Author: The Diaspora Editors

March 26, 2015 * Gayle’s Investigation Final Report is emailed via KP

The Final Report from Gayle’s investigation is emailed to the Diaspora via KP.

Read our response to this report in our April 2, 2015 post.

“That individual contact has not been afforded to us by you, which, to us, neutralizes your accusations. …We send this as our final report and communication and now consider the matter closed.”

March 26, 2015

To: J. D. xxxxx:

In response to your letter of September 3, 2014, after many hours of investigation, intense prayer and examination of heart, we are broken-hearted and repentant that we damaged by our actions and attitudes any believer for whom we had responsibility by relationship. We have proposed, and still do, to go wherever we need to and do all within our power to apologize and seek forgiveness and healing with anyone and everyone on your list who may have suffered damage of spirit or heart from us. That individual contact has not been afforded to us by you, which, to us, neutralizes your accusations. But, we have done all we can do about the past until freedom is granted to us.

We have, from the beginning, made our new headquarters fully open to the community and have purposely served the community. We do not have church services in our chapel. We do encourage workers to go to local churches, be a part of them and receive any and all counseling from the local pastors and churches, except in very rare cases. Our gates are left open and visitors are welcomed and shown whatever they wish to see and questions are answered. We are, indeed, a community and fellowship, but no one would be able to find evidence of being a cult.

Your final combined declaration about the structure and presentation of the personnel and headquarters in India, coupled only with a photo was misapplied about an ordination service whose presentation is required by the state for proof of ordination, otherwise one could be imprisoned for doing religious activities limited to the ordained. Other parts of that accusation could not be verified in the manner in which you made them, and have been dropped as worth considering.

Consequently, we feel that your other accusations are without foundation in terms of the fulfilling of our call to enlarge the Kingdom of God. We also feel that your demand that we gather the boards of the USA and Canada to meet with you in order to escape your threats is excessive, impractical and counter to the commitment of our time to getting the Gospel to those who have not heard. We do not intend to call for or participate in such a board meeting.

Therefore, we send this as our final report and communication and now consider the matter closed.

Gayle

In behalf of the Board of Gospel for Asia

From: K.P. Yohannan
Sent: March-26-15 12:24 PM
To: [GFA Offices, GFA Board]
Subject: FW: Final Report

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

I just received the final report that Gayle did on behalf of the USA Board of Directors that addresses JD’s appeal to the Board. I am forwarding it for you to see. The text from the attachment is below in case you have trouble opening it.

Let us continue to pray for all of our brothers and sisters who are a part of this situation, that we could sincerely be reconciled as one (John 17:21).

Thank you for serving our Lord and bringing the Gospel to the unreached in our generation.

In His grace,

K.P. Yohannan

March 25, 2015 – Diaspora responds to KP’s apology to Troy

Diaspora responds to KP’s apology to Diaspora member Troy.

“What he is hoping for, along with all of us in the Diaspora, is your repentance—a change in mindset and behavior from you and your leaders as well as public acknowledgement of your sins against staff and deceptive practices toward donors.”

To: [KP Yohannan]
Cc: [GFA Leaders, Arms-Length Board Members]
Date: Wed, Mar 25, 2015 at 2:36 PM
Subject: Troy
From: gfadiaspora.com

Dear Brother KP,

We are writing you on behalf of Troy, and by his request.

While we understand your reaching out to Troy to ask forgiveness, he has already forgiven you and is not asking for an apology.

What he is hoping for, along with all of us in the Diaspora, is your repentance—a change in mindset and behavior from you and your leaders as well as public acknowledgement of your sins against staff and deceptive practices toward donors.

Until this happens we do not believe there can be true reconciliation with anyone individually in our group, nor do we believe GFA is fulfilling its mission in a manner pleasing to the Lord.

Please contact us at this email if you desire further conversation with the GFA Diaspora.

Sincerely,
The Diaspora

March 23, 2015 – Diaspora introduces web page to respond to comments and questions

To continue a dialogue with GFA staff, prompted by a response to our March 17 email, we invite them to visit our “Comments & Responses” page.

“We hope you will consider our responses. May this discussion be fruitful for all.”

