Ever Increasing Faith / Fred Price/ Crenshaw Christian Center
Summary
Ever Increasing Faith Ministries ("EIFM") is the missionary outreach arm of Crenshaw Christian Center ("CCC"). Crenshaw Christian Center was founded by Dr. Frederick K. C. Price in 1973. EIFM began televising the faith message of Dr. Price locally and later expanded its telecasts to five major U.S. cities in an effort to reach Black America. In 1990, Dr. Price founded the Fellowship of Inner-City Word of Faith Ministries ("FICWFM") to foster and spread the faith message among independent ministries located in the urban, metropolitan areas of the United States. The Fellowship of Inner City Word of Faith Ministries is a membership organization of churches and ministries. The ministry conducts teaching seminars for training inner city ministers and pastors. In addition to his broadcast ministries, Dr. Price is the author of numerous books on faith, the Holy Spirit, divine healing and prosperity. This ministry has chosen not to be open and transparent with MinistryWatch.com. As such it is difficult to understand all aspects of its ministry.
Contact Information: [ Back to top ]
| Mailing Address: | PO Box 90000
Los Angeles, CA
90009-0009 |
| Website: | www.faithdome.org |
| Phone: | (323) 758-3777 |
| Email: | You need to enable javascript to see the email |
Organization Details [ Back to top ]
EIN: 952856965
| CEO/President: |
Ms. Angela Evans |
Tax Deductible: |
Yes |
| Chairman: |
Dr. Fred Price |
Fiscal Year End: |
December 31 |
| Board Size: |
|
Financial info from: |
|
| Founder: |
Dr. Fred Price |
Member of ECFA: |
No |
| Year Founded: |
1973 |
Member of ECFA since: |
|
Ever Increasing Faith Ministries ("EIFM") is the missionary outreach arm of Crenshaw Christian Center ("CCC"). Crenshaw Christian Center was founded by Dr. Frederick K. C. Price in 1973. EIFM began televising the faith message of Dr. Price locally and later expanded its telecasts to five major U.S. cities in an effort to reach Black America. In 1990, Dr. Price founded the Fellowship of Inner-City Word of Faith Ministries ("FICWFM") to foster and spread the faith message among independent ministries located in the urban, metropolitan areas of the United States. The Fellowship of Inner City Word of Faith Ministries is a membership organization of churches and ministries. The ministry conducts teaching seminars for training inner city ministers and pastors. In addition to his broadcast ministries, Dr. Price is the author of numerous books on faith, the Holy Spirit, divine healing and prosperity.
This ministry has chosen not to be open and transparent with MinistryWatch.com. As such it is difficult to understand all aspects of its ministry.
Prudent donors want to understand what it is they are going to support. Some ministries claim they have no legal obligation to share financial or other information — but they do have a moral obligation to do so. Without access to comprehensive ministry information it is not possible for donors to make optimal giving decisions. Ministries that seek to obscure critical information from scrutiny undermine the faith and trust of donors and damage attitudes that have a long term negative impact. For those few ministries that state it has no legal obligation, it should be noted that donors are even less so obligated with any legalist obligation to give, but they do have a moral obligation to give in a prudent and wise fashion. Transparency is a consensus of practical sound wisdom. Many Christians are willing to live ethically without a governmental entity mandating that they do so. Transparency is the key component to a growing and prosperous donor — ministry relationship and fundamental to long-term ministry success. Information, however, must be timely, relevant, accurate and complete for it to be used effectively.
