Paul and Emily Massey’s story began in 2008 at the church Paul was raised in since he was born, which happened to be a Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel/Hyper-Charismatic church, yet, their faith journey has taken many twists and turns since they were married in 2009.
For several years of their marriage, Paul and Emily were deeply involved in many areas of ministry leadership at their various churches such as worship ministry, prayer ministry, drama ministry, and young adult/student ministry. At one point in time, they both were employed at Joyce Meyer Ministries before Emily became a stay-at-home mom*.
But in 2015, everything they thought they believed in got completely turned upside down after watching the famous sermon, “Shocking Youth Message” by Paul Washer on YouTube. They began to question everything about their faith, and much like the Bereans, their passion for searching the scriptures for truth, led them to cling to solely the Bible (context is King!) and forsake the Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel theology that Paul was raised to believe. He spent the first 25+ years of his life involved in that dangerous movement. It was completely the grace of God that his eyes were opened to truth and that their marriage (and family) was saved from utter deception of this false gospel message.
In early 2019, they watched the film The American Gospel: In Christ Alone and the conviction to once and for all separate themselves from the Word of Faith/Prosperity Gospel movement was so strong that Paul knew he needed to leave his job at Joyce Meyer Ministries. After presenting a document explaining the error in Joyce’s teachings to the executives at JMM, he put in his official resignation. All ties were finally cut, and they no longer had any association with the movement that is full of distorted and dangerous doctrines.
They were able to share their testimony with Doreen Virtue in November 2019:
Now Paul and Emily have such a strong passion to boldly and graciously expose the error and false teachings found in those movements, so that many more eyes would be opened to the truth of the pure gospel. They are on a rescue mission to snatch as many as they can from the flames (Jude 1:23), especially from this extremely deceptive system.
All for God’s glory, all for Jesus’ Holy name.
*Emily is also a writer for various Christian websites and publications. You can find more of her work at ibelieve.com and crosswalk.com, where she has been a regular contributing writer since 2015. She also ministers to Christian women through her writing on her blog at www.emilyrosemassey.com. You can read more of Emily’s testimony and journey of faith in God here.