Covenant Life Church's Response to C J Mahaney's Return

This was recently emailed to all CLC members. It's an interesting and encouraging take;

We’re writing to share our thoughts concerning the recent panels’ findings released by the Board of Sovereign Grace Ministries. Thank you for your patience and encouragement during this unique season in our church. Many of you have shared your questions and concerns with us for which we are grateful. We value your ongoing partnership in the gospel.

As a pastoral team, we’ve spent significant time considering the difficult issues addressed by the panels. As you will recall, last summer hundreds of pages of documents were released by Brent Detwiler. We sought to care for our members through the initial shock caused by this release. Given the charges he made against our friend and former Senior Pastor, C.J. Mahaney, we asked the church to allow a thorough process of evaluation to unfold.

The hope of having a completely independent, outside organization review and adjudicate Brent’s charges against C.J. never materialized, but based on the counsel of Ambassadors of Reconciliation, the Sovereign Grace Board did establish an internal process to evaluate the charges and have now released findings from three panels. Each was made up of two Sovereign Grace pastors and one SGM Board member along with a facilitator, Bryce Thomas. While we wish the questions assigned the panels had been broader in scope and would have preferred a selection process for the panel members that avoided any appearance of partiality (e.g., a blind draw instead of ones chosen by the Board), we view these panel reports as a good step toward more openly addressing questions raised by the documents.

We believe the men selected for these panels acted with integrity to address the questions assigned them by the SGM Board, and we thank these men for their sacrificial efforts.
In regard to the first panel, those of us who were directly involved with these events (Kenneth, Grant and Joshua) each communicated to the panel when they interviewed us that we felt C.J.’s written confession to Brent in the fall of 2010 (referenced in the first panel report) was a specific, humble acknowledgement of his sins. We also agree with the panel’s recommendations and trust they will be followed. (We’ve appended all the recommendations from the three panels to this letter.)

In regard to the second panel, Covenant Life had no personal involvement with Brent’s dismissal, and we are not in a position to question the panel’s findings. But we hope that improvements in polity and procedures may help prevent future occurrences of the types of problems the report describes. And it is our prayer that reconciliation among offended brothers will be pursued.

The third panel’s findings regarding Larry Tomczak were arguably the most important of the three panels because of the seriousness of the charges leveled against C.J., Steve Shank and Dave Harvey, and because Larry was a founding pastor of Covenant Life. Reading this report left us deeply grieved by the sin committed against the Tomczak family. We regard the panel’s report to be a rebuke of the men involved in this action. We are grateful that the panel did not gloss over the sin but acknowledged the damage created by the coercive threat and lack of pursuing reconciliation. We agree that honoring the Tomczaks would be appropriate. We also agree that this panel’s recommendations for further reconciliation between C.J., Steve, Dave and Larry should be pursued as a good faith effort in assuring member churches that this type of sin will not be tolerated in the future.

While the Board was functioning within its purview to reinstate C.J. as President, we believe that it would have been better for the Board to have carried out the panel’s recommendations prior to reinstating C.J. and forming a new Board.
We share these points of disagreement out of desire to participate in a constructive dialogue about the future of our movement. We love all the men involved and count them as brothers and gospel partners.
It’s important for us to state that the ways that we disagree about the Board’s handling of this process are distinct from issues of personal forgiveness. God’s forgiveness has been purchased for us by the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. Whether or not we agree on all the details of these matters, may we all remember that our God has shown each of us undeserved mercy and grace in pardoning our sins.

Extending personal forgiveness toward our brothers is vital as followers of Jesus Christ (Col. 3:13). But it does not mean that we can’t respectfully disagree with the decisions of an organization or express concerns about how leaders are appointed and positioned or ask questions about what authority they hold. Right now for example, the SGM Board is working on a new membership agreement for the churches. They are also appointing a new permanent Board. Both of these issues are very important to us as a church. While we strongly desire to maintain our connection and relationship with other Sovereign Grace churches, we won’t feel comfortable signing a new membership agreement with SGM until the Board has clearly defined how it is accountable to member churches and the nature of its authority and relationship to them. The Board has stated its commitment to clarifying these issues, and we are grateful.
Some additional factors are also in play:

We expect the report from Ambassadors of Reconciliation scheduled to be released in March will give further opportunity to clarify how God is calling for reform in our movement.
We have asked the SGM Board to publish benchmarks for follow-through on the panel’s recommendations.

We want to close this letter with a call to pray for your pastors in Covenant Life and all of the leaders of SGM, asking the Lord to continue to bring conviction and reform any sinful patterns of leadership in the past or present, while also praising God for the good fruit in our church and across the movement as we partner together in days ahead. We believe God wants to do a reviving work among us and position us for greater fruitfulness for his glory.
We appreciate you taking the time to read through this and welcome your thoughts. Feel free to contact your pastor if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
The Pastors of Covenant Life Church

Sad News: Larry Tomczak uninvited from SGM Pastors Conference

One of the things that massively encouraged me in July when the whole SGM saga broke out and C J Mahaney stepped down from leadership was the seemingly-successful reconciliation with Larry Tomczak. Years of broken relationships seemed to be mended! C J himself made a big deal of the fact he had invited Larry to be a "special guest" at the SGM Leaders conference and had even given great thought to how Larry would be appreciated and welcomed (these comments were made at what essentially was his farewell to Covenant Life Church);

"And in November I have asked Larry to come and be our special guest at the Pastors’ Conference where we will once again stand side by side. [applause] Actually we won’t stand side by side. I think it would be more appropriate for me to stand aside. And he has been a wonderful example to me of forgiveness. I want to emulate that".