Christians should have nothing to fear by being open. All will be judged at a future date, and with this thought in mind, how are we to conduct ourselves before God today? Organizations described as “Christian Ministries” are at least giving people an image of God. Is God characterized as closed, impartial and hidden; or, open, personable and knowable? Scripture enjoins Christians to conduct themselves honestly (1 Thes. 4:12; 1 Tim. 2:2), with due candor (Jms. 5:12) and grace (Col. 4:6), without deliberate offense to Jew, Gentile or the Church of God (1 Cor. 10:32), with decency and orderliness (1 Cor. 14:40), blameless, giving no occasion for rebuke (Phil. 2:15), and offering no opportunity for false accusation (1 Pet. 3:16). Responsibility for the resources God has placed in the trust of His saints is called “stewardship” in the Bible (1 Pet. 4:10), the person responsible for the resources is called the “steward” (Lk. 12:42; 16:1-8). Most Christians would not argue with the principle that the chief aim of man is to ...”to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” However, how can a “Christian Ministry” “glorify God” if they are not open? Are not organizations that hide things characterized as cults? Should not Christian ministries lead by example? Besides being characterized as a steward, Christians can be characterized as ambassadors and as light because God is light. Just these few summary ideas indicate that Christian ministries should be open and transparent. In addition, responsibility to God is linked to responsibility to government and mankind.
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Program Accomplishments [ Back to top ]
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Statement of Faith [ Back to top ]
The Cyberchurch at Ever Increasing Faith Ministries subscribes to the following statement of faith:
WE BELIEVE:
In the Triune God - The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.
Jesus Christ is true God and true man.
The Holy Spirit is a divine person.
All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God and are in need of salvation.
Salvation has been provided through Jesus Christ for all men.
It is the will of God that every Believer be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Healing is provided in the redemptive work d Christ and is available to every Believer.
The Church consists of all those who have received Jesus Christ as their personal Savior.
There shall be a bodily resurrection of the just and of the unjust.
In the personal, visible, imminent return of Jesus Christ.
In water baptism, and observance of the Lord's Supper.
Crenshaw Christian Center (CCC) was founded by Dr. Frederick K. C. Price in 1973 with some 300 members. Membership currently numbers over 18,000.
Eight years before establishing CCC, Dr. Price had pastored a small church in Los Angeles called West Washington Community Church under the auspices of the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He had grown dissatisfied with his personal spiritual development because of a lack of positive results in his life and ministry, so he searched for a more fruitful Christian experience. This led to his being baptized with the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4 on February 28, 1970. Shortly after this experience, Dr. Price came into contact with the Bible-teaching ministry of Kenneth E. Hagin. He grew into the reality of God’s Word, then began teaching the Bible-deliverance message.
As Dr. Price and his congregation grew in the operation of faith and continually acted upon the Word, signs followed. One of those signs was a steady growth in church membership. Eventually, the building on Washington Boulevard (which only seated 158 persons comfortably) became too small for the growing congregation, and Dr. Price followed through with a plan the Lord had shared with him about establishing a new church, independent of denominational ties. There, the Holy Spirit could operate as He chose, according to 1 Corinthians 12 and 14, and the Word of God could be taught to His people uncompromisingly.
The ideal facilities were found at 9550 Crenshaw Boulevard in the city of Inglewood, a suburb of Los Angeles. On that site, Crenshaw Christian Center was founded, and on November 26, 1973, the 300-member assembly held its first service there.
Pastor Price continued his ministry of the Word and applied fully the principles of faith. In 1977, the 1,400-seat church was forced to go to two services, and later three, to accommodate the people desiring to receive the Word and experience the move of the Holy Spirit. Overflow rooms with closed-circuit television were used, and still, the lines kept growing.
The multitudes at the door were not the only sign of increase. After being on radio several times a week for a number of years, in April 1978, Ever Increasing Faith, the missionary outreach arm of Crenshaw Christian Center, began televising the faith message locally. Later, its telecasts expanded to five major U.S. cities in an effort to reach Black America. Just as Paul, an apostle to the Gentiles, never lost sight of his Jewish brethren, Dr. Price has desired to reach his Black brethren with the Word of Faith and prosperity that is in Christ Jesus, and has endeavored to do so through the media of television and radio.
Eventually, with an average of 5,500 persons participating in three services each Sunday, and with its expanding television, radio, book and tape ministries, the church again needed larger facilities. In 1981, it purchased the 32-acre former campus of Pepperdine University, primarily for the construction of a 10,000-seat sanctuary. In 1984, Crenshaw Christian Center moved to this location. Groundbreaking for the new sanctuary took place in 1986 and the building was completed in the fall of 1989.
