MinistryWatch Podcast

Give locally. Before you send money off to a national organization that is taking in tens of millions of dollars, see if there’s a ministry in your community. My experience is that there likely is. Investigate that ministry first. Big ministries can afford slick marketing. Don’t be seduced. Do your research. MinistryWatch tracks the 1000 largest ministries in the nation here. Many of the largest trafficking organizations are there. But, as I said above, most of the local ministries are too small to make it onto our list. To learn about these ministries, use the ProPublica website, here. Volunteer. Local ministries usually need volunteers to work with the people they serve. Many of them offer volunteer training that will help you understand how to be more effective in your work for them, but which also educate you about the human trafficking problem in your area. Give to Christian organizations. Many of the organizations involved in sex trafficking are not Christian groups. For example, neither OUR or IJM are explicitly Christian organizations, though IJM does have many Christians (including its founder, Gary Haugen) on staff. Some of them do good work, but without bringing Scripture and a biblical worldview to this problem, we are likely not providing lasting help. I make no apologies for recommending that you give to and advocate for explicitly Christian organizations. Pray and Give. Don’t let negative headlines freeze or frustrate you into inaction. View the negative headlines as a gift, steering you away from the bad actors and toward the good actors. Human trafficking is a scourge, a horrible scourge in this beautiful but broken world. But it is the job of Christians to be restorers, reconcilers, repairers of the breach. Local human trafficking ministries are a great place to start. The producers for today’s program are Jeff McIntosh and Rich Roszel. We get database, technical, and editorial support from Stephen Dubarry, Christina Darnell, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, we discuss a BBC investigation that calls into question some of the so-called child “rescues” in West Africa initiated by the International Justice Mission. Also, financial troubles continue to plague Christian publisher David C. Cook. We’ll have details. And we’ll take a look at the latest state measures that could undermine donor privacy. We begin today with news of popular worship leader Matt Redman. He took to social media last week, saying that he and his wife had both suffered what he called “harmful behavior and mistreatment” by UK pastor Mike Pilavachi. Final Thoughts: Just a reminder that MinistryWatch is a donor supported organization, and if you make a gift during the month of July, you’ll receive a copy of my book Faith-Based Fraud: Learning From The Great Religious Scandals of our Time as our thank-you gift. Just go to MinistryWatch and hit the DONATE button at the top of the page. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and 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 Yonat Shimron, Meagan Saliashvili, Kim Roberts, Jessica Eturralde, Steve Rabey, Daniel Ritchie, Christina Darnell, and Rod Pitzer. Special thanks to The NonProfit Times for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

Today I welcome back to the program Amy McClintock, with the Strategic Resource Group, an organization that funds projects to reach unreached people groups in the Middle East and North Africa, the so-called MENA region of the world.  Two years ago, I started reporting on a new initiative by the Strategic Resource Group that – if successful – could have a dramatic impact on the way we do Bible translation. They are using a so-called Translation Service Provider – an organization that normally translates contracts, treaties, movie scripts, books, and all manner of other material – to translate the Bible. The company it is using is called LinguaLinx. I wrote my first article about this process in August of 2021.  But one aspect of this project that is different from those undertaken by traditional Bible translation organizations is the remarkable degree of transparency SRG has shown to me in the process. Last year, for example, I checked in with Amy and her predecessor in her role Jane Schoen, in both January and August of last year, and in January of this year, to get updates on the project.  And that’s what we are doing today.   The very fact that Amy and SRG are allowing me to have these regular check-ins is dramatically different from the way the Bible translation industry normally operates.  It’s an industry cloaked in secrecy and layers of bureaucracy.  In fact, for the past three years or so, I’ve written about 30 articles on the industry and its practices, and I’ll have links to some of those articles in today’s show notes.  I encourage you to check them out.  I’d like to remind you that MinistryWatch is donor supported.  We take no money from ministries.  All of our content is free.  No paywall.  That means we couldn’t do what we do without faithful donors.  You guys are the real heroes of this enterprise.  So if you’d like to join that heroic group by pitching in to make sure that MinistryWatch remains a viable endeavor, you can go to MinistryWatch.com and hit the “donate” button at the top of the page.  And if you donate in the month of July, we’ll send you, as our thank you, a copy of my book “Faith Based Fraud: Learning From The Great Religious Scandals of our Time.”  To donate, click here.  The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.   We get database, technical, and editorial support from Stephen DuBarry, Christina Darnell, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth.     Until next time, may God bless you.     Links Mentioned in Today’s Program Here is a list of articles we have written about the Bible translation industry, from oldest to newest: When Is A Bible Translation Not A Bible Translation – May 14, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/when-is-a-bible-translation-not-a-bible-translation/ Bible Translation At A Crossroads – June 30, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/the-bible-translation-industry-is-at-a-crossroads/ Translation Service Providers Could Be Paradigm Changing – August 5, 2021 https://ministrywatch.com/translation-service-providers-could-be-paradigm-changing-for-bible-translation-industry/ Just How Broken Is The Bible Translation Industry – September 21, 2021 https://ministrywatch.com/just-how-broken-is-the-bible-translation-industry/ Outsourcing Bible Translation? – January 17, 2022 https://ministrywatch.com/outsourcing-bible-translation/ List of 50 Largest Bible Translation and Missions Organizations – May 2, 2022 https://ministrywatch.com/outsourcing-bible-translation/  Translating The Bible in a New Way:  A Conversation with Jane Schoen – August 10, 2022 https://ministrywatch.com/ep-202-translating-the-bible-in-a-new-way-a-conversation-with-jane-schoen/

