Weekly Review
Daily Audio Bible, The Finishing Fund depart ECFA
ECFA Changes 
The following organizations have had membership status changes in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
ADDITIONS: NONE
REMOVALS: Daily Audio Bible (Spring Hill, Tenn.), But God Ministries (Madison, Miss.), Fellowship of Fathers Foundation (Dallas, Tex.), Shepherds Heart International (Cleveland, Tenn.), The Champion Center of Las Vegas (Las Vegas, Nev.), The Finishing Fund (Prospect, Ken.), Firm Foundation in Christ Ministries (Beaverton, Ore.), C2k Ministries (Hartland (Wisc.)
On This Date at MinistryWatch
ONE YEAR AGO: For the first time since 2018, thousands of college students will gather a few days after Christmas to talk about God’s mission to the world and their place in it. Organizers of Urbana 2022, a missions conference run by the evangelical campus ministry InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, expect about 6,000 at the conference, to be held Dec. 28-31 in Indianapolis. That’s about 3,000 fewer students than organizers had first hoped for, said Greg Jao, chief communications officer for InterVarsity, and about 4,000 fewer than attended the Urbana 2018. Read more here.
TWO YEARS AGO. Preemptive Love Coalition, a 13-year-old Texas-based relief organization that enjoyed stellar growth and glowing coverage in mainstream and Christian media outlets—at least until one of those outlets began investigating its questionable claims—announced last Friday it had hired an outside agency to investigate numerous troubling charges leveled against founders/leaders Jeremy and Jessica Courtney. Preemptive Love Coalition subsequently cut all ties with the Courtneys and earlier this year merged with another ministry. Read more here.
FOUR YEARS AGO. The Rev. Howard-John Wesley recently told his congregation at historic Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, Va., that he will take a three-month sabbatical after 11 years in the pulpit, saying, “I am tired in my soul.” Wesley, 47, said on Dec. 1 that he needs to recuperate mentally and physically after leading four services each weekend for an average 4,500 attendees for more than a decade, and will step away Jan. 1 through April 1. Read more here.
Israel Giving. We have compiled a list of ministries working in Israel that we recommend. You will also find some ministries working there that we do NOT recommend. You can find the list here.
Drop A Dime On Us. Do you have a story idea for MinistryWatch? If so, send us an email. A lot of the stories we do originate from our readers and listeners. They send us news tips, press releases, emails, questions, and links. So, if you have a story you’d like us to cover, or a ministry that you think needs a closer look, please email us. Our email is [email protected]. That will come directly to my desk, and we’ll take it from there.
On The MinistryWatch Podcast
Churches Implicated in Haiti Arms Deal, YouVersion’s Top Verses, Bankruptcy Judge “Claws Back” Donations
On today’s program, a bizarre story out of Haiti. Haitian gangs are using churches to smuggle arms into the country. We’ll explain how that scheme works.
And a church in Alabama has to pay back nearly a half-million dollars given to it a decade ago because the man who gave the gift has now declared bankruptcy. And this church is not alone. We’ll have details.
Later in the program, we look at the popular bible app YouVersion. It’s released its annual list of the most searched Bible verses of the year.
We begin today with news that an engineer for one of the nation’s largest Christian broadcasters has been sued over misappropriation of funds.The Association of Professional Radio Engineers (APRE) has filed a suit against Shane Toven, a senior broadcast engineer employed by Educational Media Foundation. Educational Media Foundation is the parent company of the K-Love radio network. Listen here.
Access to MinistryWatch content is free. However, we hope you will support our work with your prayers and financial gifts. To make a donation, click here.
MinistryWatch and Sex Crimes. We write a lot about pastors and ministry leaders involved in sex crimes. That’s why I thought it might be a good time to re-post this story, which explains why we think covering these crimes are necessary: Why MinistryWatch Reports on Sex Crimes. As always, your feedback is welcome.
Salary Data Now In MinistryWatch Database. We now have salary information for 4,000 executives in our database posted in our profiles. So check out this new addition by clicking on the red button at the top of this page, or here. That takes you to our database. The search engine is right there, and you can type in the name of a ministry you’re interested in and our profile will pop right up – now, with compensation information for the top executives.
If you’d like to see who the highest paid executives are, take a look at our recently published lists of Highly Paid Ministry Executives and Highly Paid Christian College and University Executives.
Audio Version of Faith-Based Fraud Now Available. Thanks to those of you who made my new book Faith-Based Fraud a best-seller in several Amazon categories this week. It’s now available in paperback and e-book versions. To get your copy, click here. This week, the new audio version released. You can get that from Audible by clicking here.
MinistryWatch Video. In closing, a reminder that we have created a new, short (3.5 minutes) video that explains what we do here at MinistryWatch, and why. If you’re new to MinistryWatch, I hope you’ll check it out. To find it, click here.
A Guide To Giving For Disaster Relief. When disaster hits, Christians give. But where they give can make a big difference? Which organizations are most effective in these post-disaster situations? MinistryWatch has published a list of organizations that are doing relief work and which have an “A” Transparency Grade and a 3-, 4-, or 5-star rating for Financial Efficiency. It’s a list of about 30 ministries, and you can find it on the front page of our website. I’ll also include a link in the show notes to this program. Link to list HERE.
Ukraine Giving. If you want to give specifically to ministries working in and near Ukraine, click here. We posted this link before, but we’ve added a few new ministries recently.
Maui Giving. If you want to give specifically to ministries working to provide relief in Maui, click here.
MinistryWatch In The News. MinistryWatch is often called upon by Christian and secular media to comment on what is going on in the evangelical world. You can find some of these news reports here.
