{"id":5518,"date":"2026-04-02T12:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/latestnews\/?p=5518"},"modified":"2026-04-02T12:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T16:18:10","slug":"nebraska-prophet-says-god-needs-him-to-have-access-to-a-private-jet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/latestnews\/2026\/04\/02\/nebraska-prophet-says-god-needs-him-to-have-access-to-a-private-jet\/","title":{"rendered":"Nebraska “Prophet” Says God Needs Him to Have Access to a Private Jet"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Left: Lord Of Hosts Church \/ YouTube | Right: Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Sunday, Nebraska preacher and self-proclaimed \u201cprophet<\/a>\u201d\u00a0Hank Kunneman\u00a0told his followers<\/a>\u00a0at Lord of Hosts Church that he needed everyone to contribute to a brand new \u201ctravel fund\u201d so that he can fly to various cities on a private jet.<\/p>\n

Because commercial flight is just too damn difficult for people like him.<\/p>\n

After making his usual requests for tithes, Kunneman launched into a separate request for a special \u201ctravel-the-world fund.\u201d You see, recently, he was flying to Idaho, but his flight was delayed\u00a010 hours<\/em>. The problem, he concluded, wasn\u2019t the weather or the specific airline. It was flying commercial in general.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe difference [between me and the rest of you] is I can\u2019t afford, with my schedule and what I\u2019m doing, to be your pastor here\u2026 to be stuck in an airport somewhere and be gone for three [or] four days. Or not get back for Sunday.\u201d<\/p>\n

So he told his wife he had made an \u201cexecutive decision\u201d: \u201cI\u2019m gonna charter a jet. Because I am so dedicated to God, and I am so dedicated to you, the people, and I am dedicated to the United States of America\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a sacrifice he was willing to make for the sake of the cause.<\/p>\n

Why did he need access to a private jet?<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I gotta be ready at anytime.\u201d<\/p>\n

To that end, he asked people to donate to his fund\u2014or take an envelope home and \u201cpray over it and see if God would speak to you during the week.\u201d And to hammer home his point, he even cited a Bible verse explaining how important it was to have a \u201ctravel plan\u201d and a \u201ctravel vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was\u00a0Mark 3:9<\/a>: \u201cJesus instructed his disciples to have a boat ready so the crowd would not crush him.\u201d It\u2019s from a passage in which Jesus was healing the sick and so many people wanted to come see him, he requested a getaway vehicle. Though the implication from Kunneman is that he needs to get away from the very people he\u2019s trying to minister to\u2026 as if there are\u00a0so many<\/em>\u00a0it\u2019s impossible to meet the demand.<\/p>\n

(Also, to state the obvious, notice that Kunneman is not asking for a simple boat. It\u2019s also bizarre he\u2019s not asking about\u00a0trains<\/a>\u00a0given his lifelong\u00a0obsession<\/a>\u00a0with them.)<\/p>\n

After citing that verse, Kunneman told the crowd, \u201cEven Jesus was concerned about going to certain ports and airports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus. Was. Concerned. About. Airports.<\/em><\/p>\n

Shocking if true. And huge news for anyone who understands chronological time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not the first time Kunneman has asked his congregation\u2014including the one online\u2014for millions of dollars to\u00a0expand his ministry<\/a>\u00a0for the sake of\u00a0convenience<\/em>\u00a0while pretending it\u2019s a matter of\u00a0necessity<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s important to remember, though, is that there\u2019s never any public accountability for any of this. No one outside Kunneman\u2019s inner circle knows how much money is coming in or where it\u2019s going out. It\u2019s entirely possible that Kunneman raises crazy amounts of money to charter a private jet, but not\u00a0quite<\/em>\u00a0enough to use a plane as a personal Uber, so he just gives up on the project after a few months. How would anyone know when he\u2019s raised enough? How much is enough? (Kunneman didn\u2019t say.)<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, after trying to raise a few million dollars to expand his physical presence in Omaha, he raised well over a million dollars, then told the congregation\u00a0he had second thoughts<\/a>\u00a0about acquiring the land.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also not the first pastor to ask his followers to send him enough money for a jet. In 2015, the aptly-named preacher\u00a0Creflo Dollar\u00a0asked people to\u00a0give him $65 million<\/a>\u00a0to buy his own private plane. (It didn\u2019t go over well. The backlash caused him to back down.)<\/p>\n

