MinistryWatch’s Top 10 Stories for the Month of November
The following stories had the most page views at the MinistryWatch website during the month of November. We present them here in a “countdown” format, from 10 to 1. The first few sentences of each story are reproduced below. To read the entire story, click on the link. To read the Top 25 stories of 2023, click here.
By Jessica Eturralde. On October 18, a Florida court dropped four of five felony charges after a lawsuit filed against a teacher charged with sexually abusing a teenage student was dropped due to a clause in the school’s enrollment contract. Last November, MinistryWatch reported on the case of Harriet Sugg, a teacher at First Academy in Orlando, Florida. A former student claimed Sugg sexually abused her and that the school failed to report the crimes.
By Daniel Ritchie. The former founding pastor of a church in Columbus, Ohio, has been charged with sexually assaulting a young child. George Bell, 72, the founding pastor of Anchor Baptist Church, was arraigned in Franklin County Common Pleas Court on four counts of rape and two counts of gross sexual imposition of a minor under the age of 10. According to court records, he pleaded not guilty to all charges and was released on a $20,000 bond.
By Kim Roberts. Below is a list of the 50 largest Christian ministries in the MinistryWatch database based on their revenue, which ranges from $77 million to $1.5 billion. This list does not include colleges and universities nor Christian foundations. These 50 Christian ministries represent a total of about $14.3 billion in annual revenue, and is based on revenue from the most recently available Form 990 from the IRS.
By James Russell. Four elders at Gateway Church, whose senior pastor Robert Morris stepped down earlier this year, have been removed after the results of a law firm’s investigation of sexual abuse allegations against the pastor were announced in a sermon on Sunday (Nov. 3). The removals are the latest responses by one of the country’s largest evangelical Christian churches to allegations brought by Cindy Clemishire in June that Gateway’s founding pastor, Robert Morris, 63, had molested her in the 1980s, when Morris was in his 20s and she was 12.
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By Kim Roberts. Gateway Church outside of Dallas is facing more issues after the church was shaken by allegations of sexual abuse by founding pastor Robert Morris. According to a video leaked on social media, elder Kenneth Fambro said the church’s tithe receipts are down 35-40%. “As a result, we really need to go and start looking at the ministry itself and looking into some staff reductions,” Fambro said in the video meant for the church staff. He assured listeners the leadership at Gateway wants to be as “clear and transparent” as possible.
By Kim Roberts. The American Life League (ALL) has renewed and revamped its Charity Watchlist over the last year to provide potential pro-life donors with information about the pro-life positions and/or values of well-known charitable organizations. Currently, the list evaluates over 150 organizations on their pro-life positions through their websites, confirmed news reports, and correspondence. ALL chooses the charities it evaluates based on inquiries and requests it receives, and it updates the watchlist regularly. Nearly 125,000 users have viewed the Charity Watchlist so far this year, Katie Brown, ALL’s national director told MinistryWatch.
By Tony Mator. Months after the suicide of Myrtle Beach Pastor John-Paul Miller’s wife sparked a public outcry and criminal investigation, police have filed their first charges. The alleged crime: tapping a protester’s hat with his cell phone. Local news WBTW reports that on Wednesday (Nov. 6), the Solid Rock at Market Commons pastor was arrested after confronting a woman who chased him down outside his church while calling him names.
By Jessica Eturralde. Investigators suspect the wife of a slain missionary in the West African country of Angola was the “mastermind” of his killing and was having an affair with one of the men she hired to kill him. She allegedly promised him thousands of dollars in exchange for slaying her husband. For three years, Beau and Jackie Shroyer, both 44, and their five children had lived in the “remote bush” of Angola. On October 25, police found Beau Shroyer brutally stabbed to death in his vehicle outside Lubango, where the family resided in a walled compound.
By Kim Roberts. A congregation in western Pennsylvania is continuing its fight to leave the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) because of disagreements over “certain theological, social, and religious issues,” but the presbytery has now indicted the pastor and the elders and scheduled a trial for November 23. After MinistryWatch published an article about the EPC, the administrative commission (AC) of the Presbytery of the Alleghenies filed additional charges and an indictment against Pastor Nate Devlin and the Beverly Heights Presbyterian Church session (or board of elders). The trial could result in punishment ranging from admonition to excommunication.
By Kim Roberts. Jason C. Yates, the former CEO of My Faith Votes, has been charged with eight felony counts of possession of child pornography. Each of the eight charges, filed in McLeod County, MN, carry a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a fine of $10,000. They note that Yates has a prior conviction and is a registered predatory offender. According to the court records, Yates was released on his own recognizance on November 4. As a condition of his release, he is to have no contact with persons under the age of 18.