On today’s program, a pastor and the brother of the Rev. Al Sharpton is in legal trouble again. We look at Operation Underground Railroad, the organization on which the new movie “Sound of Freedom” is based. We also begin a series on ministries that are working with kids who have aged out of the foster care system. We begin today with news of yet another Christian college shutting its doors. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Rafa Oliveira, Kim Roberts, Bob Smietana, Jessica Eturralde, Christina Darnell, and Rod Pitzer. Special thanks to Religion UnPlugged for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

Hello, everyone. Warren Smith here, coming to you from Newport Beach, California, where I’m attending a conference on Bible translation. If you listened to our recent podcast EXTRA episode titled “Just How Broken Is The Bible Translation Industry,” you know that I have a lot to say on this topic. We’ve written nearly 50 stories on this topic in the past two years. But the group I’m meeting with this week is all about solutions, and I hope to be bringing a Part 2 to this story – “How To Fix The Bible Translation Industry” – in the next few weeks. We’re able to do the kind of reporting because of the support of people like you. We send our daily emails out to 160,000, but did you know that less than 3,000 people have ever given us donations. That’s less than 2 percent. If you are one of those people, I want to say thank you. And if you are among those who have not, would you consider a gift this week? June 30 is our fiscal year end, and we’ve set an ambitious goal of $25,000 to celebrate our 25thanniversary. We’ve had a lot of great responses, but we still have a ways to go. As of Tuesday morning, were at about $17,000, so that means we need about $8,000 more to meet our goal, and just a few days left. MinistryWatch has more than 300,000 page views a month, which is enough to command some significant advertising revenue – if we decided we wanted to accept advertising. Just this week I turned down an offer from a ministry to sponsor this podcast. Not only do we accept no advertising, but we also have no annoying paywall. We’re completely independent. Our only boss is you, our listeners and readers. If you value the quality Christian journalism and financial analysis you get from MinistryWatch, would you consider a gift today?  Just go to MinistryWatch.com and hit the donate button at the top of the page. Or, click the link below: https://ministrywatch.com/donate-now/

On today’s program, we look at how ministries who depend on the teaching of their founders – ministries such as Charles Stanley’s In Touch Ministries – are able to survive years or even decades after their founders have died. We also look at The Inspiration Networks. It has gone from being a small religious network to being one of the biggest cable networks in the nation. We explain how, and what the network aims to do next. We begin today with Promise Keepers. The men’s ministry was set to host an in-person event at Belmont University this fall—but Belmont canceled that event this month. FINAL THOUGHTS I do want to mention that we will be taking a couple of weeks off from the podcast. I’ll be dropping a couple of short “Extra” episodes, but these weekly news podcasts will resume on July 14. I also want to remind everyone that this is our 25th anniversary. Rusty and Carol Leonard founded MinistryWatch in June of 1998. I sat down with Rusty and Carol and that podcast interview is now available on our website, and I hope you’ll listen to it. I think you’ll be blessed by these two extraordinary people and the story they tell of the early days of MinistryWatch. Also, a reminder: MinistryWatch is a donor-supported ministry. If what we do is helpful to you in your own journey of generosity and financial stewardship, I hope you will consider a gift to us before June 30, our fiscal year end. Just go to the MinistryWatch website, and hit the DONATE button at the top of the page. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Shannon Cuthrell, Kim Roberts, Anne Stych, Jessica Eturralde, Grace Buller, Ryan Burge, Daniel Ritchie and Rod Pitzer — and you, Warren. Until next time, may God bless you.

