Category: Q&A Comments and Responses

If someone believes something to be biblical, it does not excuse them if it’s wrong. Would you say that leadership is excused from lying if they believe it’s biblical to lie to increase donations?

Many sins are committed out of ignorance. It doesn’t mean we don’t repent of them once we realize what we’ve done. Think of King Josiah in 2 Kings 22-23. All that time, Israel was living without the law, but when they found it and read it, Josiah tore his clothes. He grieved deeply. It didn’t matter that the nation of Israel had sinned out of ignorance. What mattered was that they had sinned, and now they needed to repent and fix it.

Also observe Jesus’s words in Matthew 20:25-28: “But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’” And we are to submit to one another (Ephesians 5:21).

Even if the military chain of command and the way they “own” you 24/7 is analogous to Jesus’s total authority over our lives, it is not analogous to how elders and bishops (pastors) in the church are to lead.

“Biblical authority is limited by the commandments of Scripture. Your spiritual leaders have no authority over you beyond what the Bible demands. For example, if your leader demands that you and your spouse have only one child, or that you entrust to his care all of your possessions, or anything not commended in Scripture, you are free to respectfully decline. God, not man, decides the parameters of authority.” from Walter Henrichsen’s Thoughts from the Diary of a Desperate Man 

Causing conflict and disunity among believers would indeed be sin if it is done contrary to biblical doctrine (Romans 16:17). In this case, you are blaming the victims of sin for causing conflict, not the one causing it. If KP is sinning (e.g. lying to donors or teaching damaging false doctrine) should not those who take notice of it biblically confront KP by approaching him privately and then if he doesn’t hear them, take him before witnesses and even the whole church? (Matthew 18:15-17) Are you saying we have not taken the biblical approach or are you saying that KP has indeed repented? We have not seen evidence for either position.

Also KP has instituted shunning at GFA. Does that not cause disunity among believers, especially when a wife is shunned and cut off from her husband’s ministry? This has been the case with the wife of a current GFA staff person for over a decade. Love in the body of Christ does not shun and divide, but seeks resolution and unity. This is our aim, but until the sin is dealt with, there will be conflict and disunity.

KP might think he can not resolve these issues, but he can! All he needs to do is repent of his sin and make a genuine apology that includes admission of the specific wrongdoing outlined in our initial letter. This will, of course, lead to much change in how the ministry conducts itself and how it communicates with donors.

KP could indeed quit or be fired, but there is another option: change.

“Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the Lord?
Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice,
and to listen than the fat of rams.” -1 Sam. 15:22

We want Bro. K.P. to repent. That is our earnest desire. His senior leaders – Daniel P., Pat E., John B., and David C. – will also need to repent as they were complicit in carrying out these sins and abuses. And if he needs to quit or be fired in the process, that does not excuse him from his obligation to repent. God will take care of the details if we will simply obey Him. Please don’t make excuses for Bro. KP. He needs to face his sins, humble himself, and repent.

Whether or not KP repents at this late hour, whatever fallout comes to him and his ministry will be from his own sin. Had he been innocent he would have been able to make an adequate defense long ago. We, who have simply shined the light on it, will not be the cause.

We aren’t clear on the nature of this question, however, perhaps what is meant by a “cross-continent group get-together” is our request for a Skype type of meeting for the convenience of board members and others who do not live in the Dallas area. We thought this would save time and money in travel. The plan to record it was for accountability purposes and review, NOT for public distribution. Even so, if a person is telling the truth and has nothing to hide, he should not be afraid to speak and have it recorded. Those of us in the GFA Diaspora were not afraid.

If the question was why we created this website cataloging all our communications with KP and shared it across the continent with you, indeed its purpose is to bring into the light all of these hidden things to cause godly sorrow leading to repentance (2 Cor. 7:9-10).

Also, it is not our intention to have our efforts please Satan but to please God. We know God is pleased when we bring our deeds into the light, that they may be clearly seen to have been done in God (John 3:21). God desires that we walk in the light as He is in the light so that we can have fellowship with one another (I John 1:7).