The sanctuary, the FaithDome, is a geodesic dome (one of the largest in the world) used for Sunday services, special meetings, conventions, and crusades. The church holds other activities, including midweek Bible studies, in other facilities on the grounds. The Crenshaw Christian Center Ministry Training Institute, established in 1985, which includes a Correspondence School program that was founded in 1994, is also located on the grounds.
In 1990, Dr. Price founded the Fellowship of Inner-City Word of Faith Ministries (FICWFM) to foster and spread the faith message among independent ministries located in the urban, metropolitan areas of the United States. It fulfills another part of Dr. Price’s vision namely, to help inner-city ministries overcome the challenges they encounter in their congregations and in their day-to-day walk.
The ministry employs more than 350 people within 14 distinct divisions, including a preschool and elementary, middle and high schools. Sixteen helps ministry auxiliaries and organizations, with approximately 2,500 volunteer workers, assist Dr. Price and his staff of nine ministers in serving the congregation, visitors and an outreach jail ministry.
This organization has not offered MinistryWatch.com with specific needs to be posted on the profile. At such a time that MinistryWatch.com receives a response from the ministry, it will be posted immediately.
Research Analysis
Transparency Grade [ Back to top ]
| Transparency Grade of : F |
| Criteria category | Grade | Other Comments |
| Timeliness: | 0 | |
| Financial Information: | 0 | |
| Foundational Clarity: | 0 | |
| Level of Cooperation: | 0 | |
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MinistryWatch.com’s Take
March 2004
By Dan Wray
Price of Faith
Emanating from the former campus of Pepperdine University in Los Angeles, Ever Increasing Faith (EIF) is the missionary outreach arm of The Crenshaw Christian Center under the leadership of Dr. Frederick K. C. Price. A charismatic speaker and prolific writer, Dr. Price served with four major denominations before, as he testifies, receiving “the gift of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking with other tongues,” citing this as the real beginning of his ministry. Stirred by the lives of Katherine Kuhlman, Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin, Price embraced their Charismatic message of faith, healing and prosperity, with an emphasis on the sign gifts of the Spirit. Today he ministers from the 10,000-seat Faith Dome of the 32-acre Crenshaw Christian Center. With church membership reported between 18,000-22,000, the Price’s Ever Increasing Faith broadcasts air weekly in 15 million homes in most of the largest media markets, with EIF books and tapes distributed worldwide. In addition, the Crenshaw Christian Center houses a preschool through high school, including correspondence curricula.
F.I.C.W.F.M.
Desiring to reach Black America and the inner cities, Dr. Price established the Fellowship of Inner City Word of Faith Ministries (FICWFM) in 1990 in an effort to propagate the Word of Faith / prosperity message among independent urban and metropolitan ministries throughout the United States and the world. Members must qualify with a paid application. Annually renewable paid membership benefits include leadership training in ministry excellence, associate credentials, exclusive Internet communication, preferred access to FICWFM administrative resources, priority seating at FICWFM events and ordination certification. Members are welcomed by letter from Dr. Price and his wife, Dr. Betty Price and an invitation is extended to private counsel upon request.
Publications
Drs. Fred and Betty Price have together authored more than 50 books and printed publications with sales numbers in excess of 2 million. Topics range from faith in matters of practical living to healing, prosperity and success in business. Biblical theology is examined in its socio-economic implications and in 1998, Dr. Price taught extensively on the implications of racism on the spread of the Gospel. The teaching series, recently updated in a three volume publication, provoked applause from supporters as well as cries of foul from others. Published and printed materials covering a broad range of Christian interests are available for sale through the Crenshaw Christian Center website, as well as free doctrinal synopses and answers to contemporary issues of custom and culture. Additional materials available through the website include periodic devotional and inspirational messages, time management helps and Christian music recordings.
