MinistryWatch Podcast

On today’s program, we take a closer look at the “He Gets Us” media campaign.  We’ll also share with you some of the highlights of a couple of MinistryWatch investigations.  One of them was a close look at Glory of Zion, a Dallas based ministry.  We also take a deep dive into a Colorado ministry called Love the Least. We begin today with news from Knoxville, Tennessee.  In an unusual move, a judge said an alleged rape victim is going to have to use his legal name in his lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese there. A Few Closing Words…. If you give to MinistryWatch during the month of February, we’ll send them a copy of the book “Handling Allegations in a Ministry” by Theresa Lynn Sidebotham.  This is a valuable resource for pastors, elders, deacons, ministry leaders, and active and involved church members and ministry donors.  It’s our thank you gift for a donation of any size to MinistryWatch this month.  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 Jessica Eturralde, Kim Roberts, Shannon Cuthrell, Bob Smietana, Steve Rabey, Alejandra Molina, Christina Darnell, and Rod Pitzer. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s MinistryWatch EXTRA episode, we’re featuring a recent interview I had with pastor and author Jason Jimenez. Jason has served as a pastor and ministry leader, and his books include The Bible’s Answer To Live’s 100 Biggest Questions, which he co-authored with Dr. Norman Geisler. He is also the author of Challenging Conversations:  A Practical Guide to Discuss Controversial Topics in the Church. Jason also leads Stand Strong Ministries, and he often posts helpful videos on Christian worldview and apologetics issues. I want to have Jason on the program today because of one of those videos. Jason recorded a short, 13-minute video about a story we’ve been covering here at MinistryWatch, and that’s the Matt Chandler story. If you don’t know that story, here it is in a nutshell.  Matt Chandler is the well known pastor of The Village Church, a megachurch in Dallas.  Chandler was also a founder and played a prominent leadership role in the Acts 29 church planting network.  He recently took a sabbatical from his church following accusations that he had an inappropriate relationship with a woman in his church.  That relationship was not sexual in nature, but included text messages that Chandler admitted and his church elder board ultimately determined were too familiar for him to be having.  (You can read what MinistryWatch has written about Matt Chandler here.) After several months away from the pulpit, Chandler is now back.  And some have criticized him and his church for letting him come back too quickly.  However, Jason Jimenez has a different perspective.  He says this is an example of church discipline that worked. You can see Jason’s video here:  https://youtu.be/z_80I0k8kuo A Few Final Words:  Before we go, 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.  Or click here. And if you donate in the month of February, we’ll send you a really helpful book as our “thank you.”  The book is called Handing Allegations In A Ministry:  Responses and Investigations.  It’s by Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, who we will have on next week’s MinistryWatch EXTRA podcast. The producers for today’s program are Rich Roszel and Jeff McIntosh.   We get database, technical, and editorial support from Stephen DuBarry, Christina Darnell, Emily Kern, Rod Pitzer, and Casey Sudduth. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, new developments in the case against megachurch pastor John Blanchard, arrests in the vandalism of pregnancy care centers, and a Christian broadcaster’s radio towers were destroyed. We begin today with a story about sexual abuse allegations that concern the Salvation Army, one of the largest Christian organizations in the country. A final reminder that we’ll be doing a webinar next week called “How To Find and Read A Form 990.”  The webinar is free, but you do have to register.  And I should mention that we are limiting attendance to 100, and we’re nearly there.  So if you want to attend, or even if you can’t attend but want to watch the recording we’ll be making, you need to sign up soon.  It will take place on Feb. 1 at 4 pm ET.  Just check the daily MinistryWatch email for a link to the registration page. Don’t forget to rate and leave a comment on your podcast app. Not only do these comments help us know what you’re thinking so we can make improvements, but the more ratings and comments we have, your ratings help other people find us.  That’s a huge help to us, and it helps us expand our reach. Finally, here’s the story I mentioned on the program:  Why MinistryWatch Reports on Sex Crimes 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 Jessica Eturralde, Kim Roberts, Shannon Cuthrell, Jack Jenkins, Bob Smietana, Jessica Lea, Stephanie Martin, Scott Barkley, and Rod Pitzer. A special thanks to Baptist Press and ChurchLeaders-dot-com for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

Today I welcome back to the program Jane Schoen, and we are joined by her colleague Amy McClintock.  Jane and Amy are 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. Almost two years ago I reported 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 an 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 Jane in both January and August to get updates on the project.  And that’s what we are doing today.  The difference today is that Amy McClintock has joined SRG in a leadership role, so she will be joining Jane in today’s conversation. The very fact that Jane and 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 two years or so, I’ve written nearly two dozen articles on the industry and its practices, and I’ll have links to those articles below.  I encourage you to check them out. Before we go, 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 January, we’ll send you, as our thank you, a copy of Dr. Michael Kruger’s new book “Bully Pulpit.”  