On This Date at MinistryWatch:
Rev. Jack Hayford died, reporting on Preemptive Love Coalition and Mark Driscoll began.
EDITOR’S NOTE: The “On This Date” column is a new addition to MinistryWatch. It was previously a section in Warren Smith’s “Weekly Review” column, but it proved so popular that we’re giving it its own space, with Kim Roberts taking the helm.
We do not want the “On This Date” column to be merely a walk down memory lane. We will use this column to update older stories. It will serve as a reminder that “ideas have consequences.” Events of the past often continue to resonate today.
ONE YEAR AGO: On Jan. 8, 2023, Rev. Jack Hayford, a popular Pentecostal leader and pioneer of the megachurch movement, died at age 88. Hayford led The Church on the Way, a church in California cities of Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys, for 30 years until 1999. Read more here.
TWO YEARS AGO: On Jan. 6, 2022, Tennessee megachurch pastor Tavner Smith said he was taking a month’s sabbatical to “spend some time with God” and get counseling after several staff members quit his church amid allegations he was having an affair with an employee. In August 2022, a bank put a notice of foreclosure on Venue Church, the congregation Smith leads, but he denied it was closing. Read more here.
FOUR YEARS AGO: On Jan. 2, 2020, MinistryWatch published its first article on Preemptive Love Coalition. This week, the organization severed ties with its founder Jeremy Courtney. Read our coverage here.
TEN YEARS AGO: On this Jan. 2, 2014, MinistryWatch reported that two Christian publishers had begun investigating charges of plagiarism against pastor Mark Driscoll. Read more here.
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