Sometimes the end is good, but not the means. God desires truth in the inward parts (Psalm 51:6), and though it’s easy to fear what will happen if these deeds are exposed, we know He has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind (2 Timothy 1:7). We serve a God who is able to redeem, but if we make decisions based on fear of what the Enemy might do, we are not walking closely with our powerful God.

If indeed KP is at fault, then his primary concern should be repentance, not the damage it might do to his reputation. Let God deal with the fallout. KP’s responsibility is simply to humble himself and repent. In fact, that is KP’s best chance of leaving a good legacy — repenting publicly for the record and implementing real reform in all five areas of sin that we raised in the  letter.

As leadership has often said, “God doesn’t need us!” People don’t need money to be saved, but they do need the Holy Spirit.

GFA and Believers Church may be a vessel the Lord uses, but it is elitist to think that without GFA, the gospel will not get out. There are many healthy mission organizations doing God’s work. How much more effective could GFA be if they repented and began walking in the light and freedom?

This is not ammunition we have created, but rather the lies and deception that have come from GFA itself. Find out for yourself if donors and supporting pastors are OK with the photos and information on www.believerschurch.com.

One of the Diaspora ex staff says, “The four pastors I spoke to about [the Episcopal identity of GFA] were very troubled that GFA did not let them know about  it. When I first started at GFA in 2010, I was instructed to tell Calvary Chapel pastors that the churches we were planting in Asia were like little Calvary Chapels. Now that has changed. Those Calvary Chapels—and all supporters for that matter—have a right to know and GFA has a responsibility to tell them so they can decide if they want to continue supporting the work. Not only is GFA not telling them, but GFA takes measures to conceal it. This clearly is deceptive. Core value number two, ‘Being a people of integrity and excellence’ needs to be removed or changed.”

These measures of concealment are well-documented in Joe and Cari’s testimony.

When people lie, it catches up with them and their reputations are destroyed. How many lives are we putting at risk by not taking this issue of integrity seriously? If GFA would admit they have a problem, slow down and do whatever they need to fix it, they would be showing the world that integrity is important to them. They might suffer by admitting their faults, but it would be less painful than having others expose it to their supporters.

We are not making demands. We are simply following the biblical model of dealing with sin in the Church. If GFA leaders refuse to repent, we are not excused from continuing to follow the process to deal with the unrepentant sinner. In the case of institutional sin among the elders of a church (or leaders of an organization that acts like a church and calls itself a church), we have an obligation to warn others in the Church and expose the sin before all. If we fail in this, we will be held accountable for that by God.

We have spent many months waiting for KP to do what he has promised. Eventually we have realized that we need to give deadlines so we know when it is time to take the next step. None of the timelines we set were unreasonable, especially when a one-sentence acknowledgment to say he would get back to us would have sufficed. The deadlines were given so that we ourselves could know whether KP intended to respond to these very serious accusations or not.

The last contact JD had from KP was in October of 2014. KP and a Gayle Erwin said they would contact JD, but that never happened. On February 2, 2015, KP contacted another member of Diaspora to say he would be getting back to JD “shortly.” As of this writing, that was nearly two months ago.

 

Employee turnover rate may give us the percentage of employees who stay or leave, but it does not tell us anything about why they stay or leave. The leaders at GFA teach that your calling to GFA is for life and then warn about the bad things that happen to people spiritually when they leave. They imply they have “lost their call” and have stopped serving the Lord (as though GFA is the only place, or at least the very best place, one can serve the Lord). With all this pressure, it’s no wonder people have such a difficult time leaving, even if they have their own concerns.

Also it should be noted that GFA has seen a number of mass exoduses over the years, with the largest ones having occurred in the 1990s, 2004 and 2015. Nearly 50 staff left Gospel for Asia in 2015 alone.

His busy schedule does not excuse him from following the scriptures and responding to the accusations brought against him by repenting of sin. He responded by dismissing our claims and pointing to misunderstanding, while failing to repent of the accusations we brought before him, proven by a great number of witnesses.

We have been very patient, at times waiting weeks and months for a response. And the access has always been on KP’s terms, not ours. In addition, he has repeatedly lied to us about what he would do next (well documented in the Communications History) and then ignored us for long periods of time while we awaited word and never received what was promised.