This book defines what spiritual abuse is, and is not, and provides practical and compassionate ways for dealing with spiritual abuse in the church.  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, Emily Kern, 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:   ECFA Charter Member, Wycliffe Associates, Resigns Membership While Under Review – March 7, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/ecfa-charter-member-wycliffe-associates-resigns-membership-while-under-review/   What Would Wycliffe Fly? – March 19, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/what-would-wycliffe-fly/   Wycliffe Associates Touts MAST, Print-On-Demand – April 15, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/wycliffe-associates-touts-mast-and-print-on-demand-program/   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/   American Bible Society Names Robert Briggs As President – June 30, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/american-bible-society-names-robert-l-briggs-as-president-and-ceo/   Key Executives Depart Wycliffe Associates – August 12, 2020 https://ministrywatch.com/key-executives-depart-wycliffe-associates/

On today’s program, Virginia megachurch pastor John Blanchard had sexual solicitation charges against him dropped, but protesters are showing up at his church and even the town’s police chief thinks the case was mishandled.  We’ll have details.  Also on today’s program, Open Doors releases its annual Watch List, which tracks persecution of Christians around the world.  This year’s conclusions are bleak.  We’ll explain why. We begin today with a lawsuit involving Bryan College that has been dragging on for more than five years.  In Closing:  I mention fairly constantly here at MinistryWatch the importance of the Form 990.  We use them every day here at MinsitryWatch, and we encourage donors to look at them before they give to a ministry.  In the past we’ve done a webinar entitled “How To Find and Read A Form 990.”  This webinar has proven so popular that we’ve repeated it three or four times over the past two years.  And we’re going to do it again.  It will take place on Feb. 1 at 4 pm ET.  Just check the daily MinistryWatch email for a link to the registration page.  It’s absolutely free, but you do need to register to get all the links and details. Don’t forget to rate and leave a comment on your podcast app. Not only do these comments help us know what you’re thinking so we can make improvements, but the more ratings and comments we have, your ratings help other people find us.  That’s a huge help to us, and it helps us expand our reach. 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 Jessica Eturralde, Anne Stych, Kim Roberts, Cheryl Mann Bacon, Emily McFarlan Miller, Dale Chamberlain, Adelle M. Banks, Jonathan Howe, Christina Darnell, and Rod Pitzer. A special thanks to The Christian Chronicle and ChurchLeaders.com for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

Hello everybody.  I’m Warren Smith, coming to you from Charlotte, North Carolina. Today’s episode is one of my periodic updates on how things are going here at MinistryWatch.  I hope you enjoy it. 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.  Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, one of the largest United Methodist churches in the country, and the largest in South Carolina, is preparing to leave the denomination.  And the Internal Revenue Service is far behind in its efforts to process Form 990s.  This backlog is a blow to transparency and accountability.  We’ll explain why.  And we remember pastor, author, and hymn writer Jack Hayford, who died last week at age 88.  We begin today with former Celebration Church pastor Stovall Weems.  He and his wife Kerri have settled with First Citizens Bank after a claim stating they defaulted over $700,000 in unpaid debt. A few final notes…  Last week I mentioned how grateful I was to those of you who contributed to our year-end fundraising campaign, but I didn’t have a final number.  Now I do.  We had what was for us an ambitious goal of $81,000 for the months of November and December combined.  We ended up raising about $87,000.  So, again, THANK YOU. Also, I mentioned earlier the importance of the Form 990.  We use them every day here at MinsitryWatch, and we encourage donors to look at them before they give to a ministry.  In the past we’ve done a webinar entitled “How To Find and Read A Form 990.”  This webinar has proven so popular that we’ve repeated it three or four times over the past two years.  And we’re going to do it again.  It will take place on Feb. 1 at 4 pm ET.  Just check the daily MinistryWatch email for a link to the registration page.  It’s absolutely free, but you do need to register to get all the links and details. Finally, it’s been a while since I’ve asked you, our listeners, to rate or leave a comment on your podcast app.  But our listenership has nearly doubled in the past year, and if you are new to the podcast, please do leave us a rating and a comment.  Not only do these comments help us know what you’re thinking so we can make improvements, but the more ratings and comments we have, the more visible the podcast becomes to search engines who make those automated recommendations that you sometimes see when you are listening to podcasts.  In other words, your ratings help other people find us.  That’s a huge help to us, and it helps us expand our reach. 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 Jessica Eturralde, Anne Stych, Kim Roberts, Andrea Suozzo, Yonat Shimron, Alejandra Molina, Christina Darnell, and Rod Pitzer. A special thanks to ProPublica for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, Open Doors USA is changing its name and its focus.  We’ll have details.  Plus, the Evangelical Council for Abuse Prevention rolls out an accreditation program designed to help ministries protect children.  And it’s a new year, and MinistryWatch has published its annual list of Highly Paid Ministry Executives.  We’ll have a preview of the list later in the program.  We begin today with more news about the slow-moving breakup of the United Methodist Church. A big thank you to those of you who showed up for us at year end.  