MinistryWatch Podcast

Here at MinistryWatch, we constantly consume all kinds of media. We are constantly looking for stories, and we are constantly looking at how other media outlets handle the stories we cover. We ask: How can we add value to a story? Is this a story that fits our mission? Should we even cover this story at all? Answering these questions is not always easy, but asking them and struggling with the answers have made me a better journalist and a better reader and viewer of other people’s work. In the process of asking these questions (and others, which I will highlight below), I have developed some thoughts about media bias that have been helpful to me and might be helpful to you, too. I have identified four forms of media bias – along with questions to help you avoid being seduced by them. On today’s episode, I will share them with you. The producer of today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, after a slew of controversies, Southern Baptists chose a low-key leader. We take a closer look at new SBC President Clint Pressley. And, Pastors and politics—legally, what are churches and other Christian nonprofits allowed to do when it comes to this year’s presidential campaign? We also highlight the results are in from our summer survey of top ministry executives. They tell us their biggest challenges—and hopes for the future. But first, a former youth volunteer for Vineyard Church in Anaheim, California, has been sentenced to more than 120 years in prison. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Jessica Eturralde, Daniel Ritchie, Kim Roberts, Tiffany Stanley, Yonat Shimron, Anna Piela, and Brittany Smith. A special thanks to the National Association of Evangelicals for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.   FIRST SEGMENT Warren: Hello everybody. I’m Warren Smith, coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina. Natasha: And I’m Natasha Cowden, coming to you from Denver, Colorado. And we’d like to welcome you to the MinistryWatch podcast. Warren: On today’s program, after a slew of controversies, Southern Baptists chose a low-key leader. We take a closer look at new S-B-C President Clint Pressley. And, Pastors and politics—legally, what are churches and other Christian nonprofits allowed to do when it comes to this year’s presidential campaign? And, the results are in from our summer survey of top ministry executives. They tell us their biggest challenges—and hopes for the future. Natasha But first, a former youth volunteer for Vineyard Church in Anaheim, California, has been sentenced to more than 120 years in prison. Warren: Todd Christian Hartman, 41, has been sentenced to 125 years to life for collecting and creating child pornography materials and molesting four girls between the years 2009 and 2014. In 2015, investigators found hundreds of child pornography images and videos in Hartman's Newport Beach home. Federal agents arrested Hartman on child pornography charges, but the case collapsed after a judge ruled he was not informed of his Miranda rights at the time of his arrest. Natasha: What happened next? Warren: In 2016, Hartman contacted the father of two of his victims and admitted to repeatedly molesting one of them after meeting through his volunteer work at the Anaheim Vineyard Church children's ministry, starting when the girl was 6 years old. Hartman was also convicted of molesting the girl’s younger sister and molesting a 14-year-old girl and 12-year-old girl at a sleepover in 2009. Natasha: How did the church respond? Warren: MinistryWatch contacted the Dwelling Place to inquire about Vineyard's handling of the employee's concerns, including whether or not church leadership was informed. We have not yet heard back at the time of publication. Natasha: Let’s move to our next story Warren: A Colorado man has been sentenced to at least eight years in prison for sexually abusing a child, with the possibility of life behind bars. Michael Paustian, age 53, pleaded guilty to sexual assault of a child from a position of trust for a victim under the age of 15. He also pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a child. Both are class 3 felonies. Natasha: Was he connected to a ministry? Warren: Paustian was employed by Group Publishing as the company’s creative director. Group Publishing is widely known for publishing curriculum used by churches. He’d began working at Group Publishing in 2005, and informed “company leaders in 2023 that he was being accused of incidents that allegedly happened in his home 18 years ago, not related to his work at Group.”

