Pastor Marvin Sapp is speaking out again following his recent viral moment. He says that the clip of him asking church ushers to close the door, essentially trapping churchgoers inside the building, has led to an influx of violent threats.
While dismissing the incident as a “misunderstanding,” Sapp says he was “a little more assertive than I should have been.”
After asking the ushers to shut the door, Sapp demanded that all church attendees give an offering of $20 and church leadership, $100 a piece, to raise $40,000.
“Ushers close the doors,” he said several times. “There’s 1,000 of you tonight, and it’s 1,000 watching online. This is a small seed.”
“People have called my church and cussed me out. My staff are afraid because I’ve received death threats,” he said. “People have come to our campus. They have come to my church to try to cause problems, issues, challenges.”
He says his children are now in fear for his life.
“I’m their only parent. I’m a widower. They’re afraid for my safety, so now we have to update and increase security,” he explained in the above video.
Marvin Sapp is clearly HUSTLING his congregation for 40k— and using God’s name to do it.
he’s calling for the doors to be locked? that’s not faith, that’s a shakedown and a false prophet.
someone had a bill to pay, and it wasn’t to the church. https://t.co/MtBRENSb0t pic.twitter.com/SqLtOwRrSW
— Boochie is the Name (@stoppfeenin) March 26, 2025
“I never said lock the doors. I said shut the doors,” he told Rickey Smiley. “Shutting doors [means] that people still have the ability to go in and out. They’ve taken issue with my tone, and I can honestly say, looking at the video, maybe I was a little more assertive than I should have been. I can apologize for that.”