Office of Eternal Customer RelationsRE: Your settlement of a wage claim you say you never owed
Open letter
To the Management of Life Surge,
Our records indicate that Life Surge, which hosts events promising to teach Christians how to handle money for the Kingdom, often by way of real estate deals, has asked a federal court in Florida to approve a settlement of an overtime lawsuit. As MinistryWatch reports, you continue to deny any liability. We have opened a file regardless.
The complaint, filed in January, alleges that you labeled workers as independent contractors rather than employees in order to spend less on labor and keep more profit. One plaintiff, a sales advisor who sold your coaching and mentoring packages on commission alone from 2023 to 2025, argued his job never fit the contractor definition. A second plaintiff joined in February, alleging some of her commissions went unpaid. These remain allegations. You deny them. We are merely filing.
The proposed terms: $5,000 to each plaintiff and $6,000 toward their attorney fees, against a combined $85,000 in overtime the plaintiffs first said they were owed. Your stated position is that you owe them nothing, and that you are paying anyway to be spared the cost, effort and suspense of further litigation. We have reviewed this arrangement with real admiration. Paying a fee so a problem goes away, while insisting there was never a problem, is a product our industry knows well. Catholic Answers confirms that Pope Pius V cancelled fee-based indulgences in 1567. It appears the market has reopened under new management.
In fairness, the plaintiffs agreed the payments compensate them adequately, pointing to your defense that commissioned outside salespeople are exempt from overtime rules. We note the elegance: a gospel of wealth, sold by people who, under your reading of the law, aren’t owed overtime for selling it. For a company in the stewardship business, we also note this line from the reference manual: For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?… (Luke 14:28–30).
Our records show other paperwork on your account. In September, two of your best-known speakers suspended their involvement after a Mother Jones investigation said your events leaned on attendees to borrow tens of thousands of dollars for faith-based investment courses. The same manual has a short verse on owing: Owe no man any thing… (Romans 13:8). You appear to have applied it to yourselves only. We cannot find it in the curriculum. Perhaps it is sold separately, as an upgrade.
Separately, the Justice Department sued your founder, Joe Johnson, in August 2025, alleging he abused a charitable-deduction provision through other entities of his; Life Surge was not named. On August 31, 2026, a court permanently barred him from the bargain-sale transactions at issue. We mention it only for the completeness of the file.
A hearing on the settlement is set for November 17. If the court approves it, the case will be dismissed with prejudice and can never be brought again. We envy the finality. Down here, no matter is ever closed, and nobody is exempt from the outside sales exemption.
Please allow 6–8 eternities for your Kingdom returns to mature.
Yours in eternal accounts payable,
Agent SixSixSix
Senior Damnation Specialist
cc: Accounts Receivable, Ninth Circle; Indulgences Desk (Reopened)
Enclosures: 🧾 Receipts (below)
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