When I was a young man, God sent me to New Jersey. I was in Job Corp at Camp Kilmer in Edison. Some of us attended The Deliverance Evangelistic Center. The minister was Arturo Skinner. Called of God as an apostle; he was an apostle in all ways.
Apostle Skinner's church was the only one that I knew that sent a bus to pick up whoever wanted to go. Church members would take seekers into their homes to feed them and to teach them. When he went to speak somewhere, his churches went to support him. We rode the buses free!
Members were taken care of BEFORE the point of destitution! When a hardship came my way Pastor Skinner was there to help. I was married, living in a one-bedroom apartment. We were having a baby so we had to move. Apostle Skinner told me to total up all my bills for a month and he would pay them. He said that is what the church is for [not to let its members hit bottom before helping them]!
I loved to hear him proclaim that all who served God had to be blessed. God's children were to be blessed spiritually and financially. BUT, He did not teach greed. If your eyes got bigger than your wallet he'd advise you to take things back! There was a certain minister that was told to take his car back. This same minister was removed from the church that he was pasturing in Philadelphia because he did not want to repent.
Apostle Skinner had only one standard concerning goof-ups [large or small]. Repent and get it right! I was on the receiving end of one of his chastisements ... with VERY LOUD, but loving rebuke! For any of you that have experienced that chastening, you know what I mean. You'd walk out that door and see Brother Brown and anyone else that heard you get ‘jumped’ on. It was a blessing. He wasn’t a coward. [More]