My Experience with Everyday Church and the Dominionist Movement
By: Roger Ecoff 2/7/2012

During the course of my Christian walk, I have encountered many different religious organizations and churches. Almost all of them (with some rare exceptions) have been apostate to some degree or another. What I mean by apostate is that the group or gathering has departed from the true and pure doctrine of the Word of God, and has replaced the Truth with man-made traditions or self-centered (self-pleasing) interpretations of scripture.

Recently, I have once again witnessed an apostate gathering. This time, however, my heart was deeply grieved and burdened more so than I have ever felt, which has inspired me to share my thoughts and feelings about the entire matter. This article will be to put my thoughts into words about what I have witnessed being practiced and taught at a local church called Everyday Church in Oceano California, and how this deception is not limited merely to my city, but it is in face quite pervasive throughout much of America and the world.

Last night, my friend Luke whom I consider a Born-Again brother in the Lord, invited me to a bible-study with the new Church that he just recently started to attend. A few days earlier, he and I caught up for the first time in years over coffee, and we had a very blessed time of fellowship. I got to share a lot of truth with him I believed the Lord wanted me to say, and he got to share some of his own personal experiences. For a very short time years ago, he and I were briefly involved with a house church in our city that was somewhat cult-like. He got to share with me how the leader of this cult-like group became upset with him and blamed him for one of the members leaving the group, which was a totally false accusation. We got to encourage one another in the Lord and pray over one another.

It is my experience that when some Christians become dissatisfied with the religious system, they sometimes gravitate towards a very charismatic (and apostate) version of Christianity. Unfortunately to my hearts great sorrow, this was the case for Luke. Having been hurt by this cult-like home church that was very controlling and legalistic, Luke discovered a church that is extremely liberal and accepting of all. 

The easiest way to summarize their beliefs in one phrase would be to say that this church is a “Dominionist/Joel’s Army type” charismatic church. This church is partnered with Bethel Church in Redding California, led by the false prophet Bill Johnson, and also partners with IHOP led by the false prophet Mike Bickle.

After having such a great conversation with an old friend, I desired in my heart to share more of my knowledge of the truth with him and hopefully bring some light to his life and led him away from this very destructive denomination of Christianity. I agreed to car-pool with him (one of the only times that day I felt I would have a one on one conversation) to the bible study, and I prayed unto the Lord for the courage and power of the Spirit to say and do all the things He would have me do in planting seeds in my brother’s life.

So a few days later, he and I were off to this new bible study, which I knew from the start was going to be a blasphemous gathering of people who believed in a false gospel. With that said, I do believe the Lord wanted me to bring Light into a dark gathering, and I believe it was the will of the Lord that I should go. I very rarely (almost never) attend apostate gatherings.

During our conversation, I was grieved to discover just how deep into the false teachings Luke had gone. He explained to me how online teachings from Bethel Church changed his life, and how he agreed with the whole signs and wonders movement, namely the gold-dust and slain in the spirit stuff. I tried to tell him the truth of the bible, the absolute importance of learning the scriptures so that we can rightly discern between truth and error, and also the importance of separating from those who preach another gospel. Unfortunately, my time with Luke that night did not go as well as it did a few days earlier. Luke began to see in me that I was against what he embraced in his heart, and Luke felt in himself that it was his loving duty to free me from my judgmental and religious spirit. I could tell a hardness of heart was developing in him towards me.

I knew that the gathering was going to be burdensome upon me, but I didn’t know just how blasphemous unto the Lord it was going to be. From beginning to end I was so grieved in my heart to witness such young “Christians” so captured by a very strong delusion. There were about forty people total at the bible study (the church has 100 members so it was almost half of the entire church), and for the exception of a handful of believers who had very recently been saved, all the attendees were deeply rooted in false doctrine as I could tell.

After some time, the pastor of the church, Mark, instructed for everyone to gather around as we were going to have “Good News” time where people would say what the Lord did through them that week. In Everyday Church (which is very much a cult-like church) they have an “internship” program. During a one year internship, a young person would dedicate their time and life to serving the Church and pastor Mark. They would regularly meet with the pastor and other interns to be taught how to walk in the spirit and in the power of miracles. I am not sure what would become of them after the internship ended, but basically this was a time for personal indoctrination. The Good News sharing time began with one such intern of the church, and I would like to reiterate and then examine exactly what she shared.

The girl began with a story that happened to her that previous weekend, and I am reciting it from memory. She began, “I have been learning to walk in obedience to God, even when I don’t know why God wants me to do something. God will usually show me later why He tells me to do something like He did this weekend. A few days ago, the Lord told me to go on a 16 mile walk. I obeyed the Lord and started walking. At the end of my walk, I came to a park and I saw a homeless man sitting at a table. The Holy Spirit said to me ‘go up to that man and ask him what he is expecting for the year 2012, and be ready for him to respond with the answer DEATH. So, I went up to the homeless man and asked him what he was expecting for 2012, and to my amazement he told me he was expecting to die. The Lord is giving me the anointing to see into people’s lives, and to see beyond the masks that they are wearing. I then got to share with the man that Jesus loves him and doesn’t want him to die. I then started to pray and to speak life over him. I gave him a granola bar I had and I was very blessed that the Lord used me in my prophetic gifting’s as I prophesied over him Life.

