MinistryWatch Podcast

Regular listeners to this podcast, or readers of the MinistryWatch site, you know that we often write about preachers behaving badly. We do so because we believe it’s important to maintain the purity, peace, and unity of the church, and we believe what the Bible teaches, in Ephesians 5:11, that we should have no fellowship with the evil deeds of darkness.  We should, instead, expose them. But the goal is not merely to expose wrongdoers, but to prevent future wrongdoing, and to – whenever possible – to encourage confession, repentance, and ultimate restoration. These ideas were in my mind when I had the conversation you are about to hear with Dr. Rich Kidd. Rich is a Founding Partner at Mission:Leadership, a firm that – among other things – specializes in finding executive-level leaders for key positions in a broad array of industries including Christian nonprofits, large churches, Christian schools and colleges, and mission-minded businesses. I wanted to talk with him about the things he looks for during the search process that deals not with competence issues, but with character issues. If you are looking for a pastor or senior executive, what should you ask to make sure that the person you think you are getting is truly the person you are getting? What safeguards and guardrails can your organization put in place to protect both the organization and the person you are hiring – or the people you already have in place. Rich has had a long and varied career in ministry. In the local church, he has worked in roles from janitor to Senior Pastor (sometimes simultaneously), ranging from small church plants to large multi-staff churches. He has served Director of Campus Ministries for Regent University, where he also taught in the College of Arts & Sciences and the School of Divinity. Rich is a graduate of the College of William and Mary where he was a Presidential (Monroe) Scholar, holds an M.Div. from Trinity International University, and a Doctorate from Fuller Theological Seminary. Rich is an ordained minister in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database, editorial, and technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Kim Roberts, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, a Christian college group, Chi Alpha, which is associated with the Assemblies of God and operates on 60 campuses, is under scrutiny because some of its leaders sexually abused students. We’ll have important details. And a Christian adoption agency in New York has won important religious liberty protections that will allow it to continue to place children only in families with one-man, one-woman marriages. We begin today with a strange story from right here in North Carolina. Southern Baptists have been dogged by leadership scandals for years. Now they have a different kind of abuse scandal on their hands. A Baptist leader in North Carolina resigned this week after he and his wife were charged earlier this month with three counts of felony animal cruelty and a misdemeanor offense of communicating threats. 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, Yonat Shimron, and Rod Pitzer. Special thanks to The NonProfit Times for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

Donors are pulling back on their giving. The reasons for this pullback seem to be varied. There’s a crisis in confidence in institutions. In some cases, the personal circumstances of the donors themselves have deteriorated. Some are nervous about the economy. A new study by the fundraising, marketing, and communications company Dunham and Company has attempted to quantify these factors and more. I found the study fascinating, and I wanted to have Rick Dunham on the podcast to discuss. Rick is the founder of Dunham and Company, and he’s one of the true gurus in the Christian fundraising world. He has an undergraduate degree from Biola University, and a master’s in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. The company currently serves nearly 100 clients in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. He is also on the board of The Giving Institute and is a past board chair of The Giving USA Foundation, which also publishes widely respected research on charity and philanthropy. I wanted to have Rick on the program to discuss the new study his firm did in conjunction with Campbell Rinker, a research and survey company.  That study, Donor Confidence 2023, is available from the Dunham and Company website, and you can find the study here. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database, editorial, and technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Kim Roberts, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, The Word Network, which bills itself as the world’s largest African-American Christian broadcast network, is in trouble with the IRS. We’ll also have an update on former Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz.  He’s now the subject of a television documentary series, and he’s not happy about it. And there have been new revelations in the business dealings of former SBC President Johnny Hunt. And in the last segment of the program, we’ll remember Tim Keller and Harry Reeder, who prominent pastors who died in the past week. I knew both of these exceptional men, and I’ll share a few memories. We begin today with a couple of stories about the National Religious Broadcasters, who had their annual conference in Orlando, Florida this week. 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 Anne Stych, Jessica Lea, Roxanne Stone, Bob Smietana, Alejandra Molina, Kathryn Post, Christina Darnell, Kathryn Beaty—and you, Warren. Special thanks to The Beaty Beat and ChurchLeaders.com for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, the Florida Baptist State Convention has been defrauded of more than $700-thousand. We’ll explain how the fraud worked, and how you can keep your church or ministry from becoming a victim. Former Hillsong pastor Carl Lentz is back in the news, and is soon coming to a television near you. And we look at a group of Christian ministries in Nebraska who are withdrawing from the local community foundation over the foundation’s requirements to affirm LGBTQ rights. We begin today with a pair of stories related to Rick Warren and California’s influential Saddleback Church. Final Thoughts: I want all of my friends in Orlando to know that I’ll be there on Monday for the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters, and I’ll be holding a lunch for readers and donors on May 22 at Carrabba’s Italian Grille near the Orlando airport.  If you live in the Orlando area, you should have received an invitation already.  And we already have about a dozen people signed up for this event.  It’s absolutely free, but you do need to sign up to attend. I’ll be doing similar lunches 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 Anne Stych, Bob Smietana, Emily McFarlan Miller, Adelle M. Banks, Yonat Shimron, Kim Roberts, Jessica Eturralde, Rod Pitzer, Christina Darnell—and you, Warren. Special thanks to The NonProfit Times for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, we look at the Lancaster Pennsylvania Community Foundation, which has implemented restrictions that could keep Christian groups from receiving funds.  It’s not the only community foundation in the nation to use non-discrimination policies to exclude Christian groups.  We’ll have details. And we also have updates on two stories we’ve been covering for a while:  Hillsong, and the breakup of the United Methodist Church. We begin today with news of significant membership declines in the Southern Baptist Convention. LINK MENTIONED IN TODAY’S PROGRAM: Here’s a link to the list of the largest missions and Bible translation organizations. FINAL THOUGHTS:  MinistryWatch wants all our friends in Orlando to know that  be there in two weeks for the annual meeting of the National Religious Broadcasters, and I’ll be holding a lunch for readers and donors on May 22 at Carrabba’s Italian Grille near the Orlando airport.  If you live in the Orlando area, you should have received an invitation already.  And we already have about a dozen people signed up for this event.  It’s absolutely free, but you do need to sign up to attend. I’ll be doing similar lunches in Colorado Springs and Albuquerque in June.  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 Anne Stych, Bob Smietana, Shannon Cuthrell, Emily McFarlan Miller, Kim Roberts, Jessica Eturralde, Eric Obernauer, Rod Pitzer, Christina Darnell, and Warren Smith. Until next time, may God bless you.