From: GFA Diaspora <info@gfadiaspora.com>
Date: Mon, Mar 23, 2015 at 5:36 AM
Subject: Re: GFA Diaspora response
To: [Hiro and those he Cc’d]

Dear Hiro,

Thank you for taking the time to reply to our concerns. We appreciate that you value people’s feelings and acknowledge that “some harsh things were said and done over the years.” You also ask us to “stop this campaign” and made a number of comments on which we would like to further dialogue.

We know we are not perfect, and our hearts are open to scripture-based correction. It is good for the Body of Christ to discuss matters of serving Him. “Come, let us reason together.” Therefore, our responses to people’s questions and comments, including yours, are posted on a new GFA Diaspora page called Comments & Responses.

We hope you will consider our responses. May this discussion be fruitful for all.

Sincerely,

The Diaspora

Our non-public website uses the following anonymous login:
www.gfadiaspora.com/comments-and-responses
Username: gfa
Password: redacted
Please keep this confidential to GFA staff only.

On Wed, Mar 18, 2015 at 5:05 PM, Hiro _____ wrote:

JD, Et al.,

Thank you for sending me a link to your GFA Diaspora site. It has provided the background for why so many people have felt hurt when they left on their own accord or were asked to leave. I’ve read through every page, every attached document and even heard from a couple of you first hand.

I know that many of you have experienced genuine pain, of a type that couldn’t possibly come from someone you didn’t love. I believe some harsh things were said and done over the years.

For those who don’t know me, I’ve been supporting missionaries with GFA since 1989, and sharing the opportunity about GFA to everyone I came in contact during my military career. (Which is a lot of people since we moved every 2-4 years.) I was a volunteer before there even was a volunteer department. I’ve been on full time staff since my retirement in 2011. I was, and remain, a major donor and don’t receive a salary. Even so, since coming on staff, I’ve had some harsh things said to me as well, one time in love, other times… not so much. I’ve experienced stress and wanted to “give up” many times. (I’ve never thought of quitting GFA though, they’d have to fire me.)

One of the grievances you mentioned is not portraying the liturgical nature of Believers Church to GFA supporters. I’m not convinced that is necessary, after all, many of our supporters come from a KJV Bible only background but no one expects us to specifically tell everyone that we are not printing English KJV bibles in Asia! Liturgical churches are what’s recognized as “church” over there. However, leadership has expressed openness about sharing the liturgical nature with our donor base. I think you’ll agree this should be done in a wise manner, which usually includes slowly. You don’t turn a multimillion dollar, multinational organization around on a dime. Organizations and bureaucracies, by their nature, are SLOW. This is a good thing, if they weren’t, the organization would be whipped around by every change of opinion and circumstance so that it could not stand.

It seems most of the grievances were centered on the “authority” issue, as people took offense (angered or hurt) when leadership tried to exercise authority over your families or your activities during off duty times. There is legitimate debate as to the correctness or error of this teaching, even in evangelical circles, with some fuzzy line about when it turn’s “cultish”. http:// www openbible info/topics/spiritual_authority , http:// www worldchangers org/monthly-UnderstandingSpiritualAuthority.aspx I’ll let people more spiritual than myself delve into these issues. However, it seems to me that the problem is not whether someone has that level of authority over your life or not, but in the taking of offense when authority is exercised. Anger rising up within us if leadership tries to tell our wives what to do, getting into conflicts because others are not doing things the way we think they should be done, taking offense when someone exercises authority in a harsh, haphazard way. In my mind, leadership trying to exercise those authorities, if they believe them to be biblical, are not sinning, they MAY be in error, but not sin. However, taking offense and causing conflict and disunity among the brethren IS sin. In fact, these accusations (judgments in other words) against leadership is specifically warned against in James 4:11-12.

We should also remember that they are people, just as we are. They may be having a bad day, going through a season where their thinking is dominated by circumstances around them, or just plain inexperienced dealing with certain issues. Hypothetically, how would we react if we spent all day hearing about thousands of our people who just became homeless and jobless due to flooding and someone asked whether they’d get a 3 or 4 bedroom house in the new campus? How would we react if we spent weeks dealing with people attacking everything we said in the field or here in the states and someone came up to you with another grievance? How would we council people inquiring about doing certain things if you had previous experience of many others doing it and coming away with disastrous results? What would we do if we think we just learned a new insight from the Word and had the opportunity to share it with others in your circle of influence?

