our home office.

I stopped handling conferences at about the same time that my body quit. My health broke and I nearly died. I had nothing left to give the ministry. My heart wasn't in it. My husband was a popular minister, so he continued ministering on the road, while I took care of 100 cows and 30 horses.

This is a journal entry of those days, just before I quit:

He is the happy-go-lucky cowboy preacher, hustling across the stage in $2500 custom leather boots. His $600 black Stetson is perched stylishly, covering his balding head. A champion storyteller, the crowd is mesmerized, eager for every word. Offerings are big when he's on stage.

He is a salesman of Hope, telling the enhanced story of his miracle. You can't blame them for sitting forward in their seats, for running up to the altar to receive a healing touch. He's "drunk in the spirit" as he preaches (although he doesn't know the Bible) and he talks about the Father's love. Everyone is eager for his touch, to be drunk in that same spirit. 

The crowd lines up to receive prayer. He lays hands on everyone, especially the women. They swoon under his touch. Minutes later I follow behind and a woman looks up and says, "Honey, you get this every day??" as she drunkenly swoons and has to be held up by "catchers".

If only she knew what he's really like, behind closed doors. Later that night, in our bedroom, he says, "I hate all women; not just you. I'm not going to divorce you; I just want to watch you suffer." 

Punishment for not going along with the show, he's found other lovers. I know, because three of them have called me, to tell me he's tried to prospect them for the position of wife #5. 

The torment is made worse by the ministry leaders. All but a handful of the hundreds in our network have turned deaf, dumb, and blind. These few are my heroes. Most find it easier to throw up their hands and say, “No one really knows what happened.” They pretend that all is well, as the dollars spill into their offering baskets. The show goes on, but I'm left far behind.

Ministry friends praise him. His signs, wonders, and miracles are drawing great crowds. He's put up on the stages, in front of television, and each time he lays hands on a swooning woman, I am stricken with guilt. Which woman will be his next victim? For so long his acceptance by pastors and leaders has silenced me. It feels like a personal rebuke."

I went quiet for several years after that. During that time, when he was home, my husband used terrorist tactics to break me down. In the middle of the night he would tirelessly question me about irrational things – delusions projected at me from his own mind. I recorded everything in my journals, because if I didn't I was afraid I would lose my mind. I had never learned about abuse tactics and I couldn't put a name to any of it, but soon I was to learn I was married to someone my marriage counselors called a sociopath.

I was a victim of Stockholm Syndrome as a result of straddling two worlds… the terrorism tactics behind closed doors and the public ministry happening all around us. Gaslighting, smear campaigns, and parental alienation were part of our unhealthy lifestyle. They are the ultimate manifestations of an insecure person trying so very hard to fulfill the expectations of the leaders he so ardently admired. I really did love him and I kept thinking that if I loved him more, in such a way that he knew he was loved unconditionally, no matter what, he would stop using the tactics that were killing me. 

One day, shortly before he left me, he was having one of those attacks where the spirit had taken control of his body. He was shaking and trembling and had fallen to the floor. Our pastor was praying for him over the phone when the manifestations began. He clutched his heart and begged for the spirit of death to take him. Dropping the phone, he got up and stumbled to the door. Grabbing his rifle he shouted, "I'm going to blow my head off!" 

It was a common occurance, but emotionally frightening all the same. I picked up the phone and told my pastor what was happening. He said, "Sue, you can't stop him. Just let him go."

A truck pulled into the driveway, at that moment. It was the owners of the ranch, so I followed my husband out the door. They arrived in a brand new Dodge truck, all white and shiny. Instantly my husband morphed into the happy go lucky cowboy everyone knows and loves – the man I fell in love with. It felt surreal, like we were all actors on the set of Twilight Zone. 

As the three of them joked and laughed, I stood mute. It was crazy-making, and yet there was a witness to the real crazy that has just happened – my pastor. An hour later, my husband and I were in our own truck, driving at 65 mph when he punched the brake and spun the truck around. My head smashed into the window and pain lashed my neck, going down my back. 

My husband smirked as he said, "So I bet you want me to take you to the hospital now?" I replied, "yes". He laughed and said I was so predictable. He pulled the truck over and opened the passenger door, telling me to get out. By the side of the road he gave me a chiropractic adjustment, telling me I'd be find as frog's hair in no time. I was scared. Enough was enough.

I began asking for prayer among our peers and leaders above us, but no one wanted to talk to me, once they heard my subject was about domestic violence. My pastor tried to intervene, because he had been counseling me nearly every day during the worst times. The ministry leaders refused to speak to him, as well.

