Louisiana Pastor Defends asking Congregants to Donate Stimulus Checks

In the middle of the Novel Coronavirus Pandemic, Tony Spell, Pastor of the Tabernacle Church, defied restrictions on holding gatherings with more than 10 persons. He was hit by a summons banning the gatherings before Easter.’

He is pro-life but he says peoples hope is in the house of God and he wants to pray with people and let them know that there is a balm in Gilead. He still encourages his members to gather at his church even though thousands of persons are dying in America when they get infected by Covid-19 and social distancing is one of the measures that is being used at this time to reduce the spread of the disease.

Since he spoke about his decision to obey God more than man, and said God ordered his people to assemble. There are some of his members who have contracted the virus, there is even one church member who died.

However, he says there is no way to prove that the people contracted the virus in his church. He is not reconsidering his decision to congregate, and says it is possible that the members got it elsewhere. He totally disregards the fact that the coronavirus is being spread from person to person whenever they are together.

He still says he will be sending buses for his poor members who he will gather, so he can give them food to eat.

Mr. Spell is asking his members to hand over their $1200.00 Stimulus checks to the church. He says the church is more essential now that people need prayer.

He also revealed that it is a challenge and he is not forcing the people to give, the pastors, evangelists and missionaries have not been getting any income because they haven’t had an offering in a month, because of the partial lock-down.

Even though Pastors can apply for the pay-check protection program, Spell says he doesn’t want the church to be controlled by the Government, so he won’t take SBA loans, even though he is tax exempted.

He speaks about everything else being open except the church, he says his members cannot afford internet and they can’t watch him online this causes him to take them from their homes and help them to congregate.

April 19, 2020 the pastor opened up a plan to ask people to start giving through his website. It is a challenge that was launched so that he can give the leaders of the church a large cash offering.