An Important Update from Covenant Life Church

What I love about the Covenant Life Pastors (especially Josh Harris) is that they are TRULY humbly acknowledging a need for God during these times. The SGM Board seem to me to be saying the right words - but it doesn't quite ring true. Backed up of course by C J Mahaney's rather haughty proud words at the recent Leader's Conference (as the CLC pastors state - concerned them too).

Here's a letter sent out to all members;

November 22nd 2011

A Church Family Update

The following letter was e-mailed to all church members today. We hope everyone is served by us being redundant and posting it here as well.

Dear Covenant Life Church,

Grace to you from your brothers on the pastoral team. We’re writing to give a “family update” on recent events, including the Sovereign Grace Pastors Conference earlier this month. We also want to thank you for your ongoing prayers and expressions of encouragement to us.

Constitution

First, our team, led by Kenneth Maresco, is working hard on a draft of our new church constitution. This is a top priority. This past week Kenneth, Corby Megorden and Ben Wikner, accompanied by three church members, visited CrossWay Community Church, in Bristol, Wis., where Mike Bullmore is senior pastor, to learn more about their constitution, attend an elders meeting, and discuss how the involvement of lay pastors (or elders) works there. Mike and his team have been good friends for many years, and we’re grateful for their help and counsel.

A Letter to the Churches

Before the Pastors Conference, the Sovereign Grace Board sent a letter to all the pastors of SGM sharing their disagreement and concerns regarding the content of our church’s October 30 Members Meeting. (If you would like to read the letter, let us know, and we’ll be happy to send you a copy.) The Board had informed us several weeks before that they might send out a letter stating their disagreements with our leadership over the past few months, so this wasn’t a surprise for us.

We don’t feel it’s wise to engage in a “back and forth” of letters at this time, and so we are not currently planning to respond to their letter. We stated our areas of disagreement clearly at our last Members Meeting, and we will keep communicating where we differ, with love and respect. We don’t want to make an issue of the Board sending this letter to SGM pastors—in fact, we are in favor of more open communication between the churches in the future. A number of SGM pastors have told us they were grateful to be able to read and better understand our position.

C.J.’s Comments

One of the most significant moments of the Pastors Conference was when C.J. shared with all the pastors and wives about what he’s learned during his Leave of Absence (LoA).

Our pastoral team was disappointed by the tone and posture of C.J.’s remarks, and we feel strongly that it’s appropriate for you to read them, because they reflect apparent changes in his thinking about his LoA and his confession to our congregation at the July 10 Members Meeting.

We understand that a number of you have read the remarks online (they have been published on at least two blogs) and found them troubling as well. We’ve asked the SGM Board to make the audio and/or transcript of this session readily available to our church, but we have not heard back as of this writing. We look forward to sharing our thoughts with C.J. and the SGM Board directly and hearing from the Board on whether they support C.J.’s statements.

SGM Polity

Another important session at the Pastors Conference was when Jeff Purswell presented a preliminary draft of the SGM Partnership Agreement, a document designed to define the relationship of SGM to its member churches. There were encouraging signs of a degree of forward progress, but on certain significant points this draft is nearly identical to the Partnership Agreement currently in effect. Since our future relationship with SGM would be spelled out in this agreement, we were particularly interested to see the section that addresses the accountability of the SGM Board. However, that language had not yet been drafted.

We are hoping to have a meeting with Jeff and John Loftness soon (along with other pastors in our region) to share our questions, clarify statements Jeff made at the conference, and better understand the Board’s thoughts about reform. Jeff made it very clear that he was presenting only a draft and that the SGM Board is inviting input. We are grateful for this invitation and look forward to more dialogue with the Board and other SGM pastors.

Panel Review

We’ve been informed that the three panels, each comprised of two SGM pastors and one SGM board member (for a description, see the “Pastoral review” section of this blog post on the SGM website), have been constituted and will immediately begin to evaluate the documents written by Brent Detwiler. We understand that the panels will not only be evaluating C.J.‘s fitness for the role of President but also concerns for Sovereign Grace as a whole. The panels are scheduled to complete their process and publish their findings sometime in December. We do not know which men are on these panels, since the SGM board has decided to keep their identities confidential until the panels’ work is complete. Please pray for this work. Please pray, too, for Kenneth, Grant and Josh, as they have been asked to appear and be interviewed.

In Summary

Statements made at the Pastors Conference and the letter from the SGM Board have served to heighten our concerns about the direction of SGM, and consequently, our church’s partnership with SGM going forward. However, we feel that more conversation and dialogue are needed to both honor our long history together and love these men as brothers.

We will keep pressing for clear accountability for the board, clarification of the nature of the partnership between SGM and its member churches, and due process for the charges and criticisms SGM has received. We also believe it’s important to allow time for other SGM pastors to share their concerns with the Board, to wait for reports from the three panels (due in December), and to see how the AoR Group Reconciliation report (due in March) will be processed. We don’t feel rushed to make a decision about our long-term partnership right now. We also want to put to rest any rumors that staying in SGM somehow jeopardizes our staff or facility. The SGM board would not desire to remove our pastors or take our building or anything of the kind, even if they had that authority.

For all of these reasons, we’re continuing a course of deliberate, prayerful evaluation.

Evaluating Giving

We have had an initial conversation with our Financial Advisory Board (made up of four members) to discuss the level of our giving to SGM. We plan to have a further meeting and involve additional members in this decision. We will keep you updated on our progress.

