In many cities across the world, there are two types of churches that exist. One type of church is willing to make the proper sacrifices and to do whatever it takes to be a powerhouse for God. Everything from the right pastor, board members, musicians, equipment, building and aesthetics, nursery, discipleship training, etc. is done properly, in order, and done unto the Lord. The pastor can delegate, have a top-notch staff, and God blesses their finances and the finances are used wisely, but not overkilled in excessive lavish. The other church, well, their facilities are lacking, their minister is salaried at the poverty level and works seventy hours a day with most of the work pertaining to trivial matters that could be answered through the Word and prayer on that person's behalf, the nursery is inadequate, the congregation complains at how sorry the pastor is and why they can't get decent teachers and staff, the musicians are there because they can play and lead without submitting to authority, and there is never no money to do anything that needs to be done, but money available for a selfish want or a luxury overkill.

The first church I described is usually a New Testament model of a church. These churches teach tithing all the time and not when the new building is needed. These churches fulfill the Great Commission while caring for the widows, needy, and orphans in not only their church, but their community. Many of these churches are well managed in resources, but are not ran like Fortune 500 corporate entities slaving people for one man's personal agenda and hoarding all the wealth for a select few. These churches manifest the fivefold ministry gifts in checks and balances against the Word of God. Also, a balance exists between the Word, prayer, and praise in the life of the individual who attends the church. These churches are cutting edge in thought, cutting edge in anointing, cutting edge in obedience, and cutting edge in ministry. In this church, the pastoral staff and the members are shepherds to each other and to the outreaches done within their city and missions trips around the world. Since the shepherding comes forth out of love. I would like to call this church "The Abel Church".

The second church I described is usually a model of the way things were done fifty years ago. The aesthetics are outdated, the sermons are not relevant to the culture today, and the fivefold ministry gifts are not balanced and usually only one of the fivefold ministry gifts are in operation. The church is always in need of money due to their mismanagement of resources already given. In fact, a principle I would like to refer to as "Religionomics" takes place within most of these churches. In "Religionomics", there are five principles that occur when churches act in the "Religionomic" mentality, these principles of "stinking thinking" still in use in many churches today are:

• If we pay a cheap price for something even though it's obsolete and it does not work and can be proven not to work by the God-given laws of Science and Mathematics, it's of God.
• If we get something for free even though it's obsolete and it does not work and can be proven not to work by the God-given laws of Science and Mathematics, it's not only of God, but it is anointed by God.
• If we can procure an obsolete item to replace the beyond repair or previous obsolete item for cheap or free, we will procure that obsolete item. The world may install and use it's replacement, but bless God, we are not of the world. Therefore, the obsolete item is of God because it's not of the world and it did not lead nor usher the Antichrist to power". (I heard this statement many times in my childhood in the Holiness church I attended)
• If the misapplied or abused cheap or free thing breaks down prematurely or breaks down at all, then the devil is attacking us and warfare needs to be done to fix the free or cheap thing by casting out the demon of breaking cheap and free things from the free or cheap thing. If we have to call the repairman to fix the problem, we gave the devil victory due to our "lack of faith" and we need to repent for our "lack of faith". If the free or cheap thing is beyond repair, then the devil stole from us so therefore, we will take back what he stole from us and the devil will return to us sevenfold the free or cheap things.
• When we sell the worn out, obsolete, cheap, or free object, the value of the object is priceless and taking anything less than priceless is partaking a spirit of Esau by "selling out our God given glorious inheritance and birthright".

I would like to call this church "The Cain Church".

Here is a good analogy to describe the differences between the Cain church and the Abel Church.

A church needs a new central heating and air conditioning unit for the sanctuary and Sunday school rooms to replace the one that was twenty years old, obsolete, and parts no longer available to service and maintain. The church calls four different heating and air conditioning companies to receive a quote on the unit and installation labor. The four heating and air conditioning companies drive out to the church and look at the previous air conditioner to see how many BTU's of heat and cooling the old unit produced and ask questions about the square footage of the building, the number of people the building can hold per the fire code, and other applicable questions necessary to provide a quote to meet the needs of the potential customer. Later on, the estimators from the four different companies provide the quotes to the church. The four quotes are within ten percent of each other and work could start in approximately a week and a half pending acceptance of the quote by the church and pending the arrival of the unit from the factory.

In most situations, the Abel church would probably take the lesser of the four quotes and give the contract over to the winning contractor to replace and install the new air conditioner. The Abel church would most likely have the contractor send a bill for the unit and installation services and then the accountant would pay the bill if the bill check out per the quote and the unit was working and installed properly. And life went on because there is money allocated in the annual budget for this "emergency expenditure" due to wisdom, fore planning, and tithes paid out the heart to the church.

