On December 14, Bob Smietana at Christianity Today posted a must read article on what appears to be a mind control splinter of Christianity called The Gathering.
I read the CT article about The Gathering just after I posted yesterday about Mark Driscoll’s beliefs in spiritual parenting being a part of apostolic gifting. The notion of one’s minister being one’s parent is, in the modern context, fertile ground for authoritarian teaching making the minister into a tyrant. Smietana’s article provides a troubling look at one expression of this teaching from one Wayne Jolley.
In addition to the spiritual parenting teaching, Jolley is painted as a controlling figure (e.g., church boards are demonic) who preaches a lot about spiritual warfare (e.g., the Jezebel spirit) and prosperity. You must go read the CT article to get the full effect.
Worship Leaders, Reconsider Your Set Lists
One of the reasons The Gathering is of interest to the broader church is the fact that one of the authors of “How Great is Our God” is a member of The Gathering. Ed Cash, Nashville producer whiz, is co-author with Chris Tomlin of the massively popular worship song. Tomlin wrote most of it and Cash added the bridge. It appears that some of the royalties from this song have helped fuel the emergence of The Gathering.
According to the CT article, Cash has actually added Jolley as a co-writer to some of the worship songs co-written and performed by Tomlin (e.g., “The Table” and “The Roar”). Tomlin issued a statement distancing himself from Jolley saying he has never worked with him. However, I was troubled that Tomlin did not see more of a problem with adding Jolley as a songwriter when in fact, has has never worked with Jolley on the songs. The arrangement is obviously a deception for Wayne Jolley’s financial gain. Jolley gets royalties from Tomlin’s success.
All of a sudden, I am a lot less interested in playing Tomlin’s songs. In fact, I hope all over the country, there are worship leaders rethinking their set lists for Sunday.
The Website Cleansing Is Underway
It is so predictable. After an expose, an organization takes down the website for “updating.” That is now true for The Gathering’s and Wayne Jolley Ministries‘ websites. They were up on December 14 (see the Google cache). Just yesterday, a You Tube uses uploaded a collection of Wayne Jolley’s sermons. Seems like it should be a red flag when a Christian ministry hides instead of proclaims what it is about.
Show Wayne the Money
Wayne says it isn’t that he wants your money, he wants you to be blessed. What a guy!
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PHvaSLq8SE[/youtube]
Tag: Christianity Today
Christianity Today On the Release of Gayle Erwin's and ECFA's Reports on Gospel for Asia
Bob Smietana at Christianity Today has put together a great summary of both the ECFA and Gayle Erwin reports to the board of Gospel for Asia. I encourage readers to go read it.
Here are some highlights:
In the article, Smietana pointed out the misleading nature of GFA leaders’ communications with the ECFA, GFA board, and the donors.
From the article:
Despite running a ministry that collects hundreds of millions in donations, Yohannan appeared to be unaware of the basics of nonprofit management.
GFA appears to be cultivating a narrative which casts Yohannan and COO David Carroll as incompetent rather than deceptive.
In a first, Yohannan sent a note to Smietana saying he appreciated the GFA review. As I noted in my post about Gayle Erwin’s report, Yohannan did not appreciate Erwin’s candid report.
A scapegoat for Yohannan in his note to Smietana is the rapid growth of GFA. Remember, GFA was a charter member of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. GFA has had access to ECFA materials and guidance for well over 30 years. GFA’s website is full of promises to be financially astute, still using the Independent Charities of America Seal. Blaming their growth is another way of passing the buck.
Smietana pointed out that Gayle Erwin was told to rewrite his report on the allegations from the GFA Diaspora.
Smietana pointed out that David Carroll told CBS 11News Dallas that GFA was kicked out of ECFA over minor infractions. Smietana contrasted that claim with the serious problems highlighted by the ECFA report.
Go take a look, there is much more.
Gospel for Asia Places Apology Ad in December Christianity Today
This sounds a little more contrite than the letter to Calvary Chapel pastors but like that one, this letter is light on substance. A friend informed me that this ad was on page 59 of December’s Christianity Today.
As I demonstrated yesterday, the ECFA did not affirm that all funds were accounted for. Regarding missing funds, this is all the ECFA wrote in their report of the investigation of GFA:
15. Alleged missing funds according to Indian FC6 forms. ECFA received allegations that a significant amount of funds were missing based on attempts to reconcile GFA’s audited financial statements and field partner’s Indian FC6 forms. ECFA reviewed this matter to determine compliance with ECFA Standard 4. On July 20, GFA staff provided ECFA with a reconciliation of these amounts, which reflected a transfer of $29,300,000 to a GFA India account in Hong Kong. GFA staff reported that this transfer was not required to be reported on Indian FC6 forms and that this amount along with fiscal year timing differences led to the allegations of significant missing funds.
