Learning Points
From the troubled waters at Calvary Chapel Albuquerque, Pastor Skip Heitzig shares three important lessons he's learned from his experience:
1. Communicating expectations is crucial in any transition.
2. Choices must be owned by those who made them.
3. By nature, people make judgments based on incomplete information.
1. Communicating expectations is crucial in any transition.
2. Choices must be owned by those who made them.
3. By nature, people make judgments based on incomplete information.
Hi Mark, where did you get those 3 lessons learned by Skip Heitzig? I'd like the reference source. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteIt's on their website, in a PDF letter to the congregation.
ReplyDeleteDear Mark:
ReplyDeleteI am a member of the Calvary Chapel accountability movement who played a role in bringing the leadership debacle at Calvary of Albuquerque into the light. As such, I am extremely curious as to how, as an outsider to Calvary Chapel, you managed to get snowed by Skip Heitzig.
Unfortunately, Skip is the wrong role model if your goal is to help pastors "revitalize" their churches. Skip is a liar and a fraud from start to finish. When he left the Albuquerque church to take over as senior pastor of a California church, he insisted on remaining president of the board of the Albuquerque church ... for three years. As such, he siphoned off half a million dollars a year from Albuquerque to his personal radio ministry, among other questionable tricks. Pastor Pete Nelson, Skip's replacement in Albuquerque, quietly resigned when Skip refused to be corrected or confronted about his unethical dealings and long distance meddling.
Instead of repentance and reconciliation, Skip Heitzig responded with a deliberate campaign to discredit Pete Nelson and cast him as a disgruntled troublemaker. He went so far in this effort as to retain, with church funds, a public relations firm to do "damage control"!!
A semi-official Calvary Chapel body, supposedly conducting an unbiased "audit" of the Albuquerque situation, commisioned a highly respected Calvary Chapel pastor, Tom Stipe of Denver, to investigate and make a report. The snag was that Pastor Stipe did exactly what he was asked to do, and wrote a report that was objective, only relied on verifiable facts, and placed the blame right where it belonged: on Skip Heitzig, his secrecy, and his retention of control after he had left.
The Calvary Chapel office which commisioned the report ignored it and stated everything was okay. The next day, we published the Stipe report on the Calvary Chapel accountability blogs. The public relations firm, hired by Heitzig with church money, responded by saying the Stipe report would traumatize "the sheep" (church members), and didn't contain the whole story since they hadn't talked to Skip. Hence Skip's "lesson" number three.
What they left out was the reason Skip's input wasn't in the report. Simple: Skip had refused to talk to them! But they still had the audacity to deceive the congregation by slandering Stipe, ourselves, and others for "making judgements based on incomplete information."
The Stipe report is available for your reading at phoenixpreacher.com.
Today, attendance at Calvary of Albuquerque has dwindled tremendously, to the point where they are advertising their Chrsitmas services on TV. Before Pete Nelson's departure, they were always filled to overflowing. Not exactly "revitalizing your church".
Sorry to burst your bubble Mark. I, of course, have nothing against you or your blog personally. I hope I have not offended anyone here.
Please continue your search for godly wisdom that will help "revitalize your church". We can certainly use it.
JR Schmidt
Hmmmm....very, very interesting.
ReplyDeleteYou can fool all the people some of the time -
You can fool some of the people all of the time -
But, you can never
fool all the people all of the time.