I know some of SGM's critics on "SGM Survivors" were affronted at what they saw as C J's presumptive attitude that he would be back from his "season of reflection" by November but I honestly was encouraged! I do believe heaven rejoices and the gospel is advanced when Christians can admit they are human and forgive.

But sadly according to an exchange of emails between Brent Detweiler and Larry Tomczak at the end of September - he has been "uninvited" by Dave Harvey;

"From: Larry Tomczak

Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2011 9:20 AM

To: Brent Detwiler

Subject: Re: November Conference

Hello Brent!

Thanks for writing. I hope you and Jenny are doing well, my friend.

Yes, the invited has been put on hold because Dave wrote me saying that with all the things going on right now they felt it would be best to wait til more is resolved in the matters at hand".

Two things are saddening me and disappointing me about this whole process now.

1. The massive amounts of money involved in "mediation". Why can't they just talk?

2. Now Larry being "disinvited" for - let's face it - rather vague reasons. If C J and Larry are reconciled then why would it hurt keeping the invitation? At least it would be something to encourage SGM during a difficult period.

Still hopeful and praying. And I mean that - I've visited my former church - Grace Church Bristol - twice now and been encouraged so much each time. May God work miracles and convict where conviction is required.

Why Can't You Just Talk?!

It's been a blast from the past - I've been watching a programme about one of my favourite groups from a decade ago - "Steps". 2001 was one of the worst years of my life. My beloved grandmother died. A close friend (almost like a second mum to me) died suddenly from cancer. I was finishing my degree in nursing with all the stresses that brought - and then the group who's music I loved split up suddenly! You may laugh - but their Christmas break up has scarred Christmas's since for me. ;-)

The programme is a four-part but it's an interesting concept. The band members split ten years ago and haven't been in the same room since apparently since. The programme is filming them sitting together for the first time and working through some of the issues which clearly still traumatize some of them. The girls especially frequently break down in tears. Time - it seems - isn't always a healer as I know too well!

What's my point? The "Steps" programme just made me reflect and realise that much of the problems, trials, troubles that have caused me heartache, grief, pain, nightmares and sleepless nights over my lifetime could have all be sorted out by "talking". More than that - on a wider sphere, thousands of pounds (I believe) could be saved by "talking". Even wars could have been stopped maybe sometimes by "talking"! Isn't that the point of the United Nations? To try and prevent wars?

Look at prominent celeb preacher C J Mahaney. So much of his prophetic-ministry preaching career focusing on the Cross of Christ has been momentarily forgotten with the interest and focus on his high-profile splits with Brent Detweiler ([the 'Documents' would never have had to have gone out if they could have sat together surely?) and Josh Harris. Thousands of pounds potentially are being spent in outside mediators - which seems a massive disgrace to the Person of Jesus Christ and the gospel. Why can't they just sit down and "talk"?

SGM are starting to move into the mediation process with all those that have fallen out with them - and the reconciliation process seems very formal. The agreement involves signing a form that disallows any of the discussions from being used in a court of law. What shocked me again was the costs involved in this process. Ambassadors of Reconciliation costs are as follows;

"Our consulting fees are charged at $150.00 per hour for actual consultation and preparation time, plus expenses. A daily maximum of $1,200.00 applies when hours exceed 8 per day. A weekly maximum of $6,000.00 applies when hours exceed 40 hours in one seven-day continuous period of time".

As Brent Detweiler said, "Getting rid of specks is expensive". Two thoughts occur to me;

1. Do these AoR costs apply to just one individual? Or to each person who has a grievance with SGM?

2. Is SGM footing the bill for this? Surely this is going to be a STAGGERING amount of money spent from people's tithes!

I say again - why can't we all just sit down and talk? It wasn't easy at all pursuing reconciliation with my SGM situation in the UK. I didn't know whether the SGM pastors would be hostile or happy to see me. They had asked to see a copy of the agenda and I feared I would be crucified yet again. If they had stuck to their guns and insisted they had done nothing wrong - I doubt I would be now enjoying the peace and joy I have and the renewed relationships with them. The only external party was my dear friend Pete Day who came to support me out of his own time and costs. I guess from their point of view, they didn't know how receptive I would be either - we had to take a risk!

This money should be going to reach the lost! To spread the gospel! To help the poor! To plant churches!

Rant over.

Larry Tomczak on the Joy of Reconciliation

I was interested in this video (thanks to Steve W) for the link where Larry Tomczak preached yesterday at Charles Schmidt's church and during the sermon made comments on the joy of reconciliation with C J Mahaney - and also Mahaney's humility in responding to his overtures and admitting wrongs - it's a good encouraging reminder that God is still at work during this difficult time for SGM!