On today’s MinistryWatch EXTRA episode, Warren Smith shares a review he wrote for “The Dispatch” of Megan Basham’s new book Shepherds For Sale: How Evangelical Leaders Traded The Truth for a Leftist Agenda. The fundamental flaw of the book is that it fails to note that the real problem in evangelicalism is that pastors have succumbed to the populist right in far greater numbers than they have to the progressive left, and the consequences for the Gospel and the purity of the church have been far more consequential. Warren unpacks these ideas in this week’s EXTRA episode. To read the complete article, in The Dispatch, click here. The producer of today’s episode is Jeff McIntosh. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, Liberty University reaches a settlement with former president Jerry Falwell Jr. after years of back-and-forth lawsuits between the two parties. Now, they say they are putting the past behind them. We’ll have details. A small university in North Carolina is beating the odds…while other Christian colleges face closure, this school is thriving. We take a look at what they’re doing. Also, Steven Furtick’s Elevation Church released its annual report—the Charlotte-area church saw revenue of more than $108-million in 2023. The leadership at Gateway Church continues its shakeup following revelations that its founding pastor Robert Morris abused a minor in the 1980s. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Jessica Eturralde, Kim Roberts, Shannon Cuthrell, Yonat Shimron, Brittany Smith, and Christina Darnell. Until next time, may God bless you.   COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT BELOW:   FIRST SEGMENT Warren: Hello everybody. I’m Warren Smith, coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina. Natasha: And I’m Natasha Cowden, coming to you from Denver, Colorado. And we’d like to welcome you to the MinistryWatch podcast. Warren: On today’s program, Liberty University reaches a settlement with former president Jerry Falwell Jr. after years of back-and-forth lawsuits between the two parties. Now, they say they are putting the past behind them. We’ll have details. And, a small university in North Carolina is beating the odds…while other Christian colleges face closure, this school is thriving. We take a look at what they’re doing. Also, Steven Furtick’s Elevation Church released its annual report—the Charlotte-area church saw revenue of more than $108-million in 2023. Natasha: But first, the leadership at Gateway Church continues its shakeup following revelations that its founding pastor Robert Morris abused a minor in the 1980s. Warren: Seven weeks after Robert Morris resigned from Gateway Church after Cindy Clemishire publicly claimed he abused her when she was 12 years old, Gateway has announced that Morris' son, James Morris, is stepping away from the church. James Morris was slated to take over church leadership after his father’s impending retirement in 2025. But after Clemishire’s claims went public, Robert Morris admitted “moral failure" with a “young lady” before resigning as the Texas megachurch’s lead pastor. Weeks later, James Morris and three other elders announced they would temporarily step down to allow room for a third-party investigation. But last week, in a special announcement to the congregation, Gateway elder Tra Willbanks announced that James Morris and his wife, Bridgette Morris, had decided to permanently relinquish their positions at Gateway. Natasha:  How did the congregation take that? Warren: Church attendees gave them a standing ovation. Then Willbanks said Gateway elders support James and Bridgette Morris' desire to establish a church in the future. I should mention that James and Bridgette Morris are not the only ones to have left in the fallout of Robert Morris’ resignation. According to the leadership pages on its website, Gateway has made additional changes to its staff and elder board. It removed former-felon-turned-Prison Ministry Campus Pastor Stephen Wilson after Wilson's past sex charges from 2002 involving a minor became public. Natasha: Who is going to minister as the church moves forward? Warren: Willbanks informed congregants that Max Lucado, a popular author and teaching minister at Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, and Swedish pastor Joakim Lundqvist, will be filling leadership roles at the church. Lucado will become the interim teaching pastor, preaching at Gateway about twice a month. Lundqvist will share preaching duties with Lucado and take on a p...

You may have heard the term ex-vangelical. An ex-vangelical is someone who formerly identified as an evangelical, but no longer does so. The phenomenon has created a sub-genre of books from memoirs – such as those by Josh Harris, Rachel Held Evans, and others -- to more journalistic accounts, such as Sarah McCammon’s “The Ex-Vangelicals.” But is there really a groundswell of people leaving evangelicalism? Are these books fair representations of evangelicalism? Is the rejection of the ex-vangelicals really a rejection of Christianity, or a rejection of a certain brand of evangelicalism defined more by culture and politics than theology? These are questions Miles Smith set out to answer. He read many of the ex-vangelical books and wrote a helpful article about it called “Reading The Exvangelicals” for Mere Orthodoxy. Miles Smith is a historian by training. He attended university at the College of Charleston in Charleston, South Carolina, and got a Ph.D. from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas. He now teaches at Hillsdale College. But he has come on strong in recent years as a public intellectual. I have found his commentaries helpful and highly readable. In addition to  Mere Orthodoxy, he has written for The Gospel Coalition, Public Discourse, The Federalist, and The University Bookman. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. We get database, editorial, and other support from Christina Darnell, Kim Roberts, Casey Suddeth, and Stephen Dubarry. Please join me on Friday for our round up of the week’s news, with my co-host Natasha Cowden. Until then, may God bless you.

