Warren Throckmorton

Today, amid the storm of controversy over the church’s handling of Jordan Root and Karen Hinkley, Matt Chandler expressed remorse over the church elders’ general approach to church discipline. I wrote about this matter in a prior post.
Video of the sermon is on the church website and Vimeo below.
[vimeo]https://vimeo.com/129371788[/vimeo]
 
 
Chandler spent much of the message talking about handling conflict between believers. He said (at 24 minutes and following) the matter of church discipline is serious because at the final stage of church discipline, when a church releases a member, the church is saying, “We are no longer able to affirm that you are a believer in Christ.”
One of the reasons I don’t like detailed covenant statements for members is that some people disagree over doctrine and if a member doesn’t come into line, the church is put in the position of saying explicitly or by implication, because you don’t agree with us, we can’t affirm you as a believer.
Chandler said that the process of evaluating church discipline began several months ago. As a result, Chandler said the elders decided that they had “failed to fulfill our covenant promises to you as members to lovingly exercise church discipline when necessary” and asked the audience to forgive the elders.
He said there are five specific things which require forgiveness:
Will you forgive us where our counsel turned into control?
Will you forgive us where we failed to recognize the limits and scope of our authority?
Will you forgive us where we allowed our policies and process to blind us to your pain, confusion and fears?
Will you forgive us where we acted transactionally rather than tenderly?
Will you forgive us where we failed to recognize you as the victim and didn’t empathize with your situation?
I’ll bet that was hard for Chandler to do. Now comes the harder work.
If these matters are being taken up with individuals, then I think this is a major step forward. It is hard not to compare to Mars Hill Church’s response to similar concerns, and in that comparison, Chandler’s approach is much better and more to the point.

In a May 27 tweet, Kevin Hagan posted a link to an article announcing his departure from Feed the Children. According to Hagan, who takes over at the American Diabetes Association tomorrow, he has helped restore some of the positive reputation lost by the massive charity over the past several years.

Thank you @feedthechildren for all the joy you've brought to me. It's not a goodbye this week but see you later. http://t.co/qX2AuQFmYx

— Kevin L. Hagan (@KLHAGAN) May 27, 2015

According to a tweet from Hagan, Travis Arnold, current COO of FTC will take over as Interim CEO. Arnold is also the president of FTC’s wholly owned subsidiary FTC Transportation, a for profit company.
FTC has been embroiled in controversy for much of the last six years. After multiple scandals involving FTC founder Larry Jones, he was relieved of his post in 2009. Even after he was fired, scandal over use of funds continued (e.g., here and here).
In his May 29 article, Hagan takes credit for restoring FTC to a more respected place, along with numerous other accomplishments.
The organizations donations, although still substantial, have been on a decline according to the organization’s 2013 990 form. Revenues are down from a high of just over $615 million in FY 2011 to over $396 million in FY 2013.
Especially given the organization’s recent history, it seems questionable to have the same person running both the non-profit FTC and the for profit trucking subsidiary. FTC’s conflict of interest policy is not available to the public according to the federal 990 form for fiscal year ending 2014.

An instrumental co-written with Casey Walter, with percussion help from former Berlin drummer Rod Learned, I think we named it Dance of the Crickets because we had some crickets sounds available.

The crickets get busy toward the end and then they settle in for the night.

Although not your usual ministry tool, in 2005 Believers’ Church (which is synonymous with Gospel for Asia in India) acquired a working rubber plantation called Cheruvally Estate. The 2263 acre estate was purported to be a money making venture to help make Believers’ Church self-sufficient and according to reports in the Indian press cost just over $14.3 million.
Today, the Indian government is poised to take control of three properties once belonging to Harrison Malayalam, India’s largest producer of rubber. One of those properties is the Cheruvally Estate. It is not clear what if any compensation Gospel for Asia will receive. The government claims that Harriason Malayalam never had the right to sell the land in the first place.
The property has been in dispute since it was first acquired.
 
 
 
 

Although not normally of interest to me, I took a look at the hush money charges against former Speaker Dennis Hastert because of the additional wrinkle that he structured his bank withdrawals to avoid federal requirements to report those actions.
Such structuring is illegal whether one is an misguided creation science proponent, as in the case of Kent Hovind, or a mission organization moving over $10,000 out of the country without declaring it at customs, as former and current students and staff at Gospel for Asia have alleged.
I have learned a new term for using multiple people to move money to evade declaration – “smurfing.” Papa smurf arranges for all the little smurfs to carry the load, in the case of GFA envelopes of cash in their backpacks or suitcases, until they arrive at their destination.
Watch for more on this…