Resources
BITE Model of Undue Influence
NOTE: The BITE Model is Trademarked by Stephen Hassan, and more information can be obtained here: https://freedomofmind.com/.
"Undue influence" is any act of persuasion that influences and/or manipulates a person in order to overcome their free will and/or their judgment, using subliminal messaging, psychological manipulation, deception, flattery, trickery, coercion and other techniques, which involves any person or group taking advantage of their position of power or influence over other people.
This is a vanilla flavoured model used by most churches that practice manipulation over their congregants, and which is tweaked to fit:
- Emotional highs by providing overwhelming and carefully choreographed and crafted "Praise and Worship" sessions
- Followed up with sermons creating feelings of guilt, inadequacy or "not living up to God's expectations of you", or your money
- Special sections of the sermon dedicated to, and misquoting scripture, around the false concept of "Tithing"
Be very weary of churches that spend more on staff salaries and church planting, than fulfilling our Great Commission of Matthew 28.
Download and study the BITE Model from the official site, compare your church, then either Change your Church, or Change Churches.
Emotional manipulation, creating of feelings of guilt, disallowing individualism or open criticism of leadership, inflating mebership sizes, lying, disproportionate salaries, no Social programs
General Resources
The resources that I share here have one single purpose: To make you think, investigate, argue, expand, learn and then through the Spirit, teach.
These are not meant to be complete dissertations around any topic, but a perspective, a reference, a point of view to debate.
They are not meant to be exhaustive, nor exhausting, but prompts to make you curious and eager to explore and learn more!!!
I hope and pray that these will create a hunger to learn, to challenge, to grow, and ultimately to enjoy.
We serve a God of structure, and even in doing Bible study, or expanding on a message we have received from God, we need to apply a structure. The Yasha Bible Study Pyramid will show you how to go about making sure that you always remain in God, focused on God, and live out His intended will for you through His messages.
Reading and understanding the Bible can be daunting, and with the translations into English, most of the context of the verses were retained, but recognizing the string that binds them together, may become tricky. In this piece I will give a broad overview of what roles Coordinating Conjunctions and Conjunctive Adverbs play in how the Bible was written, and how it connects.
This scripture is more often than not used out of context, and without the complete understanding of what it actually means and try to tell us. In this piece I will break down the way the verse was originally written, and attempt to shed some light on its true meaning.
In a world consumed by the concept of money and prestige, the topic of tithing is something very close to all our hearts. In this piece we will look at the origins of the tithe, its relevance in the modern day church and also how we as Christians should be looking at what we sow, the attitudes of our hearts and how the Word describes giving in general.