Robbed.

You know, I do not advocate stealing, but I would love to ask Mr. Osteen how it feels to be stolen from.  Yeah, as far as I am concerned he has made his bones, built his church on the theft from others.

As many of you know, I do my best to help out a few charities.  Right now the Richardson Family, or this one Fund for Propane Powered Heater, and one other which I will add the link at a later date.  A friend sent it to me, and like an idiot, I lost it.  It happens.

Along the way of trying to gather funds for these two families, both of which are homeless, both of which are in dire need of any help they can get, I contacted Mr. Osteen, and his ministries.  I was soundly ignored, which is alright, but others have taken up the mantle.  We all try, but I feel I am the most diplomatic of the efforts, I just try and reach their office.  They go on FaceBook, and use the power of social media.  At some point, I just shake my head.

So today, I hear about the theft at Mr. Osteen's church.  Sad, they robbed a church.  And while it is sad, I hope whoever did it, I hope they use the money in the ways that Mr. Osteen will not.  But, my heart really goes out to the people.  The ones who wrote that man checks, and gave their tithes with their credit cards.  So, I have another question, maybe more as I write this they are just cropping up.

So, the theft was tithes from March 8 and 9, and totally 600,000$.  Now I think we can safely assume that they gather around $20,000,000 ($31.2M) a year, so, what are they doing with that money?  But here is where it starts getting odd, I mean if you can find it believable that a church of some 40-50,000 people dropped 600,000$ into the coffers.  The mentioned that checks and credit cards are used to pay tithes there, but there has not been an information breach, but if you are a member you should monitor your accounts.

We were heartbroken to learn today that funds were stolen from the church over the weekend. This includes cash, checks and envelopes containing written credit card information, and it is limited only to those funds contributed in the church services on Saturday, March 8 and Sunday, March 9, 2014. If you made a contribution during these weekend services, we would encourage you to pay close attention to your accounts over the next several days and weeks and report any suspicious activity to your financial institution or credit card company immediately.  Christianity Today

 Oh boy.  So, at some point this screams issues.  Anyway, I will assume some other things, but really I am asking.  Are we to assume that it takes the entirety of what they bring in over the course of a weekend to keep that place open?  If so, I would suggest looking at something else, because you are not fully doing the work you are supposed to.  You know, you preach the word, but you also help your fellow man.  From what I am hearing, Mr. Osteen does the first part, the second part is helping man, his man, himself. 

And I do not want to point fingers here, and without knowing specifics of what happened, I would be inclined from my education, and personal experiences to look at some church officials.  Sure, with some training, and practice anyone can crack safes, but its not exactly something that can be done quickly.  Given the amount of money they gather, I would think they have something akin to a bank safe, you don't just break into them.  It screams inside job.  But never fear, the money was insured, and the church and Mr. Osteen are working with the insurance company to recover the money.  Right now, I hear all kinds of warning bells and whistles, and I am sure you can all understand why.