Regular listeners to this podcast have heard the name Christina Darnell at the end of nearly every MinistryWatch podcast. Today you get to meet her. Christina is the Managing Editor at MinistryWatch and plays a vital role in our work.  As Managing Editor, she has edited virtually every one of the more than 3000 articles on the MinistryWatch website. I don’t want to do too much of an introduction, because I want to let her tell a bit of her story today.  So I’ll simply say when I took over as president of MinistryWatch in the fall of 2019, she was one of my first calls, because – as we’ll explain in this episode – I knew Christina from our time together at WORLD Magazine.  She graciously said YES to my plea for help, and we’ve been working together ever since The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database, editorial, and technical support from Stephen DuBarry, Emily Kern, Kim Roberts, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, Dallas megachurch pastor T.D. Jakes launches a billion dollar community redevelopment project.  We’ll have details.  And a former executive at Southeastern University in Florida pleads guilty to fraud. We’ll explain how the complicated fraud occurred. Also, a new survey by Lifeway Research indicates that Christians’ views on tithing are shifting.  We’ll have details from that study. We begin today with news that popular Christian apologist John Ankerberg has been suspended from the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability. 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 Bob Smietana, Yonat Shimron, Emily McFarlan Miller, Kim Roberts, Anne Stych, Jessica Eturralde, Rod Pitzer, Christina Darnell—and you, Warren. Until next time, may God bless you.

Hello everybody.  I’m Warren Smith, coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina, and I’d like to welcome you to the MinistryWatch podcast. Here at MinistryWatch we cover a lot of stories about scams, scandals, and frauds in the church. Every story is different, of course, but I find that most of the scandals have one of two origin stories. The first story is the story of someone who sets out from the beginning to defraud people. These people have evil intent right from the start. But in my experience, these stories make up by far the smallest portion of the stories we write about here at MinistryWatch. The vast majority of stories we tell here are stories of people who start well, with good intentions, but are lured by some combination of money, power, or sex into self-destructive behavior – and that often leads to public scandal and, sometimes, organizational collapse. That’s why one of the things we look for here at MinistryWatch is any unusual concentration of power, or money.  And perhaps nowhere has that concentration been more conspicuous than in the area of worship music. Praise and worship music now generates hundreds of millions of dollars a year in performance and royalty income.  Most of that money comes from Christians, some of it directly from churches, but – as we will explain in this episode of the MinistryWatch podcast, that money often goes directly into the coffers of secular corporations and others with no interest in the peace, purity, and unity of the church. To help us unpack some of these issues, I’ve asked Kelsey Kramer McGinnis to be on the program today.  Kelsey has written a fascinating and helpful cover story for Christianity Today called “Our Worship Is Turning Praise Into Secular Profit.” Kelsey McGinnis covers worship music for Christianity Today.  She also has a PhD in musicology from the University of Iowa.  You can find her article on the CT website here. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.  We get database and other technical support from Stephen DuBarry. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, popular Christian apologist John Ankerberg has been under scrutiny after a former fundraiser for the organization filed a whistleblower complaint and shared it with both the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability, and with MinistryWatch. Now, Ankerberg has sued the whistleblower.  We’ll have details. And Hillsong’s Brian Houston has pled guilty to DUI charges following a 2022 incident in California. Later in the program we’ll have the latest from The King’s College.  This Christian liberal arts college in New York City has been on the verge of closure, but dramatic developments last week are giving supporters of the school a glimmer of hope. We begin today with televangelist Perry Stone.  A grand jury in Tennessee has ruled that an FBI investigation into sexual misconduct claims has not produced enough evidence to charge him with crimes. FINAL THOUGHTS: I want to thank those of you who attended our “Ask Me Anything” webinar yesterday.  We had about 60 people on the webinar and we got more questions than I could get to, so we’ll definitely be doing this again soon. I also want to mention that June will mark the 25th anniversary of MinistryWatch.  We were founded by Rusty and Carol Leonard in June of 1998. Carol is still on our board. We plan to have both of them on the podcast in early June to talk about the early days of MinistryWatch, so I hope you’ll keep an eye out for that, and pray for continued faithfulness for us as we approach this important milestone birthday in the life of our ministry. 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, Steve Rabey, Kim Roberts, Anne Stych, Jessica Eturralde, and Warren Smith. Until next time, may God bless you.