Worth Reviewing

A lot of information has been flying around these past few months. If you find yourself confused by what the real issues are, we would encourage to you to re-read and re-listen to the following things:

1. May 22 Members Meeting

This meeting was the first public step in our local church walking a path of repentance. In this meeting we identified some key areas we’ve gotten wrong as pastors. Reviewing this meeting can help remind us that the problems in SGM are also problems in our church that we need to continue to humbly address.

2. July 10 Sunday Sermon

This sermon (from the weekend after Brent Detwiler’s documents were first released) is a call for our church to view this trial as an expression of God’s loving, fatherly discipline.

We still believe this is the posture we should take as a church. Instead of dismissing problems or defending ourselves, let’s ask the Lord to refine us and reform us.

3. October 30 Members Meeting

This meeting laid out a clear vision for where we are going as a local church—greater partnership between pastors and members in advancing the gospel. We want to be “Jesus-ruled, pastor-led and congregationally accountable.” We also laid out specific points of disagreement with the SGM Board and concerns we have regarding our partnership with Sovereign Grace.

In Conclusion

Thank you for your faith in God and your prayers for Covenant Life. Thanks, too, for your frequent words of encouragement. God is at work in our church. Let’s keep our eyes fixed on him. If you find your soul troubled and anxious, remember Philippians 4:6-8:

… do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Let’s continue to wait on him and trust in him.

Sincerely,

Your pastors (and brothers)

Confessions at Sovereign Grace Fairfax

I have been aware of a church in the USA called Sovereign Grace Fairfax where one of C J's son-in-laws is on staff there. It is a church that has come under heavy criticism from the Survivors and Refuge blog quite fairly I think. Some extremely sad stories of sexual abuse of children have occured at the church - this is something that I react against very strongly. I've made my life's work protecting and defending children as a nurse and I HATE the thought of any child in pain or grief. So to read these stories where child abuse happened in the church and find pastors not defending the children - it's hard to read.

I was interested that the church held a "Family Meeting" this week and was considerably impressed with their transparency, honesty and openness on their flaws. Again I think it's important to give credit where credit is due. Here's some comments on what the senior pastor Mark said;

"The blog post from SGM that contained resolutions - I found that blog post to be unacceptable in tone and content. It seemed defensive, it seemed heavy-handed and for me it raised serious questions about the integrity and the legitimacy of the evaluation process that has been entered into with C J. It failed to invite dialogue and critique. The post that followed a couple of days later entitled; "Listening" was better - but overall I was disappointed and surprised by that blog post. Personal observation number 2 - there is a need for a through review of the leadership practice inside Sovereign Grace Ministries. Key questions are undefined or unclear. What does it mean to be a member church? Does SGM have any authority over it's churches or is it simply a para-church organisation? Are their deficiencies in conflict resolution that C J references in his blog post? How can communication between the SGM Board and pastors and member churches be improved?

These are not small items. A new coat of paint won't do.

Observation number 3. Let's slow down and take a deep breath. We are not talking about adultery. The matters before SGM are quite serious but on another level they are not that unusual. This is not in anyway to make light of anyone who has been sinned against. Personally I love C J - I love SGM. I hope that partnership continues for decades to come - let's be patient and let's pray.

Four personal questions. 1. What role does the SGM board have in addressing sins in C J's life? Were Dave, Jeff and Josh enabling him or questioning him? 2. How seriously does the SGM board see what we see? We need some more queues and understanding. The blog posts have not helped me see it's worse that we think. 3. What will the process of assessing look like for SGM? Will it involve ex-pastors who have been hurt or disenfranchised? What will the process look like? 4. How is SGM reaching out to ex-pastors and leaders who have been hurt and disenfranchised by the deficiencies that C J has described?

We are at a time when SGM has been critiqued for the way pastors have led. There are several blogs that have focused on these issues. Two stories in particular have appeared on those blogs that address situations in this church. What follows is a confession in response to what is called Noel's story and Wallace's story. Romans says "Weep with those who weep" - by now many of you are aware of two stories on Survivors and Refuge - both were members of this church and both have sad stories to tell. Noel (a pen name) tells of the sad sexual abuse of her young daughter in 1998. Wallace tells the same. In both cases the young men were perpetrators who were members of this church. These incidents are exceedingly painful for these families. No compassionate person can learn of these sins without grief, sorrow and heartache of the violation of these young children.

But it gets worse - when these incidents came to light these children were victims who were sinned against. Moments like this require extraordinary amounts of tender care. This is a time to bind up the broken hearted and weep with those who weep - and that's what your pastors did right? With deep regret I confess - we didn't. Noel and Wallace are justified in critiquing the pastoral care they received.

Sadly in seeking to care for them - we became part of their trial. We unwisely used a Peacemaker model for conflict resolution - this resulted in the victims families being corrected when they should have been cared for. I am so sad I did that. Our aversion to therapeutic thinking kept us from people and resources that would have helped these families and helped us to help these families. We didn't give hurting people room to help these people.

We have been accused of not getting it. Guilty as charged. I am so sorry (*breaks down in tears*)".

We are all human. And I know I can testify that the one word; "Sorry" - goes a massive way to heal a multitude of sins. I know not all will be satisfied with these comments but I really am encouraged by the honesty and openness characterizing the church leaders - may God use this to keep moving SGM towards healing.