The 2024 Summer Olympics are about to begin in Paris, and that event should be of interest even to those who don’t much care about sports. For one thing, it’s the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Olympics, also held in Paris, in which Christian missionary Eric Liddell won a gold medal. That story was famously recounted in the Academy Award winning movie “Chariots of Fire,” and the story and that movie has become a part of the lore of the modern evangelical movement. Another story unfolded 48 years ago, at the Montreal Games, in 1976. It was that year, at the height of the Cold War, that the American women’s swim team, a team many called the strongest in the world at that time, went up against the East German women’s team. Though the American team brought home a lot of hardware from those games, many sports historians and others believe the women of that team were robbed of their place in Olympic history by the aggressive doping program of the East Germans. Swimming World Magazine has called those Olympics “Doping’s Darkest Hour.” The East German doping program eventually led to reforms in the Olympic movement. That said, if you have been following this year’s Olympics coverage, you may know that a new doping scandal, involving Chinese athletes, threatens to taint this year’s games. So this story of the 1976 games, which has elements of heroism, courage, leadership, and character is as relevant today as ever. And there’s no better person to tell this story than Casey Converse. His book is “Munich to Montreal: Women’s Olympic Swimming in a Tarnished Golden Era.” Casey had a front row seat to the controversy. He was a member of the USA Olympic Swim Team at the Montreal Olympics. He was also an American record holder in the 1650. From there, he coached at the United States Air Force Academy for 28 seasons. He was recently selected as one of the top 100 college swim coaches in the last 100 years by the College Swimming & Diving Coaches of America. He also served as a consultant for the documentary “The Last Gold,” which is a film account of the story we’ll talk about today. Also, if I might insert a personal note here: Casey is a friend. My son Cole swam for the Air Force Academy’s men’s team during his time there, and I got to know Casey a bit. I was personally inspired by his mentorship of generations of young swimmers and future Air Force officers, including my son. I should also add that he is now battling a very serious form of cancer, and I’ve been able to see his character and his faith shine brightly as he faces this new challenge. It’s an honor to know him, and an honor to have him on the program. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission—the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention—fired its president Brent Leatherwood this week…then less than 12 hours later reversed course and said he was NOT fired. We’ll have details. Also, Life Surge wealth conferences draw big audiences with its celebrity speaker lineup and wealth-building tools…we’re taking a closer look to see if it’s delivering on its promises. And, New York Theological Seminary closed its doors earlier this month—famous alumni include religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and author of the Message, Eugene Peterson. But first, the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas, was engulfed in flames last week. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Bob Smietana, John Stonestreet, Timothy Padgett, Kim Roberts, Aaron Earls, Brittany Smith, and Christina Darnell. A special thanks to Breakpoint and Lifeway Research for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you. COMPLETE MANUSCRIPT BELOW: FIRST SEGMENT   Warren Hello everybody. I’m Warren Smith, coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina. Natasha  And I’m Natasha Cowden, coming to you from Denver, Colorado. And we’d like to welcome you to the MinistryWatch podcast. Warren On today’s program, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission—the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention—fired its president Brent Leatherwood this week…then less than 12 hours later reversed course and said he was NOT fired. We’ll have details. Also, Life Surge wealth conferences draw big audiences with its celebrity speaker lineup and wealth-building tools…we’re taking a closer look to see if it’s delivering on its promises. And, New York Theological Seminary closed its doors earlier this month—famous alumni include religious broadcaster Pat Robertson and author of the Message, Eugene Peterson. Natasha But first, the historic sanctuary of First Baptist Dallas, was engulfed in flames last week. Warren: A fire all but destroyed the historic church sanctuary at First Baptist Dallas, thankfully there were no deaths or injuries. The fire in the Texas Historic Landmark, church built in 1890, was reported about 6:30 p.m. Friday, and contained about three hours later. Natasha: Do we know what started the fire? Warren: Interim Fire Chief Justin Ball said the fire started in the basement, but until they do an investigation we won’t know. Senior Pastor Robert Jeffress said, “We are grateful that no one was injured…We just had 2,000 children and volunteers on campus for Vacation Bible School earlier in the day.” “We thank the Dallas Fire Department and Dallas Police Department for their quick action, courage, and ongoing aid,” Jeffress added. Natasha: Next, the SBC reverses course. Warren: In a head-scratching turn of events, the executive board of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm now says its leader has not been fired. On Monday evening (July 22), the SBC Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission announced Brent Leatherwood, the group’s president, had been fired — a day after he praised President Joe Biden for ending his reelection bid. Less than 12 hours later, the ERLC’s executive committee issued a new statement on Tuesday, saying Leatherwood would remain in leadership. Natasha: What happened? Warren: The committee said ERLC board chair Kevin Smith had acted on his own in announcing that Leatherwood was fired. Smith, a former seminary professor and denominational administrator who currently pastors a church in Florida, has resigned as ERLC chair, according to the statement. “There was not an authorized meeting, vote, or action taken by the Executive Committee,

