Creflo Dollar

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Creflo Dollar
Born	Creflo Dollar January 28, 1962 (1962-01-28) (age 46) United States
Residence	College Park
Occupation	Evangelist
Religious beliefs	Pentecostal
Spouse	Taffi Dollar
Website www.worldchangers.org

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Creflo Augustus Dollar, Jr. (born January 28, 1962 in College Park, Georgia) is a televangelist, Word of Faith teacher, pastor, and the founder of the non-denominational Christian World Changers Ministries based in College Park, Georgia. It is the parent organization for World Changers Church International, Creflo Dollar Ministerial Association (formerly called International Covenant Ministries), Creflo Dollar Ministries, and Arrow Records.^{[citation needed]} Each of these enterprises is overseen by Dollar and his wife, Taffi Dollar.

1 Biography
2 Controversy
3 Senate investigation
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Biography

Dollar received a BS degree in education in 1984 from West Georgia College in Carrollton, GA.^{[citation needed]} ^[1] He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Oral Roberts University in 1998.^[2] Dollar started his ministry in 1986 with eight people^[1] and in 2007 was said to have a congregation of 30,000 with $69 million in revenue for 2006.^[3]

Dollar's Changing Your World television program is seen both in the United States and internationally.^[4] In 2004, a satellite church was started in New York which has a membership of over 7,000.^[5] Dollar is the publisher of CHANGE magazine, a quarterly international publication with nearly 100,000 subscribers and The Max, a bimonthly resource newsletter for ministers and ministry leaders.^[1]

A popular conference speaker and best-selling author^[5], Dollar is known for espousing his own method of approaching the Bible for spiritual and financial fulfillment.^[6].^[1] ^[7] Dr. Creflo A. Dollar is the founder and senior pastor of World Changers Church International (WCCI) in College Park, Georgia which serves nearly 30,000 members, and World Changers Church-New York which hosts over 6,000 worshippers each week. It is claimed his tenure in ministry exceeds 25 years.

Dollar claims to have received the vision for World Changers Ministries Christian Center in 1986.^{[citation needed]} He reputedly held the church's first worship service in the cafeteria of Kathleen Mitchell Elementary School in College Park, Georgia, with only eight people in attendance. Over the years the ministry is said to have grown rapidly and was renamed World Changers Church International. The congregation moved from the cafeteria to a modest-sized chapel, adding a weekly radio broadcast and four services each Sunday. On December 24, 1995, WCCI moved into its present location, the 8,500-seat sanctuary known as the World Dome. At a cost of nearly $18 million, it is claimed the World Dome was built without any bank financing.

Dollar and his wife, Taffi, have five children and live in Atlanta.

[edit] Controversy

Dollar is known for his controversial teachings of Prosperity theology. ^[8]

Dollar's message has been denounced by some Baptist Christians, partly for his message that religious faithfulness will be rewarded by material wealth, and partly for his assertion that "Jesus didn't come as God, he came as a man, and he did not come perfect...he grew into his perfection" with his December 2002 message "Jesus' Growth into Sonship." Dollar's enumeration of "Believer's Rights" also states that all true believers of God have the same miraculous abilities as Jesus himself, including the power to overcome infertility and to raise the dead.

He was a member of the Oral Roberts University Board of Regents and the Board was named in the October 2007 lawsuit against the university for financial and political malfeasance.

[edit] Senate investigation

On 6 November 2007, United States Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa announced an investigation of Dollar's ministry by the United States Senate Committee on Finance. Grassley asked for the ministry to divulge financial information (Grassley's letter) to the committee to determine whether Dollar made any personal profit from financial donations and requested that Dollar's ministry make the information available by December 6, 2007. The investigation also scrutinized five other televangelists: Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Eddie Long, Joyce Meyer, and Paula White.
On November 27, 2007, Dollar's attorney responded in a letter addressed jointly to Senator Grassley and Senator Max Baucus: "While we applaud Senator Grassley's dedication to tax law oversight, and we can assure you that the Church is willing to comply with a proper request for information, we believe that the IRS, through the framework of [Internal Revenue Code] section 7611, is the appropriate governmental body to review these sensitive matters. Therefore, we respectfully request that Senator Grassley, or the full Senate Finance Committee, refer any information regarding federal tax compliance concerns to the IRS for the agency to evaluate."