I then continued to walk and came to a Mexican fast-food restaurant. I saw another homeless man, and the Lord prophetically showed me into his life that he was very hungry. As I sat down to eat, the Holy Spirit told me that this new homeless man would sit down at my table with me. As he was walking past me, I thought ‘well I guess he isn’t going to come over here’. Just went I had that thought the man made a 180 degree turn and sat down at my table. I was again amazed that the Lord was showing me all of this. The Lord then told me to ask him what he expected in 2012, and again to expect him to say DEATH. It all happened again and I got to prophecy and pray Life over this man and give him four dollars I had and another granola bar. After that, a woman walked up to me and handed me a wad of money and told me that God told her to bless me with this and that she didn’t know why. She then quickly walked away, and I opened the wad of cash to discover that she gave me exactly four dollars, the Lord had returned it to me.”

After hearing all of this, I do not doubt that much of what she said does seem supernatural, but my question is this, which gospel and which Jesus is being portrayed through this supernatural experience? I may be very wrong from a lack of details, but what she explained that she told each individual was not the Gospel of Jesus Christ, but in fact another gospel. Let me try to explain what the other Gospel is.

Within this group of young believers (the average age literally is around 23 or so), they believe the best way to win souls for the kingdom is to “love on people”. Their gospel message is something like this. “We know that you have had a rough life or a rebellious life, but the Lord wants you to know that He is completely in Love with you, and that He wants to shower you in His love and miraculously turn your life around. We prophetically declare over you that you are no longer spiritually dead but God wants to give you life if you believe He loves you and in our words that He is speaking through us. Let us pray for you and God is going to start to turn your life around.”

As you can see, there is no mention at all about the cross, about the death of Jesus, and most notably, there is absolutely no mention at all of sin and being under the wrath of an angry and Holy God. Many others shared very similar testimonies that this girl shared.

One man began to explain how he went around talking to people on a train about the love of Jesus, and how he shared with people the truth that Jesus wants to “fix all of your problems” and the best way to share Jesus is to simply “love on people”. Another man shared how he and some other members of the church went around and healed the sick, but again there was no mention at all of the preaching of the gospel. In fact, I honestly don’t remember the word “GOSPEL” ever even being uttered at all, and certainly not the phrase “God’s judgement”. There was however a lot of talk about the anointing of God. It was the most used and favored phrase by everyone there. They would continually praise one another in recognizing what a great anointing they had upon their life. Surprisingly, they did not limit the “anointing” to Christians, but even talking about how they discerned unsaved people had such a powerful anointing upon them.

“So what?” one may ask. Isn’t it good to feed the homeless? Isn’t it good to pray for the lost and sick? Yes, of course all of that is good, but my question is this. If the Holy Spirit is giving you such prophetic insight into people’s lives, and giving you power to heal their sicknesses and prophesy positive things over them (ALL prophecy is always a positive word with these people I might add), then might not the Holy Spirit want you to share the true gospel with these people for the salvation of their soul? Isn’t their eternal future and right standing with God more important than healing their broken foot or telling them that Jesus is IN LOVE with them? Again, it’s not wrong in and of itself to heal or tell someone Jesus loves them, but then to turn around and give them a false hope about their eternal destiny is not the will of Christ.

Another thing I noticed with this church is that there is absolutely NO fear of the Lord. These people have a “Jesus is my best-buddy” view and the idea that God could ever be displeased towards them is such a foreign concept. The concept of sin is also abandoned, as they give extremely little recognition of what sin is and what the consequences for sinning is. Another thing I noticed, and this was actually preached by Bill Johnson in one of his sermons, is that all pain and suffering in this life is 100% of the devil. Everything from a headache to a great tragedy is the work of Satan warring against your life. In this theology, the idea of taking up your cross and dying to yourself is completely lost. Johnson said that any gospel that allows for any type of sickness or suffering is a false gospel, and this Everyday crowd views Mr. Johnson to be one of the greatest modern day Apostles. Truly the bible is correct when it says “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge”.

All of this went on for about two and a half hours, followed by people attempting to get “drunk in the Spirit” and “soaking in the Lord”. I also might add that everyone there believes they are a prophet (in the sense of an Old Testament Elijah style prophet), and they are quick to give each other words. You will often hear a conversation begin by someone saying, “Jesus just now told me this about you” or “God told me to tell you”.

I can go on and on about what I witnessed just in that three hour period. One thing I don’t want to fail to mention is how the pastor rarely ever quoted scripture when he started to preach, and when he did he completely blew it, although no one cared to examine for themselves. For example, the pastor was trying to say how boredom is a sign that you are backslidden in your walk with God, and he said and I quote, “Did you guys know that Proverbs 14:14 in the New Living Translation says the backslider in heart gets bored with himself, but the righteous finds his joy in God?” Well, when I got home, I was actually surprised that he completely made that up, for that’s not what the New Living Translation says at all, much less a more literal translation. He also twisted some verse about Everyday church members being God’s wall of fire or something like that but I forget what verse he quoted.

So in conclusion I write all of this because it has been very heavy on my heart since last night. When I got home, I read Revelation 2:12-29. It is clear that Everyday Church, and dominionist/NAR churches like it embody the Modern day churches of Pergamum and Thyatira. They hold to the doctrine of the Nicolaitans in many ways, but one way I noticed is the sense of Spiritual Pride and Elitism among the members. I do not doubt at all that they believe they are some sort of Super-Christians, far above and superior to the average church goer.

All of this grieved me so much because it was personal to me in that several people whom I love are now wrapped up in this deception and cult, all because they would not love the truth but took pleasure in unrighteousness. I feel lighter after getting this off my chest, and I do want to say again I believe it was God’s will I go because I got to plant a lot of seeds in about three people there and I pray for their souls that God uses what I spoke to them to change their lives and deliver them from that group. It is important to hold fast to the true gospel and anyone who brings a false gospel is accursed. Lord Jesus come quickly. Amen.