Carlos Campo has one of the most interesting biographies I know about. His parents were entertainers who had hit records and a national profile in the 1940s and 50s. Carlos Campo’s mother was Betty Clooney, who with her sister Rosemary rose to the top of the music industry. That also makes Carlos Campo a part of a family that some consider entertainment royalty, a family that includes actor George Clooney, journalist and TV host Nick Clooney, and actor and voice over artist Miguel Ferrar. Campo was born in Las Vegas, where his parents performed. Though he received an undergraduate degree in theatre, his master’s and Ph.D. were in English, and he pursued a career in academia. He has served as president of two significant Christian institutions: Regent University and – most recently – Ashland University. However, after a nine-year tenure at Ashland, he recently resigned to become the new president of the Museum of the Bible. I’ve known Carlos Campo for a decade or more, and every time I get to visit with him is a treat. I know you’ll enjoy this conversation that ranges from his career in higher education to his decision to make a career pivot to lead the Museum of the Bible – along with some life and leadership lessons he has learned along the way. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. We get database, editorial, and other support from Christina Darnell, Kim Roberts, Casey Suddeth, and Stephen Dubarry. Please join me on Friday for our round up of the week’s news, with my co-host Natasha Cowden. Until then, may God bless you.

On today’s program, Village Church Pastor Matt Chandler is under fire after his church hired a man who, in the past, was convicted of child sexual abuse. That man was his father. We’ll take a look. Also, Robert Morris—the Gateway Church pastor accused of abusing a young girl starting when she was 12 years old—is having his radio and tv programs canceled…and is receiving no severance after resigning from his posts. We’ll have details. And, the closure of another Christian college—the Florida campus of Johnson University is shutting down after low enrollment made it no longer sustainable. But first, former Christian billionaire Bill Hwang—once one of the wealthiest evangelicals in the U.S., celebrated as part of a “new evangelical donor-class”—he now faces the possibility of life behind bars. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Tony Mator, Kathryn Post, Kim Roberts, Bob Smietana, Jessica Eturralde, Daniel Ritchie, and Christina Darnell. A special thanks to Baptist Press for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

For the past 100 years, radio has proven to be a persistent medium. Television, podcasts, and other digital media have taken their slices of the market, but radio has not gone away. In some ways it is as strong today as ever.  About eight in 10 Americans over the age of 12 listen to terrestrial radio in a given week. And as long as there has been radio, there has been Christian radio. In fact, Reginald Fessenden, a radio pioneer who held hundreds of patents, claims to have made the first radio broadcast, in 1906. And it was arguably a Christian radio program. He broadcast on Christmas Eve. Fessenden the carol O Holy Night on the violin. He closed the broadcast with a biblical passage: "Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to men of good will" (Luke 2:14). Today, radio ministries are among the largest ministries on the MinistryWatch 1000 list. Even those ministries that are not radio ministries often have a radio component. Relief and development ministries such as World Vision, Compassion International, and Samaritan’s Purse use radio as part of their marketing, communications, and fundraising efforts. A new book looks at two pioneers of Christian radio: Fulton Sheen and Walter Maier. Sheen, a Catholic, and Maier, a Missouri Synod Lutheran, were unlikely prospects to become the biggest radio personalities in America, but that’s what happened, and the techniques they pioneered in the 1940s and 50s are still being used today. A new book examines these men, and provides a fascinating history of the rise of Christian radio. The book is Ministers of a New Medium, and it’s written by Kirk Farney. Farney is the vice president for advancement, vocation and alumni engagement – as well as a member of the faculty – at Wheaton College. We had this conversation via zoom. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. We get technical, database, and other support from Christina Darnell, Casey Sudduth, Heidi Allums, and Stephen Dubarry. I’m your host, Warren Smith. Until Friday, may God bless you.