news-record.com

When the ex-husband of a nationally known evangelist, also on probation for beating her, announced last year that he’d find his next wife in a reality show, the Christian blogosphere was alive with commentary.

Not much of it was good.

“The Holy Hook Up: Who Will Be The Next Mrs. Weeks?” became a national story, but the programming was eventually scrapped. Bishop Thomas Weeks of Global Destiny Worldwide Vision near Atlanta eventually went with a show discussing relationships with couples and people in the ministry.

Prophetess Juanita Bynum, as the international evangelist, gospel singer and fledging actress is known, divorced Weeks in 2008 after he attacked her in an Atlanta hotel parking lot, media reports show. His financially troubled Duluth church once had about 3,400 members, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, but it’s dwindled to hundreds.

Weeks found his wife-to-be anyway — and she’s from Greensboro.

Prophetess Christina Glenn of Victory of Praise, one of four ministries recently occupying space in a strip of buildings on Rehobeth Church Road, most recently had a show on local cable access that often featured other ministers in her family — and at one time a husband.

Glenn, a Southeast High School graduate who has a degree in psychology from High Point University, comes from a long line of preachers who continue to minster in the area. With model looks, Glenn began preaching in her early teens and celebrated her seventh anniversary at Victory of Praise in 2008.

In response to clergy appreciation month a few years ago, one of her members described hearing Glenn preach during a revival in Toledo, Ohio: “I went to hear her on a Sunday, and she was so powerful in her anointing that I went to hear her Monday, Wednesday and Friday — and would have gone Tuesday and Thursday, but I had to watch my grandchildren.”
When the woman later moved to Greensboro, she visited Glenn’s church — and became a member.

Glenn couldn’t be reached for comment for this article.

She and Weeks, now promoting an online “You Can Begin Again” teaching series, aren’t unaware of the disparaging remarks and stinging blog commentary about the planned union. They acknowledge as much in video snippets in which they both appear on his Web site — during which they address gossip.

The two met, he says, while he was planning a conference and seeking her participation based on her reputation as a dynamic speaker. He said they have both nursed hurts.

“We accepted each other at the place we were,” he said in an interview posted to his blog, bishopweeks.com.
On outercourttalk.com, which features Gospel Christian entertainment news, “Prophetess Joan” has this advice for the hard-preaching Glenn:

“Pastor Christina, I DO NOT USUALLY MAKE COMMENTS ON THE WEB BUT I HAD TO DO THIS ONE FOR YOU. Go on a fast and ask Father God what to do. The anointing on your life is too valuable to play with it. I pray that you will go and talk to Prophetess Bynum before you marry Bishop Weeks. ... BEWARE!!!”

Others, like “Angel Z. Winters,” want people to leave them alone as he works to overcome his past:“Bishop and his fiance’s business is in the Lord’s hands because it’s none of your business.”

Under the “I’m so very excited” link on Glenn’s Web site, christinaglenn.com, are pictures and video of the two hugging and holding hands at his birthday celebration recently at the Four Seasons Grand Hotel in New York City. “Exclusive photos” of the two can also be found on his Web site, where he is described as “a leader of his time who operates with a spirit of excellence.” She is described as an “up and coming new voice to the kingdom of God” with special gifts whose itenerary has her all over the country.

“I am extremely excited about my new beginning with Bishop Thomas Weeks III,” she writes on her Web site. “God has truly blessed me with an awesome man of God.”

Contact Nancy H. McLaughlin at 373-7049 or nancy.mclaughlin@news-record.com