The smear campaign had already gone into effect, so people were prepared for a "crazy wife call". A ministry friend confided that she was a witness to hearing the lies against me. I was shocked to learn that I was being accused of things that only someone born in a gutter would even think of!  I had been requesting a sabbatical so my husband and I could get help for our marriage. I was treated like I was trying to stop GOD!

They supported my husband and his trips continued to expand. And miracles happened. People got drunk in the spirit, falling down at his touch. The presence of God was strong, so most people thought, "God is with him; he must be right and Sue is the bad person he says she is!" Three trustworthy people came to me separately to tell me what was happening. They also reported what they witnessed to the ministry leaders. No one listened to them, either!

The miracles… the healings… were they real? I was sick, eventually to the point of nearly dying, during this time. I longed for my husband to pray for me as he was praying for others, but he refused. Until one day. One day he had enough of me asking for prayer and he said, "You want prayer? BAM!" He slapped me on the forehead and said, "Be healed, in Jesus' name!" He wheeled around and left the room. I was not healed that day. 

I have been healed three times, in the past. Each time was a direct intervention from God. Sometimes my close, personal friends were used and one time God gave me a plan for changing my diet. God really does love us and healing is part of our inheritance. We don't have to travel long distances to have a Big Name person lay hands on us. God has provided for your healing right where you are, even in nature – in the foods you eat – in the air, the water, the animals, and the plants. His Spirit is everywhere and he can use anyone to heal another person.

Some will say, "There is a counterfeit for every genuine act of God." We were trained not to be afraid of the counterfeits and to let God expose the evil. From my perspective, as I watched men and women convulsing demonically and cursing in unknown languages, I saw crowds gathering to watch the spectacles.

The more convulsions, the more approval, and the crowd cheered and said, "MORE, LORD!" 

And that's how you create momentum. At every gathering my husband was called to the stage to verify that his healing was valid. He jumped up and down, bent at the waist, and shouted his praise for a whole, healed body. A film documentary of his miracle was sold in the bookstore and via the Internet all over the world. We were told that the series of films, of which ours was the second, was being used as evidence that miracles really do happen. In essence, our story was being used to validate and promote their ministry.

I was in the movie. My words, my face, my cooperation are public history. And so I must repent publicly.

Large chunks of my testimony were dropped on the editing room floor, as told to me by the director himself. My message was twisted to promote the ministry's message. The story would have flowed much more truthfully if all of my husband's wives had been interviewed, especially since the original movie covered the span of his whole life, 45 years total.

Neither of us saw the movie until the day it was released publicly. I was horrified when I first saw it. I was also impressed. They had done an exceptional job – it was an incredibly moving story! It glorified God. It gave people hope. It led to more miracles. And that is what makes the deception so attractive.

I cried for three days and three nights and I didn't sleep a single wink. I wrote another lengthy letter to the leaders who produced the film and I begged them to retract it.

I was perceived as the "crazy woman" and instead they paid for me to have counseling. I submitted to their authority and went to counseling. I told my story to the counselors. And then my husband told his story. The counselors chose to believe his story, which made me appear crazier. I really began to doubt my own thoughts and feelings. The atmosphere was so charged with the excitment of signs and wonders, that a story had been fabricated that was beautiful, you couldn't help but want to believe it… that the grace of God could instantly heal a person inside and out, past to present, in a single instant of time.

I began to see myself as they saw me. That's the truer insanity.

The final day arrived, our day of graduation from the ministry school we were attending. A well known prophetic team prophesied over each one of us, as couples. They spent 30-minutes prophesying over my husband and me. 

We were told we would be traveling internationally, focusing on planting churches on four continents. We were given grandiose visions of millions of people saved, healed, delivered, and set free as a result of our preaching and teaching. They also said that my husband and I would have a marriage ministry and many marriages would be healed and saved. And then, at the end, that is when I was told that my home business was ungodly and I needed to quit. 

From the very beginning I was perceived by many people to be a stumbling block for my husband's emerging ministry.

Was I not the same woman who had given up everything (job, home, business) multiple times to care for my husband when he was disabled? Who pushed him in a wheelchair, who did his job for him, plus her own, who's paycheck paid the bills… No one considered that maybe the caretaker needed care, or to have her life restored to her. Just as I never had care during the years of caring for my husband, didn't have drugs to dull the pain, and didn't have medical care when my body was dying, so now that my husband was healed, it was expected that I should just keep laying down my life for him.

There was never a word about my husband loving me as Christ loved the church, laying down his life for me. It was all upside down. I was a "stumbling block". I was a liability. They just quit talking to me and dealt only with my husband. I was to move when he said move, minister when he said minister, do his legal work, work his ranch, operate heavy equipment, pay the bills… and just keep on keeping on.

