Mark Driscoll’s Church to Host Church Governance Seminar

Yes, that Mark Driscoll.

In the comments, feel free to suggest other workshops which should follow that one. James MacDonald on transparent, controversy-free church leadership should get you started.

Here’s what you will learn on Feb. 28 in Scottsdale, AZ:

HOSTED BY PASTOR MARK DRISCOLL, THE TRINITY CHURCH

SESSIONS TOPICS INCLUDE

How the Church and pastors’ families both suffer under bad governance
A survey of Church governmental models
The biblical standard of singular headship and plural leadership
Theocratic government: a “kingdom-down” not “pew-up” unity focused model
How to embrace apostolic influence
How to implement a God-centered theocratic Church government

They aren’t hiding it. Megachurches in the Driscoll and Gateway image are little theocracies and kingdoms. They are definitely not “pew-up.” There is a lot of confusion about who the gods are.

The description of need for the workshop is priceless:

In an age of multi-site church planting, bad press for Bible-teaching churches, negative social media, lawsuits, disgruntled former leaders, and board conflicts, being a pastor is perhaps more complicated than ever. And too many times, church health is on the backburner, until a crisis happens.

It is so complicated in this age where everybody is wrong but the pastor. If only there was a right form of church government which could rescue a pastor from these disgruntled people and negative outsiders.

 

Friend of James MacDonald Calls for Close of Cult of Personality

Et tu Mancow?

James MacDonald somewhere might be saying something like that after Mancow Muller’s open letter to him was published this morning in the Chicago Daily Herald. Muller attends Harvest Bible Chapel and is a radio personality in the Chicago area. He says he loves MacDonald but also calls him to change his ways. He ends his letter with this:

For a great many, it’s time for the cult of personality of James MacDonald at Harvest chapter to close and the actual Bible to be opened again.

Muller’s letter is a summary of the public allegations hurled at MacDonald and HBC over the past several years. We learn in it that Muller suggested an attorney for the now dropped defamation suit against a journalist, two bloggers and the bloggers’ wives. In it, Muller claimed that MacDonald asked Muller for a $3-million donation to HBC. According to Muller, MacDonald asked Muller to sell his memorabilia and give the proceeds to the church. In response, Muller asked MacDonald to sell his motorcycle. MacDonald refused.

Muller claims the church has not been honest in messages delivered to the public and that MacDonald has not been truthful about his home.  He also said the Naples sabbatical has been planned as a vacation and is not being described adequately to the public. He says the church is cultlike in trying to keep members from reading about the church from online sources.

Muller doesn’t hold back when describing Harvest elders. He refers to them as a “caldron of yes men” and a “marionette quartet” who have “lost their way.”

Muller’s advice to HBC is drastic:

Pastor James should come home and face his church family and stop this game of charades. The so-called “elders” must all be fired. An outside truly independent group, not picked by the MacDonald clan, must be brought in.

If this is true…

Those interested in HBC should read the entire letter.  I maintain that many people who attend a Harvest church are so far removed that they might not realize any of this is happening. However, if what Muller (and many critics) says is true, donors are enabling a dysfunctional organization. If history (e.g. Mars Hill Church) is a guide, many will quietly do exactly what Muller recommends.

Image: By Esther 5000 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48825134

Gospel for Asia Drops Case Against Liability Insurance Company

In August 2018, I reported that Gospel for Asia sued Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company over unpaid attorney’s fees. GFA asserted that their legal costs should have been fully covered by Philadelphia. The insurance company countered that they paid all fees they were required to pay.  The defendant insurer argued consistently since August that the case should be dismissed.

Earlier this month, the case was dropped by GFA. According to a court filing dated January 2, 2019, GFA stipulated to the following:

Plaintiffs Gospel for Asia, Inc., K.P. Yohannan, Gisela Punnose, Daniel Punnose, David Carroll and Pat Emerick (hereinafter “Plaintiffs”), and Defendant Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance Company (“Defendant”), file this Stipulation of Dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii).

1. Plaintiffs sued Defendant seeking damages under insurance related causes of action.

2. Plaintiffs wish to dismiss their claims against Defendant without prejudice.

Since the case was dismissed without prejudice, GFA could later bring an action. However, for now the suit is over. There is no way to tell if the insurer paid more money.  There is no hint or indication that the insurer budged on that point.

GFA’s class action fraud suit is slated to be tried this year.

Another Reparative Therapist Unrepairs

David Matheson was a well known defender and practitioner of reparative therapy for many years. He founded Journey Into Manhood with Rich Wyler. JIM was inspired by New Warriors Training Weekend and the Manhood Project. The Manhood Project and their weekend getaways came to the public eye after several bad experiences by several men who attended the events. One committed suicide and directly attributed his mood decline to the Mankind Project.

The premise of Matheson and Wyler was that gay men don’t experience themselves as masculine. Due to lack of masculinity, they are attracted to men instead of women. JIM seeks to provide members with masculinity building experiences along with lots of hugging and touching. Ultimately, the foundation for their work is in the psychoanalytically influenced work of Elizabeth Moberly and Joseph Nicolosi. They believed gay people were attracted to others of the same sex due to a reparative drive which propelled gays to seek the love they missed from their same-sex parents. Theoretically, if a gay person could get non-sexual connection from same-sex peers, the deficit would be filled and heterosexual longings would naturally emerge.

In practice, this hasn’t worked out well. Numerous former ex-gays have become ex-ex-gay. For instance, John Smid once ran Love in Action, an ex-gay camp in Memphis. He is now married to a man. Randy Thomas was number two man at Exodus who is now dating a man. Most recently, Matheson has announced that he is living as a gay man.

Matheson’s announcement will surely send shock waves throughout the small reparative therapy community. He has been one of the most articulate defenders of gender affirming counseling and reparative therapy. After about two decades of being at it, he is still gay.

 

Harvest Bible Chapel Won’t Reply to Media Questions During Peacemaking Process

Last week I wrote Harvest Bible Chapel’s spokeswoman Sherri Smith a couple of emails with questions about the firing of former Harvest Bible Chapel-Naples pastor John Secrest. Since I did not get a response, I wrote to ask if HBC planned to respond. In response, Ms. Smith answered this afternoon with the following explanation:

While the peacemaking process is underway, Harvest Bible Chapel does not presently intend to respond to further media inquiries. Our focus remains on seeking the Lord and ministering to our church family.

While I understand the impulse to go quiet, the time to do that is after all action has been taken. HBC told the world James MacDonald was going to take a sabbatical and the leaders planned to engage in peacemaking. Then just a couple of days later, those same leaders fired John Secrest as pastor of the same church James MacDonald was advertised as a speaker.

I asked Ms. Smith if MacDonald was still planning to speak there but didn’t get a response to that question. Julie Roys reported on her blog that the elders of HBC in Elgin, IL confessed to “shortcomings” in their handling of the situation at Naples. According to a source cited by Roys, no mention of Secrest’s firing was made at the Naples’ service.

I don’t see how peacemaking is served by swiftly firing a pastor who expressed dissent as a reflection of care for his congregation. By their own admission, HBC elders and Rev. MacDonald have made numerous mistakes and they are still in place with MacDonald being given a sabbatical. Why didn’t Rev. Secrest get a sabbatical?

Organizations don’t need to comment in order to communicate to the public. HBC is sending messages via their actions and silence about them and they are not about peace. If HBC really wants to make peace, start at the end and work backwards. Start with Rev. Secrest and a public apology and private conference to come to a mutual agreement about the situation there.