Partners in Prosperity
Ever Increasing Faith is ostensibly a faith-based ministry dependant upon the financial donations of members and supporters. The Old Testament principle of store-house tithing, a mainstay of prosperity theology, is advanced as the Christian’s foundational instruction for giving, with the text of Malachi 3:8 prominently displayed on the ministry website. EIF partnership commitments are encouraged in scheduled monthly amounts beginning with $20, with regular contributions from Crenshaw Christian Center members expected to be “above and beyond,” without interrupting or diverting their normal church giving. While it may be reasonable to assume that EIF derives direct support from the Price’s book and tape sales, this is nowhere explicitly stated. Whatever entirely by donations of the faithful or enhanced by private investment, Price’s EIF ministry bears all the indicators of being superbly funded, consistent with his personal exhortation. Price is an alumnus of Friends International Christian University in Merced, Calif. He received a diploma from Kenneth Copeland’s Rhema Bible Training Center in Oklahoma and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Oral Roberts University in 1982, summarily establishing Price’s credentials within the Word of Faith camp. What began in 1965 in a small 158-seat auditorium in the West Washington suburb of Los Angeles has become a comprehensive, full-orbed Word of Faith / prosperity ministry with nine ministerial staff – including several Price family members – 350 employees in educational and auxiliary ministries, and additional unnumbered volunteers in community outreach.
Bits and Pieces
In 1970, by his own admission dissatisfied with his personal spiritual development, Fred Price was “baptized with the Holy Spirit according to Acts 2:4” and soon began preaching “the Bible-deliverance message,” eventually severing all previous denominational ties so that he might teach the Word of God “uncompromisingly.” Today, Price characterizes his message as “fight|ing| the good fight of faith...through prayer, praise and worship, and... reading |the| Word,” and frequently invokes the Scriptural injunction to “walk by faith and not by sight,” also a tag-line for his media broadcasts.
Faith, the material substance of things dreamed for
An unabashed proponent of Word-of-Faith / prosperity theology, Dr. Price has drawn broad criticism from mainstream conservative evangelicals for deriving continued material prosperity from a theological construct some would say has nothing whatever to do with real faith. Word of Faith / prosperity theology has as its touchstone the idea, based on a strained exposition of Hebrews 11:1 wholly unsupported outside Word of Faith circles, that faith is corporeal matter, that this matter comprises tangible substance out of which things literally materialize. When contemplated in context with Scripture teaching that God responds to the faith petitions of His saints, mainstream Word of Faith theology asserts that objects and ideas will manifest materially on demand in response to the faith of saints! Stated simply, the believer is admonished that God created, not “ex nihilo,” i.e., “out of nothing,” but out of faith. Literally. One oft-quoted mentor of Word-of-Faith teachers has said of God’s original creative acts,
- “Some think God made the earth out of nothing, but He didn’t. He made it out of something. The substance God used was faith...” (emphasis added)
and another,
- “...He released His faith – the creative power to bring His words to pass.”
Price’s Word-of-Faith / prosperity aberrations
Consider the following.
- “...God has to be given permission to work in this earth realm on behalf of man... Yes! You are in control! ...if man has control, who no longer has it? God.”
Price asserts that God surrendered dominion over the creation to Adam, ostensibly implicit in God’s instruction to Adam to name the animals, and must now be enabled to work within the realm of creation by the faith-laden language of positive confession. In other words, for an otherwise sovereign God to control outcomes, the very outcome must be verbally expressed as a positive confession. “I believe (as expressed by my positive confession)..., Voila! I receive!”
By such a formula, the only impediment to unspeakable material gain is the believers’ ability to be convinced that God will supply it, with not the slightest annoying constraint of conformity to the will of God. In fact, Price teaches that it is moronic, insulting to God to even contemplate, “if it be Thy will.” Price offers his own accessory-laden lifestyle as proof of the proverbial pudding.
On the nature of Christ and extent of His death: In some manner, by some means – perhaps awkwardly extrapolated from a comparison between Numbers 21:8-9 and John 3:14 – Word of Faith teaches that Christ assumed the very nature of Satan while being offered for sin. Precise opinion about the details varies among the Word of Faith adherents. Price seems to place a transformation in the nature of Christ during His experience in Gethsemane,
- “...somewhere in there, He died spiritually. Personally, I believe it was while He was in the garden.”
