Not sure anyone is interested in this anymore 🙂 , but you can find the September Church Financial Statement here. They certainly aren’t pulling in the giving they were, but seem, after the first three months, to have brought their expenses to a level comparable with the giving. They are honest enough to admit they will spend $1.8m more than expenses this year. I think they are being a little optimistic to expect $3m in December as that is only $1m less than last year, but who knows.

It would appear that the steps they have taken and are taking, seems to have enabled the church to stabilize their finance in a manner that gives them a reasonable chance of continuing.

Not sure anyone is interested in this anymore 🙂 , but you can find the September Church Financial Statement here. They certainly aren’t pulling in the giving they were, but seem, after the first three months, to have brought their expenses to a level comparable with the giving. They are honest enough to admit they will spend $1.8m more than expenses this year. I think they are being a little optimistic to expect $3m in December as that is only $1m less than last year, but who knows.

It would appear that the steps they have taken and are taking, seems to have enabled the church to stabilize their finance in a manner that gives them a reasonable chance of continuing.

Sorry, not visited this thread for a little while. I have no access to their accounting information, and nothing seems to have been published so far this year. They did manage to save themselves $0.5m a year by this action and seem to be going in the right direction regarding positive actions:ECFA and financial investigation update.

They have also formed a finance committee recently, which does not include anyone external to the church.

There does not seem to be any notes of panic in their reports (that could, of course, be a front) and they seem to have survive the $$3.2m note repayment, unless it is still due?

They are expecting a report on their financial management in the next two or three months, so it will be interesting to see the outcome: Finance review in last paragraph.

If anyone has any information on the finance at the half year it would be interesting to see it. But for now, I will stand by view that I am not sure the information shows red flags, maybe a little yellow, but not red yet.

I have Sadly been around Harvest for many years. As a believer gifted with discernment, I tried to understand why he was so popular with a huge following. He was a gifted speaker, charismatic, entertaining , spoke with conviction, had leadership qualities, was business savvy and had tons of biblical knowledge. But I realized through many sermons he was a very self centered man for someone in his position. Perhaps we have witnessed the most grevious sin of all which is to blaspheme the Holy Spirit and have a hard heart. I really have doubts as to wether he is saved at all. So many of us wanted to believe he made mistakes but was changing areas he needed to grow. It is sad to realize how much damage he has caused and those in leadership left still bring upon those people now who want to believe they can be different. I pray for all involved daily as this is a horrible situation. James is such a coward . Where is he? He has not the decency to “Act like a man” at all and speak to his church once. He doesn’t care about anyone but himself and the Almighty dollar. So sad on many levels!

They are organized crime if they are misappropriating resources. Let’s count how many homeless people Jesus fed and compare it to the number of churches He planted, then consider how far the churches’ allocation of resources deviates from His example.

Are you His body or the body of Church, Incorporated?

Remember why God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah?

Ezekiel 16:49:

Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.

The reason church, incorporated always falls apart is because it’s off mission and its authoritarian centralized $tructure attracts scammers.

The number of homeless in my city is equal to the number of churches in it, and I don’t find it a coincidence.

When Jesus says to those on His left, “you never fed me”, will a good excuse be that they gave it all to James MacDonald?

Coercing people to give with threats of eternal damnation is less voluntary than coercing them with threats of momentary imprisonment. The other difference between the two cases of course is that the government wants you to give the government the money, whereas God wants you to give the homeless the money.

The former is being obeyed, the latter disobeyed.

The only thing left in that church after that were puppets:

‘We warn the people of Harvest Bible Chapel to separate themselves from these false messengers. Don’t stand in the middle, don’t seek to mediate. Please avoid these former Harvest elders at all cost, lest you incur great detriment to your own soul.’

Would you stick around after hearing something like that?

https://archive.org/details/JamesMacDonaldHarvastBibleChapel

I hope the four elders to took part in the presentation are thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

For context, this is the letter the video was responding to:

https://world.wng.org/sites/default/files/assets/Letter_to_HBC_Elders_2013.pdf

That was September of 2013. MacDonald’s bullying and threats kept him in power for another 5 1/2 years…
WTH is wrong with the sheeple in the pews??? How can you tolerate this???

Is the Cult of Personality that strong with these independent evangelical ministers???
Geez. Unbelievable.

My apologies — I sometimes get a little triggered from debating too many libertarian types online.