On This Date at MinistryWatch:

YWAM Founder dies, Brett Favre part of scandal, Warren Cole Smith named MinistryWatch president

ONE YEAR AGO: On October 9, 2023, MinistryWatch reported that Loren Cunningham, the globe-trotting founder of Youth With A Mission, a large, decentralized ministry that made missions work accessible to people overlooked by many missions agencies, died in Hawaii at the age of 88. Read more here.

TWO YEARS AGO:  On October 1, 2022, MinistryWatch reported that NFL star Brett Favre has become the public face of a Mississippi scandal involving a Christian ministry and misspent welfare money. Read more here.

FOUR YEARS AGO:  On October 8, 2020, MinistryWatch reported that Pastor John MacArthur organized a petition drive to deem church “essential” in the wake of COVID shutdowns. Eventually, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted to authorize a $400,000 payment to settle a legal battle with Grace Community Church over MacArthur’s defiance of COVID-19 restrictions in the early months of the pandemic. Read more here.  

FIVE YEARS AGO:  On October 16, 2019, MinistryWatch announced that veteran journalist and Christian ministry leader Warren Cole Smith will be its new president. MinistryWatch is dedicated to transparency and accountability among Christian ministries. Founded in 1998 by Rusty and Carol Leonard, the ministry maintains a database with two decades of financial and other information from the largest Christian ministries in the country. Read more here. 

NINE YEARS AGO:  On October 5, 2015, MinistryWatch reported that the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA) terminated the membership of Gospel for Asia for violations of ECFA standards. The termination came after a lengthy review of the church planting ministry’s practices. In May 2024, GFA founder K.P. Yohannon died after being struck by a car near the ministry’s headquarters. Read more here.