It's now four months later in the Abel church, this bill is paid, and everyone has now forgotten the broken air conditioner. The church is on the edges of revival and the church is blessed by God with the gifts of the Spirit flowing. The prayer and issues of the church to be dealt with are global in harvest, not trivial such as an air conditioner.

In most situations, the Cain church would still be praying for a supernatural miracle of God to get the twenty year old obsolete unit working again. The unit has been prayed for, anointed with oil, and every demon imaginable exorcised from the unit. After giving up on getting this unit to work again and now in a state of repentance for their "lack of faith" and repenting for now having to spend God's money when they thought God should have miraculously healed the unit. The church contacts the lowest bidder. Before agreeing to the quote, the church calls the estimator and pleads with him to reduce the quote "in the name of God" because "We're the church and we're so poor, Bless God hallelujah!". Then the contractor is either made upset and voids the bid by refusing to now do the job or the church asks for the price of a lesser BTU and lesser quality unit that is a lower grade replacement of the original unit inadequate for the job proven by science, math, and physics. After this church finally gets an air conditioner unit that was cheap and inadequate for their assessed needs based on information given to them by the church, the church is both upset at spending the money in private but in public bless God (in some churches tongues are shouted and people dance around the church floor) for the "deal of the lifetime" they received. At the same time, they take up a special "love offering" to pay for the unit while the sermon is about tithing with the disclaimer of "If everyone would have paid their tithes, then the church would not have been in this predicament nor the twenty year old air conditioner would have broken punishing us for not paying our tithes on time."

It's now four months later in the Cain church, the love offering is still in the bank account and the church has not paid the contractor for his just work and the newly added bills caused by someone freezing the compressor by turning the inadequate unit down to cool at 50 degrees in order to cool the building. The church wants all of this work done free "in the name of God" and under warranty because "they're the church, bless God" and the warranty has been voided due to the misapplication of the product. The contractor, standing up and defending the product does not budge in his stance. The church now refuses to pay for any of the services done and refuses to negotiate with the contractor "standing firm on God's ground". The contractor is left with no other recourse but to sue the church for payment of services rendered. In private, the leaders of the Cain church go into spiritual warfare because the devil has now attacked the church and has touched God's anointing. In the Sunday morning service, the leaders call the congregation to a period of fasting, prayer, and warfare because the church is under spiritual attack. That is all the congregation knows as they begin their prayer, fasting, repentance, and warfare tongues to defeat this "Great Satan" they really have no idea who he really is. The congregation does not know the whole truth about the church's refusal to pay the contractor for services rendered and the contractor suing the church to receive his entitled payment for services rendered.

The Cain church expects everything for super cheap or free because they are the church of God and they are poor and needy (usually due to mismanagement of funds). In the Cain church, nothing is their fault. It is the fault of someone else or it's the devil attacking them. If the Cain church would have done what was right by properly sacrificing the funds per the terms of the contract to the contractor, then this could have been avoided. However, like Cain, they are angry at the contractor and state that it's the contractors fault and therefore sin by not paying a man the defined decent wages for his defined work by not honoring a contract. Then the church sins deeper by expecting God to bail them out of this mess by sending a money tree from heaven to pay this man a reduced payment or expect God to be a spiritual Mafia boss by "taking him out" for touching his anointed and therefore, since he is gone, the church feel justified and feels exempt from their legal responsibility of paying for services rendered. Even though the contractor has tried and tried to negotiate and receive payment for his just services rendered. The church is still perceived as "under attack" and takes action. Instead of paying the contractor, the church decides to write letters to every other church in town and churches within their denomination libeling the contractor and labeling him as the "Great Satan". They ask other churches to pray for God's damnation judgment to come down upon this man to the point that the contractor is "killed" from the air conditioning contractor business and innocent people are out of work because of a lie slandered and libeled "for the glory of God". If the church had just done the right and truthful thing, the postage spent spreading the lies could have went towards the contractor's bill.

Based on their actions, their lack of integrity, and their "pennycostal" mentalities, these churches never are able to sow the seeds in their local grounds of their city because the blood of the innocent contractor who sacrificed his time and energies to provide a service to the church is now on the church's hands. The contractor is now either spiritually killed to the point of not dealing with a church, or the business was physically killed because of the sin of the church. The staff that is not the greatest is pressured to make results work instantaneous because the Abel church down the street is experiencing revival and souls and members are added daily to the kingdom. Now we are back to square one again.

Please Click here for part three of this article.