Robert Tilton

==Current ministry==
When Tilton returned to television in 1997, he established his ministry's headquarters in Tulsa, where his lawyer J.&nbsp;C. Joyce's offices were located, and set up a [[post office box]] as its mailing address. A woman employed by Mail Services, Inc., a Tulsa-area clearinghouse that handled mail sent to Tilton's ministry, said that when she worked for Mail Services, Inc. in 2001, prayer requests were still routinely thrown away after donations and pledges were removed.<ref name="tulsaworld">[http://www.trinityfi.org/press/tulsaworld02.html "Robert Tilton: From Downfall to Windfall"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050219093050/http://www.trinityfi.org/press/tulsaworld02.html|date=February 19, 2005}}, Ziva Branstetter, ''Tulsa World'', first published May 4, 2003; quoted by The Trinity Foundation, retrieved June 17, 2006.</ref> However, Tilton dropped the Tulsa address in late 2007 and used a Miami post office box to receive responses to his fundraising mailings. In January 2014, he was holding services at the [[Courtyard Marriott]] in [[Culver City, California|Culver City]], [[California]], while having donations again sent to a post office box in Tulsa.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/investigates/robert-tilton-trades-mega-tv-ministry-for-hotel-in-california/287-342529481|title=Robert Tilton trades mega TV ministry for hotel in California|website=WFAA|access-date=May 1, 2019}}</ref>

In 1998, ''[[The Washington Post]]'' reported that Tilton's following disappeared after the investigations but he had "joined dozens of other preachers to become fixtures on BET".<ref name="Whitepreachers">{{cite news | url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-669259.html?refid=gg_x_02 | archive-url=https://archive.today/20130103054813/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-669259.html?refid=gg_x_02 | url-status=dead | archive-date=January 3, 2013 | title=White Preachers Born Again on Black Network; TV Evangelists Seek to Resurrect Ministries  | newspaper=The Washington Post |date=September 3, 1998 | access-date =May 17, 2007}}</ref> Consequently, Tilton, along with Stewart and [[Peter Popoff]], received "criticism from those who say that preachers with a long trail of disillusioned followers have no place on a network that holds itself out as a model of entrepreneurship for the black community."<ref name="Whitepreachers"/>

Steve Lumbley, who worked for Tilton's ministry in 1991 when the original ''Primetime Live'' investigation took place, told a reporter for the ''Dallas Observer'' in 2006 that reports of prayer request disposal that were the centerpiece of the ABC exposé were highly exaggerated. In an article for the ''Observer'' blog "Unfair Park", Lumbley asserted that "[t]he mailings all had some kind of gimmick. They weren't godly at all. But the primary allegation that came out of that—that prayer requests were thrown away—was categorically untrue, and I can guarantee you that was not a normal practice." However, Lumbley, who now runs a Christian watchdog website called ApostasyWatch.com, does credit ABC and the Trinity Foundation for exposing Tilton's unethical fundraising tactics, noting that, "God was using Ole and ABC to chastise Tilton and bring him down."<ref name="dallas_observer_unfair_park">"[http://www.dallasobserver.com/blogs/?p=1127 The Robert Tilton Files]", Glenna Whitley, ''[http://www.dallasobserver.com/ Dallas Observer "Unfair Park"]'' online blog, dated August 6, 2006; retrieved October 4, 2006.</ref>

Trinity still monitors Tilton's television ministry as part of its ongoing televangelist watchdog efforts. In a 2003 interview published in the ''[[Tulsa World]]'', Anthony estimated that with none of the Word of Faith Family Church [[overhead (business)|overhead]] and with television production costs at a fraction of the original ''Success-N-Life'' program, Tilton's current organization was likely grossing more than $24 million per year tax-free.<ref name="tulsaworld" />