Whew! I had to say that. Because that's what everyone wants silenced. Especially when I was managing the ranch all by myself for up to three weeks at a time. Yes, I was accused of making my husband look bad! I didn't say anything negative – all I did was post updates on social media of what was happening on the ranch. From my status updates, the public could possibly discover my husband was not there to help. Funny, that was the truth – but I was supposed to be silent, invisible, and "play the game". 

The worst part about being abused is the people who stand guard around your abuser. Innocent people are lured into the delusion, so that now it's a mass delusion. Truth is always a threat to denial. Reality is truth.

One month prior to this ministry school, my husband and I had received similar prophetic ministry at another conference. A prophetic team from a different network gave a 15-minute prophetic word over both of us. Their word fit our situation perfectly. They identified my husband's secret fears (right on target) and they told him he would be using his hands to create an income, doing what he loved. They told me my secret dreams that no one else knew about… and they told me I would write a book that would set myself free, that my inner child would be released from pain and it would result in great creativity and joy. They told me that whoever reads my book will receive the same gifts: freedom, creativity, and joy. They told me my creativity would lead to inventions, businesses, and significant finances that would support missions around the world.

The Great Divide

Two prophetic teams within a month of each other. Two incredibly different words. My husband resonated most with the church planting and I believed in my heart for the dream of writing. I could not envision myself as a church planter on four continents!

That was the beginning of the "great divide" and it happened three years before my husband finally left me, culminating in his words, "We serve different gods. My god told me to leave you!"

His was a god that caused him to shake and tremble when he was under the influence of that spirit. He told me that sometimes the spirit pushed him far back and took over his body. It would try to drive him off cliffs. He told me it was all he could do to regain control of his hands, arms, and legs to bring the vehicle back onto the pavement.

He told me that he was not an ordinary man! He shared how he and jesus walked and talked together in the fields (during our ranching days) and how he didn't need the Bible because jesus talked to him every day just like he did with Peter, James, and John.

He kept emphasizing how he was not an ordinary man. 

There was a lot of pressure on us. A carrot was held under my husband's nose, a vague promise, that if he came fully on board, there would be great reward, along with a closer relationship with the Big Names. It was soon after this event that I got the email at the beginning of this story. And that is what it led to: utter ruin and destruction.

I think of Jesus dying on the cross. He came to show us a better way.

Using people is the opposite of loving one another. Bigger is not better. The bigger the ministry, the more "business" it needs to keep the programs running, the money flowing. I'm not saying every big ministry is deceptive. I'm not saying this ministry was deceptive. I am confessing that I was deceived and I was a part of deceiving others. I don't think any of us did it intentionally.

It's like we lived under the shadow of a great deception. Good was called evil, and evil was called good.

Sometimes you just have to face reality, if only for your own sanity. Facing reality causes conflict. You are perceived as a threat. Jesus was a threat. He was called crazy. He was called demon-possessed. 

We are in the midst of a great deception – a deception so great that even angels cannot tell who is real and who is not real. It's the parable of the tares and wheat.

We genuinely feel God's presence at meetings where the demonic realm is active. The real anointing co-exists with the false. What would Jesus do, in such an atmosphere?

Jesus whipped the money-changers and he called the religious leaders white-washed tombs. He forgave the "lady of sin" when the religious wanted to stone her to death. He ate with sinners and didn't deliberately draw attention to himself. I see him…

Washing feet.

     Eating with sinners.

          Avoiding the crowds.

               Rejecting the shame.

                    Refusing to play the religious "Game".

                        Recognizing the outcasts, the misfits, and the rejects.

Jesus survived public ministry for three years and then he was murdered. Smear campaigns, terrorist tactics… none of it touched him or hurt him… because he knew his life was safe in his Father's hands. 

If we want to truly follow Jesus, what does it look like?

• Does it begin with desert training or up on the stage?
• Does it include laying down your life for your friends or manipulative fundraising?
• Does it include rejecting the shame, or hiding your true self so your shame doesn't show?
• Does it include long hours on your knees, even all night long, as Jesus did – or does it mean you pray mainly on the stage, in front of people?

Do we keep our pastors and church leaders so busy they have no time to pray? Do we keep them so under pressure that they turn to porn for instant relief?

I know those people are simply believing in the illusive dream, themselves. But the dream shattered, for me, and now my eyes are wide open. 

Sure, I have helped people. But I have also hurt people. My silence has been my worst sin. My silence protected the perpetrators and enabled abuse. My silence led me to cooperate with my abusers. When one part of the body hurts, it affects us all. What I'm talking about is happening all over the globe. It's not just one ministry, one time… it's prevalent everywhere. And most of us are too afraid of offending people to speak up! 

Bad Christianity is in danger of infecting and harming the vast majority of good Christians who wouldn't dream of abusing people. Something needs to change.

The change will come not from church policies, but from the conscientious action of brave individuals.