Church to try pay for pray
New Life Tabernacle in Sand Springs will give $10 cash to Easter guests.
By Bill Sherman
World Religion Writer
A Sand Springs congregation will bring new meaning Sunday to the idea that it pays to go to church.
New Life Tabernacle, 13107 W. 41 st St., will give a $10 bill to each visitor, ages 15 and older, who attends and Easter service.
?It?s pretty radical. Some of my friends think I?m crazy,? said the Rev. Dan Switzer, who has been the pastor of the United Pentecostal church for 16 years.
?But we think we have a great church, and we want people to experience it.
?Hopefully the service will touch some lives and have a positive effect on some people.
?We realize we could get all kinds of people.?
Switzer said he knew of no Oklahoma church that has paid people to attend services, but he had heard of a California church that had great success doing it, and a black church that offered money to white people to attend as a way to break down racial barriers.
Bishop Fred Caldwell of the predominantly black Greenwood Acres Full Gospel Baptist Church in Shreveport, La., paid whites $5 and hour out of his own pocket last year for attending Sunday services, and $10 an hour for Thursday night services. The offer was made in an effort to decrease segregation during services.
New Life?s guests will need to sign in as they arrive, and they will be told where to pick up their $10 bill after the services, Switzer said. The 130-member church is prepared to handle up to 500 people, he said.
?We anticipate this could cost us several thousand dollars,? he said. ?That would be a good problem to have.?
New Life?s Easter services are scheduled for 10 a.m. and 6:30 P.M. Sunday. The sermon will be by Daryl Bennett, an evangelist from Lufkin, Texas.
The children?s church will have puppets and skits. An Easter egg hunt with candy for the children will follow the 10 a.m. service.
yeudo
but the FACT is once out of the congregation, once outside the organization, an enormously large percentage of them go on to practice filth and debauchery of ALL sorts.
--Anonymous Jehovah's Witness (2004)--