Opinion varies among conservative evangelicals as to the extent of the death Christ died,
physically as well as spiritually. It is the view of this writer that Jesus the Man died a death which was both physical and spiritual. In any case, Scripture offers not one particle of evidence that He ever assumed the nature or corporeal appearance of Satan, serpentine or otherwise, and every additional Word of Faith attempt to clarify this spurious distortion only enhances its absurdity. Scripture clearly affirms that Christ offered Himself as the spotless lamb of God (1 Peter 1:19), acceptable in every way, with no hint of suggestion that Satan played any role in the covenant transaction enacted on Golgotha between God the Son and God the Father. Price has obviously been influenced in this matter by the fanciful notions of Kenneth Copeland and others in such statements as,
- “The righteousness of God was made to be sin. He accepted the sin nature of Satan in His own spirit...” (Copeland)
Nowhere in Scripture does the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ represent Satan, his person, his activity or his role in introducing sin into the creation. This insidiously fertile construct is the fruit of futile imagination on the part of those whose merchandise panders to hopelessly “itching ears,” and flies in the face of Scripture. Christ offered His sinless self as something which pleased the Father (Isaiah 53:10), indeed something in which the Father finally took judicial satisfaction (Isaiah 53:11; Hebrews 10:12).
Accordingly, one need not be surprised at the Word of Faith assertion that Christ paid the penalty for sin, not on Calvary, but in hell.
Price:
- |If crucifixion could have paid for sin| “...the two thieves could have paid your price. No, the punishment was to go into hell itself and so serve time in hell separated from God....”
Again, opinion among conservative evangelicals varies about the activity of Christ while His body was in the tomb. That Christ, in the realm of His humanity, suffered the ominous foreboding and dread of physical death common to the experience of Old Testament saints is unmistakable (Psalm 40). However, consensus is uniform and overwhelming that He did not suffer judicial torment in Hades. In fact, after a victory message to spirits in chains (1 Peter 3:19), His bodily resurrection as the firstborn, literally, “out from among the dead (Colossians 1:18)” mysteriously and triumphantly changed forever the attitude of New Testament saints with respect to physical death (1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Compare this with Old Testament prophetic references.
- “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the LORD hath spoken it” (Isaiah 25:8).
- “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes” (Hosea 13:14).
Fred Price believes that Jesus was materially rich, His example to His disciples powerfully instructive.
- |Jesus| “...had a treasurer... |who| was stealing out of the bag for three-and-a-half-years and nobody knew that he was stealing... because there was so much in it... if Jesus didn’t have anything, what do you need a treasury for?”
- “It’s a whole lot easier to be persecuted when I’m riding in my |Rolls Royce| and I got the pink slip than it is when I’m riding in a car and owe my soul to the company store.”
Scripture promises unimagined sorrow in exchange for open association with Christ (Mark 10:39), unrelenting persecution for the witness of a godly life (2 Timothy 3:12). Nowhere is there a hint of the plush appointments, jewelry and luxury automobiles that spell success and comfort by the world’s standards. This sordid refrain of the prophets of prosperity theology is precisely what it seems to be, unmitigated pandering to the lust of the flesh which Jesus summarily decried in Luke 12:16-21, aptly addressing its proponents as fools!
It is difficult to know where to start with the foregoing brief highlights. Dr. Price is only one among many currently merchandizing the marketplace and plying the information highway with this manifesto of avarice and personal aggrandizement. With sorrow we conclude the obvious, that the influence of such erroneous teaching is pervasive within contemporary Christianity. While some draw dangerous New Age inferences from Word-of-Faith theology, others simply relegate it in totality to the continuing stream of apostasy – departure from sound doctrine – evident during first century Christianity against which the apostles of Christ counseled vigilance. Christian leaders of our day have warned and written at length against this growing scourge for nearly two decades. Suffice it here to say, in summary, that such teaching is perilous, without a trace of support from either testament, it’s message destructive, and its messengers dangerous, reminiscent of the ravening wolves against which apostles of the early church gravely warned. What is shocking is that well meaning Christians, professing to love the Word and its life changing message, have been duped into believing that this toxic theology and its shamelessly sense-driven, manic materialism comport in even the slightest degree with the body of doctrine “once for all delivered unto the saints.”
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