I’m Natasha Smith, and today you’ll be listening to a special episode of the MinistryWatch podcast.  We’re calling it “Just How Broken Is The Bible Translation Industry.” Over the course of the next month, we’ll be releasing a companion episode, “Fixing The Bible Translation Industry.”  Stay tuned for that. To read more of MinistryWatch’s coverage of the Bible translation industry, just go to the MinistryWatch website and use the search engine to type the words “Bible translation.”  More than 50 articles will show up, showing the good, the bad, and the ugly of the Bible translation world. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, we look at an innovative Bible translation process coming from the African nation of Chad. We have new developments on a story we’ve been covering for several months, the story of the campus group Chi Alpha, which is associated with the Assemblies of God denomination. It’s been wracked by scandal, and there are new developments. We begin today with news from the Southern Baptist Convention. Nearly 13-thousand members of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination traveled from around the country to New Orleans this week for the 20-23 annual meeting—and a lot happened. We’ll hit on some of those key issues. We start with the SBC presidential election. FINAL THOUGHTS: I do want to mention that this is our 25th anniversary. Rusty and Carol Leonard founded MinistryWatch in June of 1998. I sat down with Rusty and Carol and that podcast interview is now available on our website, and I hope you’ll listen to it. I think you’ll be blessed by these two extraordinary people and the story they tell of the early days of MinistryWatch. Also, a reminder: I’ll be doing lunches for readers and donors in Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles, in June, in part to celebrate the 25th anniversary of MinistryWatch. So keep an eye on your in-box for invitations to those events. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Emily McFarlan Miller, Aaron Earls, Anne Stych, Steve Rabey, Kim Roberts, Adelle Banks, Bob Smietana and Rod Pitzer. Until next time, may God bless you.

In June of 1998, 25 years ago this month, Rusty and Carol Leonard officially incorporated MinistryWatch. To celebrate that occasion, and all that God has done to keep MinistryWatch alive and thriving over a quarter-century, we have Rusty and Carol on today’s podcast to talk about why they decided to found MinistryWatch, and some of the successes and trials they’ve experienced with MinistryWatch over the years. You’ll hear from Rusty and Carol in a bit, and they share some of their biography, so I’ll keep my introduction of them short. But you should know that Rusty is a Chartered Financial Analyst, a CFA, which is one of the financial world’s highest and most rigorous designations. He was an analyst and portfolio manager for the legendary investor Sir John Templeton before founding Stewardship Partners, which is an investment firm committed to investing according to biblical principles. Carol, who has an accounting background, currently serves on the board of MinistryWatch. Rusty rolled off of the board several years ago, and now has emeritus status. We had this interview via zoom last week. Rusty and Carol spoke to me from their home in eastern Pennsylvania. You can find out more about Rusty’s firm, Stewardship Partners, at StewardshipPartners.com As I mentioned at the top of the program, we are celebrating our 25th anniversary this year, and over the course of the next year we’ll be rolling out more content and interviews that will help highlight our history and our plans for the future. If you’d like to help make those plans come true, we’d love to have you on our team. One of the things that is unique about MinistryWatch is that we are donor supported. We don’t take money from the ministries we cover, and we don’t accept advertising on our site. We serve the donors to Christian ministries. We give them the information they need to make informed stewardship decisions. If you’re one of those donors who has benefited from our work, would you please consider a donation? It’s easy, just go to MinistryWatch.com and hit the DONATE button at the top of the page. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database, editorial, and technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Kim Roberts, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, popular radio host and personal finance guru Dave Ramsey is being sued for $150 million over some of his advice that allegedly turned out badly for those who followed it. Also, one of the largest Christian broadcasters in the nation, Daystar Television Network, lost $25-million in the cryptocurrency market. Now they’re suing to get it back.  We’ll have details. Finally, we remember the remarkable life and career of Pat Robertson. We begin today with Rick Warren’s media campaign to have Saddleback Church reinstated in the Southern Baptist Convention. FINAL THOUGHTS: I want to mention that this is our 25th anniversary. Rusty and Carol Leonard founded MinistryWatch in June of 1998. We’ll be featuring an interview with Rusty and Carol next week, and I hope you’ll listen to it when we post it, probably on Tuesday. I think you’ll be blessed by these two extraordinary people and the story they tell of the early days of MinistryWatch. Also, a reminder: I’ll be doing lunches for readers and donors in Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles, in June, in part to celebrate the 25th anniversary of MinistryWatch. So keep an eye on your in-box for invitations to those events. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Writers who contributed to today’s program include Eric Obernauer, Anne Stych, Kim Roberts, Adelle M. Banks, Bob Smietana, Amy Julia Becker, Jessica Eturralde, and Rod Pitzer. Special thanks to The NonProfit Times for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.