It seems to me that, Brother KP has taken steps to address your concerns with multiple meetings, phone calls and offers of arbitration. He’s spent considerable time with his leadership board on this topic as well. In my mind, this is unprecedented access! Brother KP is president and founder of a multimillion dollar, multinational organization and head of one of the fastest growing churches in Asia with the largest missionary force ever assembled. Do you realize:

· Believers Church has more active missionaries than the entire militaries of over 40 nations? http:// www.globalfirepower com/active-military-manpower.asp

· There are move baptized members in Believers church than there are people in 60 nations? http:// www.worldometers info/world-population/population-by-country/

· Believers Church has more people serving in it than the largest corporations in the world? http:// www.statista com/statistics/264671/top-20-companies-based-on-number-of-employees/

· That GFA has a lower employee turnover rate than most ministries (Ave. 24% per annum) http:// nccs.urban org/resources/faq.cfm or churches? (Ave. 10% per annum) http:// www.christianitytoday com/le/1993/winter/93l2103.html

It is unreasonable to expect him to answer your demands for written responses within seven days, organize meetings with people scattered across the continent or answer your emails immediately, all while leading such a huge movement, just to address your grievances. How many mayors, governors, presidents, CEO’s would have given you this amount of attention?

I understand that you are saying you are doing this for the good of the ministry and the staff here. However, what good are you actually accomplishing? By sending this email out to all the staff, all you’re doing is sowing seeds of doubt, shaking people’s confidence in what they feel God has led them to do and stirring up conflict. Think of the time, energy, and finances (not to mention pain) already expended on this issue. That is time, energy and finances that are no longer available to reach the lost. How many people are you willing to sacrifice to have your demands met? This isn’t just about staff at the US and Canadian offices. This is ammunition the enemy can AND WILL use to slow down or even stop people from getting SAVED!

PLEASE, PLEASE, stop this campaign. I trust leadership here has already heard and prayed about your concerns. I know they are taking active steps to change some things, provide training in others and putting still other safeguards in place to help stop hurting people in the future. Just hearing these concerns has already changed their hearts and behavior and Bro KP has already apologized to you for things he or other leaders have done. They have already reached out to each grieved party to try to make amends. Do you REALLY need a cross-continent group get together for him to publicly say everything was his fault to be recorded and used by the enemy? One last batch of statistics, 78% of pastors surveyed at a pastors conference in 2005 – 2006 said they were forced to resign from at least one church and 80% said it was due to conflicts that the pastor could not resolve (the rest had this reason as one of thetop three issues). http:// www.intothyword org/apps/articles/?articleid=36562 Do you want Bro K.P. to quit or be fired?

Sincerely,

Your Simply Silly, Speedy, Shipping Servants

“If your personal offense is between you and any other fellow believer, then hearing those stories is none of my business.”

Thank you—good comment. We should not gossip. Gossip is speaking of private things to others, without permission, outside of the bounds of the immediate relationship—often with speculation and judgment. Doing this is unbiblical and betrays the trust of the immediate relationship and tarnishes—perhaps falsely—the reputation of the person being spoken about.

However, after attempting the first two steps of Mat 18:15-16, the Bible then instructs us to tell it to the church. (Mat 18:17). Also, after sharing our accusations against an elder with multiple witnesses (1 Ti 5:19), we are then to rebuke in the presence of all. (1 Ti 5:20).

Our hope was to avoid having to do so; yet because our concerns were not legitimately addressed by GFA after giving them generous time, we needed to follow the next step and share with the church (which we first limited to GFA only) the reports of systemic sins that go beyond personal offenses as evidence to disclose all that has transpired.

“They have already reached out to each grieved party to try to make amends.”

Many of us already had quite a few one-on-one discussions with leadership while still on staff about these concerns. In fact, some of us were fired and immediately escorted out of the office for raising them. The GFA leadership team lied when they said that none of us did this, just as they lied when they claimed that every one of us had an exit interview.

After receiving our letter, they did reach out to each grieved party attempting one-on-one discussions, but when we each responded thanking them for reaching out, we requested a group meeting. They initially promised such a meeting, but then refused to accept our invitations to meet and instead told us the board would investigate and get a response to us. Many months have passed and we still have not received any such response from the board.

How many times do they have to tell obvious lies before people stop implicitly trusting them? God will hold each of us accountable for how we conducted our lives, and when we are at the judgment seat, KP won’t be there with us.

