Harvest Bible Chapel Treats Believers as Non-Believers; ECFA to Review Finances

Image: James MacDonald, pastor Harvest Bible Chapel

Recently, Harvest Bible Chapel sued bloggers  and a journalist who reported about the church. Since then various questions have been raised about why a church would sue fellow believers. In a statement dated yesterday but apparently uploaded today, the church addressed the lawsuit and their problem with journalist Julie Roys.

Q. “Why did we proceed with the lawsuit now, given that the attack bloggers had not published since December 2017?”

A. As of June 2017, the attack bloggers had not published since January of 2014 due to a period of relative peace in our church. Then, as we were concluding a difficult process of separation from leading HBF and all the churches we had planted, the attack bloggers began to publish in earnest doing great damage through outright falsehoods. This, after more than four years of silence and with significant detrimental impact upon treasured relationships in our own church and among our church plants. So after sixteen months of reflection and consultation among Christian leaders outside our church family, we decided to move past self-examination and the many changes we had made and take action to protect our church family. We agreed that the bloggers refusal to come under Matthew 18’s
prescription for conflict resolution among believers, freed us to “treat them as a non-believer” (Matthew 18:17) and seek the legal protection afforded us in the civil authorities “ordained by God for the punishment of wrongdoers” (Romans 13:1-6).

In the statement, HBC’s leaders makes it clear how they feel about journalist Julie Roys.

The issue with Julie Roys is her lack of objectivity and how she came to focus on Harvest Bible Chapel, a church she has never participated in. Our awareness of her attempts to stir up gossip, sow discord, inflame old animosities, and confront sensitive matters with specific church families in order to discredit the church led us to include her in the lawsuit.

In some circles, what HBC describes might be called reporting and fact finding but I guess we will have to wait for Roys’ article in WORLD to find out.

 

Image: By Esther 5000 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48825134

9 thoughts on “Harvest Bible Chapel Treats Believers as Non-Believers; ECFA to Review Finances”

  3. “after sixteen months of reflection and consultation among Christian leaders outside our church family, we decided to move past self-examination and the many changes we had made and take action to protect our church family.”

    1. So they admit to making many changes based on the criticisms of the “attack bloggers?” Can’t we infer the so called “attack bloggers” were right in at least some of their criticisms because you’re making changes based on the criticisms?

    2. “consultation among Christian leaders outside our church family” – Who? Mark Driscoll? Tullian Tchividjian? Ravi Zacharias?

    3. “protect our church family.” If your church is a family – it’s dysfunctional. Why are you disowning and suing your family once they leave or bring up concerns and criticisms? Bad dad. Reminds me of how Mark Driscoll abandoned his church “family” once they wanted him to be accountable and not just Lord and Master. That’s the expected result of a dysfunctional family when the abused and manipulated work up enough courage to confront the tyrant.

  4. The new Pharisees are back trying to silence opposition by branding those exposing corruption and evil as “the devil’s workers.” I get tired of all this unrepentant narcissism in action by self-proclaimed “Christian” leaders. These guys are just jerks like the original bunch of Pharisees were. Jesus was humble and He spoke out against religious corruption and their love of money. These guys love the money, the spotlight and their inflamed egos. At their age for many, like MacDonald, they are looking at the Judgment Seat of Jesus Christ coming for them fast. Everyone dies and gets judged. Even Presidents of the US cannot put it off for ever. Their is actually nothing “Christian” about any of this that they say or do.

  5. I’m really glad you are writing about this story. I think it’s really interesting and won’t end well for HBC.

  6. This meeting with ECFA could be quite significant. GFA USA tried a similar tactic. Now that Julie Roys has brought issues to ECFA’s attention, Van Drunen and Busby cannot simply succumb to a charm offensive. They risk their own reputation and their entire business model to endorse organizations who do not fulfill their minimum requirements. When those orgs further engage in unChristlike behavior, ECFA needs to ask themselves if sticking their necks out for a hothead who loves concealment, like James MacDonald, is worth the $9K they get from them in fees.

    Thanks to this lawsuit, people are paying attention to this story. Those same people will be watching ECFA’s response. ECFA is smart enough to know that Roys’ World article will go public at some point, highlighting how HBC is likely not in compliance with ECFA standards. HBC assumes they are bullet-proof because they use Capin Crouse as their auditors. They also replaced their last CFO Fred Adams (who resigned Dec 2017) with Jeff Sharda, a Partner at Capin Crouse, to help keep those clean opinions coming.

    The reality is that under Capin Crouse, HBC’s internal controls were so lax that an IT guy was able to steal at least $270K from them and likely far more since a fraud audit is just now underway which will extend the scope of review beyond the one year that yielded the $270K in theft. The law firm hired to oversee this isn’t using Capin Crouse. That doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in Capin Crouse or HBC.

    Bland Garvey, likewise, bestowed clean opinions on GFA for almost a decade. After Warren Throckmorton started covering the problems at GFA, Bland Garvey wisely disengaged GFA and hired one of the top litigators in DFW to represent them.

    ECFA only stays in business for as long as their seal of approval stands for something. I hope they think long and hard about this.

  7. This meeting with ECFA could be quite significant. GFA USA tried a similar tactic. Now that Julie Roys has brought issues to ECFA’s attention, Van Drunen and Busby cannot simply succumb to a charm offensive. They risk their own reputation and their entire business model to endorse organizations who do not fulfill their minimum requirements. When those orgs further engage in unChristlike behavior, ECFA needs to ask themselves if sticking their necks out for a hothead who loves concealment, like James MacDonald, is worth the $9K they get from them in fees.

    Thanks to this lawsuit, people are paying attention to this story. Those same people will be watching ECFA’s response. ECFA is smart enough to know that Roys’ World article will go public at some point, highlighting how HBC is likely not in compliance with ECFA standards. HBC assumes they are bullet-proof because they use Capin Crouse as their auditors. They also replaced their last CFO Fred Adams (who resigned Dec 2017) with Jeff Sharda, a Partner at Capin Crouse, to help keep those clean opinions coming.

    The reality is that under Capin Crouse, HBC’s internal controls were so lax that an IT guy was able to steal at least $270K from them and likely far more since a fraud audit is just now underway which will extend the scope of review beyond the one year that yielded the $270K in theft. The law firm hired to oversee this isn’t using Capin Crouse. That doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in Capin Crouse or HBC.

    Bland Garvey, likewise, bestowed clean opinions on GFA for almost a decade. After Warren Throckmorton started covering the problems at GFA, Bland Garvey wisely disengaged GFA and hired one of the top litigators in DFW to represent them.

    ECFA only stays in business for as long as their seal of approval stands for something. I hope they think long and hard about this.

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