ECFA did not describe any review of Indian law nor did ECFA review more than one year. Over 8 years, there is an estimated $128 million unaccounted for. The ECFA did not review this claim and so it is false for Yohannan to tell CT readers that the ECFA cleared them on this allegation.
A big problem with this letter is that Yohannan is now telling people that they are learning and improving when for years, they claimed to be acting with the highest financial integrity. Since for years GFA has claimed to be doing the very thing they now claim they are starting to do, why should they be believed now?
Here’s what ECFA had to say about GFA’s declarations:
Finally, we feel compelled to observe our concern, in general, about the following in addition to the above ECFA compliance-related issues:
Certain information provided to ECFA by GFA that was crucial to our review was, at least initially, inaccurate.
Our review process has covered nearly four months. Certain pertinent information about the compliance issues was not revealed to ECFA by GFA until late in the review process.
We have learned significant information from sources unrelated to GFA that we should have learned directly from GFA.
According to the ECFA, the way GFA leaders brought forth information did not inspire confidence.
Christianity Today on Whistleblowing Blogs
This month marks 10 years of blogging. Nice to start the month with some favorable press over at Christianity Today.
Michelle Van Loon and Marlena Graves link to this blog in their story on whistleblower and watchdog blogs. In addition to this blog, they link to Wartburg Watch, Spiritual Sounding Board, Recovering Grace, and the blog of GRACE (Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian Environment).*
Van Loon speaks from personal experience of dealing with a cover up in a church. She sees the benefits of confronting obvious problems when others want to pretend nothing is wrong. Leader worship is a prominent aspect of why people in the pews don’t reflect more on the truth of the messages being delivered. Van Loon says:
When I see someone suggest those harboring hurt or suspicion toward the church are in sin, or that fellow believers would do best to ignore whistleblowers, my internal alarm sounds. Unquestioning allegiance to any earthly leader, even in the church, has proven in many cases hurtful rather than helpful.
Graves follow by highlighting the cost of speaking up.
When working for a Christian organization that many saw going in a troubling direction, we said something. We submitted our criticism, attended meetings, and talked to leaders at each level. Initially, we trusted the proper protocols and official channels set up to give and receive feedback. But not only did those in charge fail to address our concerns, they began enacting policies to punish those who spoke up.
Currently, insiders at Gospel for Asia are telling me that leaders are ordering the students and staff not to read my blog. Mark Driscoll called the blog information “shenanigans” and some Mars Hill leaders discouraged blog reading. David Barton regularly misrepresents me and my motivations to his audience. One mark of an insecure, and often controlling, organization is the use of sanctions to block members from learning opposing views.
In the cases of Mars Hill and GFA, those injunctions from leaders triggered many to read the blog anyway. Some stay away out of fear, but others find information that is being obscured from stakeholders/members by their leaders. For this reason alone, many bloggers perform a valuable function for the organization’s members.
* There are other blogs I would add to this list, particular this one: Wenatchee the Hatchet.
Perry Noble's New Spring Church Used ResultSource to Market Unleash
New Spring Church, pastored by Perry Noble, also used ResultSource to market Noble’s book Unleash. The church released a statement to Christianity Today explaining their reasoning. Read the whole statement here, below is a segment.
Perry Noble used ResultSource to help market and promote one book that he authored—Unleash. The contract for that book was actually a contract between NewSpring Church and the publisher, not between Perry and the publisher—meaning the church would receive all the proceeds from the book, regardless of sales. Specifically, as of November 1, 2014, NewSpring Church has earned more than $60,000 from the marketing and sales of Unleash, all of which Perry would reasonably have been personally entitled to, had the book contract been between him and the publisher.
Indeed, the church holds the copyright.
In the case of Mark Driscoll, the church entered the contract with ResultSource but the book was copyrighted by his LLC On Mission and royalties paid to that entity.
The statement says the church paid $30k to ResultSource and closes in a confusing manner.
If an author believes in the message of his/her book, he or she will want to see the book achieve its widest possible distribution. In the promotion of any book, there are many options available when considering marketing. With this particular book, we choose to use the marketing option that ResultSource provided. This type of marketing is not one we’ve used since on any additional books Perry has written and would not be one we would choose to use again.
They didn’t do anything wrong and they won’t do it again.
Changing the ownership of the book corrects some of the problem. The rest of the problem not directly addressed by this statement is how many books the church had to buy as a part of the process. If ResultSource just did marketing, then that is of little interest; if New Spring also purchased thousands of books via ResultSource’s fake accounts to make it appear that thousands of people were buying the book, then I think that is a problem.
This statement was linked to by Ted Olsen in a sidebar from the larger piece on ResultSource.
The admission that Noble’s book was helped out by ResultSource is not new. A similar statement was released to James Duncan at Pajama Pages last Spring. Duncan then parses the information. Check out the entire post.