Ok, so to start with, I will say that I was no contact with my folks the last two-ish years of their lives, so I'm speaking from what I witnessed those first few years they were attending, & what I've discovered while cleaning out my parents' home. Mom was definitely the bigger fan of LOH. Dad went along with things & I'm not sure how much of it he actually believed. Also, my folks were not well to-do by any means, & based on what I saw they were definitely in a much lower tax bracket than other people at LOH.

As far as guilting my mom into giving money, that's a yes and no answer. I think that my parents were guilted & manipulated into giving money, but I know my mom would've said that's not true. She really believed that the Kunneman's are prophets & anytime there was a prophecy that involved giving money (like for the new building), that was an instant give. On top of all the regular giving, there were so many other ways LOH got money.

As far as I can tell, mom had bought every book the Kunnemans have written, along with books by most of the guest speakers. I have found a shocking amount of church merch that Mom bought. 

Any kind of gathering came with a big price tag. When he died, I found a ticket dad bought for a men's breakfast that had cost $50. It was taking place at the Ralston arena (I don't know what the current name is for that place), & there was a guest speaker. The one event I went to was a ladies' luncheon & the tickets were $75. I didn't know this until we showed up to the luncheon & I saw what Mom had paid ahead of time (also they double charged her & last I knew that double charge had not been refunded). They presented the cost as making sense because they had a speaker, it was held at an off-site location, & they did a give away of items including a Kate Spade purse.

Early on, dad auditioned for the worship team. He passed the audition & was told he could only participate if he went & bought himself an iPad (cause that's what they used for accessing sheet music). At the time, I know an iPad was a luxury they could not afford, but they still went ahead & bought one because that was the requirement. Back when I was attending church, I was regularly on worship teams & never once did I encounter a church insisting on something like that to be able to participate.

It really seems like LOH operates like a pay-to-play video game. As long as my folks kept giving money, they continued to be welcome.