We had what was for us an ambitious goal of $81,000 for the months of November and December combined.  We met that goal, with room to spare.  I don’t know exactly what the final tally is, since we are still getting checks postmarked Dec. 31 in the mail, I will share with you a final number next week.  But until then, please know that I’m grateful, humbled, and a bit relieved – all at once.  So, again, THANK YOU. Oh, and one final note before we go.  In the past we’ve done a webinar entitled “How To Find and Read A Form 990.”  This webinar has proven so popular that we’ve repeated it three or four times over the past two years.  And we’re going to do it again.  It will take place on Feb. 1 at 4 pm ET.  Just check the daily MinistryWatch email for a link to the registration page.  It’s absolutely free, but you do need to register to get all the links and details. 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, Jessica Eturralde, Anne Stych, Steve Rabey, Kathryn Post, Mark Tooley, Emily McFarlan Miller, Christina Darnell—and you, Warren. A special thanks to WORLD Opinions for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s special year-end program, Natasha and I will countdown the Top 10 stories of 2022. That’s right.  We’ll start with #10, and work our way to #1. But before we get started, here are a few things you should know. The first thing I’ll say is that we have organized this list by the number of page views it got on our site.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they are the most important stories of the year.  But I have a high degree of trust in our readers, and I think that all the stories on this list are important for one reason or another. I also want to mention that we published nearly a thousand stories this year, and our website got about two-and-a-half million page views.  We had nearly 500 stories that got at least a thousand page views.  But the stories on this list are at the next level.  Every story that I’m going to mention today got at least 10,000 page views during the year, and our #1 story got more than 20,000 page views. We’ll be posting the Top 25 stories of the year today at the MinistryWatch website.  That list includes stories about Rick Warren, Jerry Falwell Jr., Hillsong, and Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.  Important stories that got a lot of attention in 2022. Also, I’d like to point out that the diversity of stories on this list – longer thought pieces, lists curated from our database, and breaking news – are perhaps the best representation I could share of both the diversity of stories we do here at MinistryWatch – and of your tastes as readers and listeners. And that takes me to this bit of what I hope you will forgive, and this some shameless self-promotion as we approach year-end. We couldn’t bring you the stories we’ve talked about today without your help.  We take no money from the ministries we cover.  We don’t accept advertising.  We don’t have one of those frustrating paywalls.  Our content is completely free. It’s free, but it’s not cheap.  And December is the most important month of the year for our fundraising efforts.  So if you are thinking about a year-end gift to MinistryWatch – why wait until December 31.  You can take some of the drama out of the process by making a donation today.   Just go to www.MinistryWatch.com and hit the donate tab at the top of the page.  It will take only a minute, and your gift will have a significant impact on the work we do here. 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 whose stories made this special year-end list include:  contributed to today’s program include Bob Smietana, Phil Cooke, Barry Bowen, and Kim Roberts – all of whom had one story on this list.  Anne Stych had two stories on the list.  Warren Smith had four stories on this year’s Top Ten list. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, two Florida ministry leaders that we first reported on during the summer have been arrested and charged with defrauding taxpayers out of $8-million in Payroll Protection Program funds. And in Virginia, The Family Foundation, a nonprofit organization that promotes Christian values, was denied service at a restaurant in Richmond, this month on the basis of the group’s position on abortion and same-sex marriage.  We’ll have the details on both these stories later in the program. We begin today with news that a Presbyterian church in the Chicago area is being investigated for firing an employee when she complained of gender discrimination. I want our listeners to know that this will be our last regular podcast episode of the year.  We’ll drop one more episode between Christmas and New Year’s – it will be an episode that highlights the top 10 stories of the year. So, since this is our last regular episode, I wanted to say how grateful we are to those of you who are regular listeners to the podcast.  We have nearly doubled our listenership in the past year and given all the podcast options out there, I want you to know that I’m honored that you consider this podcast worth your time each week. If you are a regular listener, and you’d like to see this podcast and the work of MinistryWatch survive and thrive, I’d like to humbly suggest that you make a year-end gift to MinistryWatch.  We are not a mega-ministry, and we don’t aspire to become one.  Our budget is less than $500,000 per year, and we are trying to raise $81,000 by the end of this month.  We’re about half-way there, which is good, but that also means that we have a long way to go. If you’d like to pitch in to ensure that MinistryWatch remains a viable endeavor, please go to MinistryWatch.com and it the “donate” button at the top of the page. Oh, yes, and one more thing:  I hope you have a Merry Christmas! 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 Kim Roberts, Anne Stych, Jessica Eturralde, Dale Chamberlain, Alejandra Molina, and Christina Darnell. A special thanks to The Christian Chronicle and ChurchLeaders.com for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.