KP is not a mediator between God and man, nor is any other Christian leader. Each staff member will be held responsible and judged for committing sin while doing something KP asks of them, including passive sins such as failing to love one’s wife as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself for her, or failing to go where God asks.

Also, KP is not a prophet. Each one is accountable for one’s own decisions and not obligated to follow KP in all areas of life. “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5).

This authority issue is the root of the false teaching at GFA. How we long for all to see the damage it causes! This is how KP manipulates his staff into doing his will, regardless of whether or not he is in step with God’s will.

“Just hearing these concerns has already changed the leaders’ hearts and behavior and Bro. KP has already apologized to you.”

We wonder if this is what KP has told the staff. But the truth is he hasn’t apologized to any of us for any of the specific sins we addressed in the letter. He gave generic blanket apologies for “hurting people” by some “mistakes” he’d made, but to this day he has refused to admit wrong on any of the points we raised or have any further discussion with us about it. He handed the process off to the board and they have not met with us or discussed these matters with us either.

“I trust GFA leadership has already heard and prayed about your concerns. I know they are taking active steps to change some things, provide training in others and putting still other safeguards in place to help stop hurting people in the future.”

Please consider examining leadership and the claims against them, instead of simply trusting they are right no matter what. How serious of a report would you have to hear before you felt obligated to examine the evidence on your own to see if they are speaking truth?

The scripture commends the Bereans as having noble character because they did NOT trust what Paul said but examined it themselves to see if it was true. “Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.” (Acts 17:11)

When you read the testimonies you will see that KP has lied to the staff many times. Even Troy’s recent testimony describes how KP fired him and then lied about it to staff saying it was Troy’s decision, due to family problems, when in reality it was entirely GFA’s decision. Pat also lied to his staff about the reasons why Tammy was at home. There is a pattern of lying among leadership, and that is a mark of unrepentant sin.

And as for steps GFA is taking, we welcome them, but we have not heard of any of them. Have they publicly repented to those they have hurt? Have they admitted their guilt publicly in these five areas of concern? Have they worked to inform the donors of the true nature of Believer’s Church, stating that they were wrong to deceive? All of these things would show real change, and we hope they are forthcoming.

“One of the grievances you mentioned is not portraying the liturgical nature of Believers Church to GFA supporters. I’m not convinced that is necessary, after all, many of our supporters come from a KJV Bible only background but no one expects us to specifically tell everyone that we are not printing English KJV Bibles in Asia!”

We are not concerned about Bibles being printed in local languages. Our concern is that GFA is intentionally misrepresenting the nature of the churches planted on the field. For example, we have documented Photoshopped images of KP and the fact that GFA doesn’t mention anything Episcopal on gfa.org except on one well-hidden page about Believers Church, and yet the word Episcopal appears 45 times on the website intended for church members in India, believerschurch.com.

Another area of concern is fundraising for items the ministry has no intention of buying. That is also lying, and yes, other organizations do it too. Will GFA answer by saying it’s OK to deceive donors because everyone else does it and the Gospel was still preached? We hope not.

UPDATE: In the beginning of April, GFA added text about the Episcopal structure of Believer’s Church accessible in its FAQ section of its website.

“What good are you actually accomplishing?”

When you read all the testimonies, you will see that the good we are accomplishing is preventing more of God’s precious children from being abused in similar ways. We are also helping donors see the nature of the organization they are funding so they may decide if they want to continue.

Many ex-staff have been seeing biblical counselors for years to recover from the lies, emotional abuse, false doctrine, self-guilt, and shunning they experienced as a result of GFA. In fact some have walked away from the faith and blame the hypocrisy of GFA’s leaders. Many have not been able to return to church for fear of being manipulated and hurt again by new leaders. We hope to spare others from the effects of spiritual abuse.

The end does not justify the means. Pointing to the fruit on the field does not justify abusing the staff or deceiving donors. In Matthew 15, after Jesus accused the Pharisees of worshiping God in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men, His disciples asked him if He knew He had offended them. He told them that every plant not planted by His heavenly Father would be uprooted. The entire religious system of the day was uprooted by Jesus’ teachings and He was not concerned about the fruit of the ministry, but the filth that was coming from the hearts of those who were leading it. Jesus cares about both the end and the means.