MinistryWatch Podcast

The U.S. is debating the reauthorization of PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief. The 20-year-old government program has now spent more than $85 billion. PEPFAR has been championed by evangelicals, and evangelical ministries have been major beneficiaries of funding. But should funding continue? Some conservative and evangelical groups are saying no, and others say that new restrictions should be placed on the program to ensure that taxpayer dollars do not fund abortion or abortion-adjacent programs. In today’s MinistryWatch EXTRA episode, we look at some of the issues. This episode is based on Warren Smith’s “Editor’s Notebook” column that you can find here.

On today’s program, a former president of a Southern Baptist state convention is being investigated for sex crimes. Also on today’s program, Biblica. The organization formerly known as the International Bible Society has seen a remarkable comeback, and we’ll take a closer look. We also examine a ministry in Arkansas that is helping kids who age out of the foster care system. It’s a huge problem in this country, and they may have a solution. We begin today with news that Jerry Falwell Jr. has sued Liberty University…again. FINAL THOUGHTS Just a reminder that MinistryWatch is a donor supported organization, and if you make a gift during the month of August, you’ll receive a digital subscription to WORLD Magazine. A digital subscription to WORLD would cost you more than $50 if you went to their website, but you get decide how much you want to give, though of course we hope you’ll be generous. 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 Daniel Ritchie, Paul Clolery, Adelle M. Banks, Jessica Eturralde, Rafa Oliveira, Steve Rabey, Bob Smietana, Jack Jenkins, Christina Darnell, and Rod Pitzer. A special thanks to The NonProfit Times for contributing material for this week’s podcast. Until next time, may God bless you.

Every month or six weeks MinistryWatch President Warren Smith drops a short episode updating our listeners on what’s going on at MinistryWatch. On today’s episode he fills you in on some of our recent initiatives, what to expect in the next month, and he includes a financial update. So if you’re one of those folk who want an “insider’s peek” at what’s happening at MinistryWatch, today’s episode is for you. The producers for today’s program are Jeff McIntosh and Rich Roszel. We get technical, editorial, and other support from Christina Darnell, Casey Sudduth, Stephen Dubarry, and Kim Roberts. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, Tim Ballard—hero of the hit movie ‘Sound of Freedom’—has been removed from two nonprofits, one of which is Operation Underground Railroad. We’ll have details. Also, the Bible translation organization Wycliffe Associates is asking for big donations, but giving few details on how they plan to use the money. And, tips for donors wanting to give to anti-trafficking ministries. We begin today with news from Texas, as the debate over women pastors has now moved to the state level. Delegates to the Baptist General Convention of Texas adopted a statement last week urging its staff to affirm women in “ministerial and leadership roles.” 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. We’ve got just a couple of days left in the month, and we’re a few thousand dollars short of our goal, so if you’ve been thinking about a gift, now would be a great time. 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 Kim Roberts, Jessica Eturralde, Adelle Banks, Steve Rabey, Christina Darnell, Rod Pitzer—and you, Warren. Until next time, may God bless you.

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.