Not long after that, scamvangelists\u00a0Jesse Duplantis\u00a0andKenneth Copeland\u00a0said on Christian TV that private jets were\u00a0absolutely necessary<\/em>\u00a0for their ministries in part because it was the only way they could have conversations with God without looking weird to outsiders. And because they were too famous to be seen in public. And also because\u00a0what else were they going to do<\/em>? Get in a \u201clong tube with a bunch of demons\u201d?<\/p>\n

Duplantis got even more backlash in 2018 when he asked his supporters to\u00a0buy him a $54 million private jet<\/a>\u2014his\u00a0fourth<\/em>\u00a0one.<\/p>\n

(One powerful evangelical\u00a0defended their requests<\/a>\u00a0by saying commercial flights were dangerous because they \u201cserve alcohol.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In 2020,\u00a0Pastor Marcus Lamb\u00a0was\u00a0called out by\u00a0<\/a>Inside Edition<\/a><\/em>\u00a0for taking out a nearly $4 million Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan from the government during COVID\u2026 then purchasing a private jet shortly after\u2014a jet that was used, apparently, to go on family vacations. (Inside Edition<\/em>\u00a0said that after they inquired about all this, \u201cthe church paid back the entire $3.9 million it received from the government, with interest.\u201d)<\/p>\n

In 2021, Copeland said that private planes were more necessary for his ministry than ever before because commercial planes\u00a0required passengers to be vaccinated<\/a>\u00a0and \u201cto me, that’s the Mark of the Beast.\u201d<\/p>\n

It never occurs to any of these pastors that if you\u2019re so famous that you can\u2019t fly everywhere without people stopping you, you can wear a disguise. Or fly First Class. Or not stand up in the aisle to talk to God like a crazy person when I\u2019m sure God can read your mind just fine even if you\u2019re seated and silent. Or reduce the workload. Or pool your money together with all the other rich pastors and invest in a scheduler who can find the closest Man of God for a particular event.<\/p>\n

But those are logical approaches to an illogical problem. These guys are so arrogant, they\u2019re convinced the only way to spread God\u2019s message is\u00a0through them<\/em>. The reality is Christianity as a brand would be a hell of a lot better off if this kind was money was used to feed the hungry or shelter the unhoused.<\/p>\n

By the way, after Kunneman made his pitch, his wife Brenda came on stage to tell a story of how a man recently looked at Kunneman and told him \u201cYour days of flying commercial are over!\u201d<\/p>\n

That man? Kenneth Copeland.<\/p>\n

Article written by Hemant Mehta and originally appeared on FriendlyAtheist.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Sunday, Nebraska preacher and self-proclaimed \u201cprophet\u201d\u00a0Hank Kunneman\u00a0told his followers\u00a0at Lord of Hosts Church that he needed everyone to contribute to a brand new \u201ctravel fund\u201d so that he can fly to various cities on a private jet. Because commercial flight is just too damn difficult for people like him. After making his usual requests…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":630,"featured_media":5530,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nNebraska "Prophet" Says God Needs Him to Have Access to a Private Jet<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nebraska preacher and self-proclaimed \u201cprophet\u201d\u00a0Hank Kunneman\u00a0 said "even Jesus was concerned about going to certain ports and airports."\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/latestnews\/2026\/04\/02\/nebraska-prophet-says-god-needs-him-to-have-access-to-a-private-jet\/\" \/>\n<meta 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