While most evangelists on the tube these days supplement their sermons with everything from celebrity testimonies to mammoth choirs, Los Angeles pastor Frederick K. C. Price simply talks.
His hour-long Ever Increasing Faith show, now in its seventeenth year, is extracted from his teaching session at the Crenshaw Christian Center FaithDome, where around 5,500 primarily African-American congregants show up Sunday mornings.
His format appears to work, even though media professionals warned him viewers needed more variety to stay tuned. While many televangelists have seen their audiences dwindle or stagnate in recent years, Price and fellow faith-message teacher Kenneth Copeland are the only televangelists to boost their ratings since the scandals of the late 1980s, according to televangelist watcher Steve Winzenburg. Nielsen Media Research shows that Price’s program is available in only 32 percent of American homes, yet he regularly ranks as the fifth most-watched “devotional” show.
Price, the only major minority minister on TV, calls himself a teacher providing information, rather than a preacher supplying inspiration. “When you get the right information, inspiration will automatically follow,” Price told CT.
Price, 63, says the Lord specifically instructed him to start the television ministry, and it never has been in debt. “I have tried to be obedient, and all our needs have been met,” Price says.
However, Gretchen Passantino, California-based author and analyst of aberrant religious groups, cautions viewers to examine the doctrinal and spiritual fruits of TV’s prosperity-gospel ministers. “Frequently, faith teachers will point to their material successes as a validation of their gospel, but it does not validate their ministries,” says Passantino. “It doesn’t take a whole lot to stay on TV except money.”
At the beginning on the show, Price looks into a camera, urging viewers to support the ministry financially. Then, rather than standing on the gargantuan circular platform in the middle of the sanctuary, the animated Price delivers a sermon to the assembled, walking the aisles with his Bible.
In staccato delivery, he cheekily engages his impeccably dressed assembly. “What’s your problem?” “Did you get that?” “I can’t hear you.”
As the sermon winds down, Price returns to looking into a camera. But his voice is drowned out by the shouts and applause from the congregation.
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