High-profile exits

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Up next… evangelical accountability.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, a series of televangelist scandals sparked concern about the integrity of big ministries…and the integrity of their leaders.

The biggest headlines involving the PTL Network … and financial scandal.

JIM BAKKER: Jim Bakker was found guilty on all 24 counts of wire and mail fraud and conspiracy.

Since then, Christians formed the ECFA, the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability to bring transparency to big ministry finances and their leaders. But decades later, not everyone thinks they are sticking to the essentials.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: Back in October, two ministries run by the family of the late evangelist Billy Graham cut ties with ECFA over a new policy the leader of those ministries says goes beyond the original purpose.

WORLD’s Paul Butler has the story.

MERRITT: Board governance is one of those that I'm still trying to grow in, and I feel like they provide some good resources.

PAUL BUTLER: Joseph Merritt is Executive Pastor of Operations at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. As the church has grown, Merritt and fellow pastors decided they wanted to do more to ensure leaders understand financial accountability and godly governance.

MERRITT: We've got six campuses as a church with about 2,500 in attendance on a Sunday morning, you know, on average.

Highview completed its ECFA accreditation back in March.

MERRITT: And so I feel like there is, you know, a little bit higher of a bar that, as a church, I want us to operate at.

The Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability has more than 2000 members—from local churches to international ministries—and accredits them based on its Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship. The list covers issues from transparency with financial statements to responsible board governance.

But the list will soon change to include a new standard.

WARREN SMITH: The ECFA has arrived at the conclusion that leader care is an important issue when it comes to the financial integrity of an organization.

Warren Smith is President of Ministry Watch…a nonprofit that does financial analysis and reporting on Christian ministries and agencies like ECFA. Smith formerly wrote for WORLD. He has critiqued ECFA’s model of charging member fees, saying it undermines independent accreditation…but he supports the new policy.

In March 2024, ECFA announced it would create a Standard for Excellence in Leader Care, to go into effect in January 2027.

SMITH: The standard says that the board and the senior leader of the organization should have a conversation on at least an annual basis to you know, make sure that the leader is doing okay that the leader is adhering to the the moral, biblical standards that the organization says that it subscribes to, and that the organization should document that conversation in some way.

The standard lets members craft their own leader plans, but offers examples like regular prayer for the senior leader, protecting time off for vacations, and mandating annual health exams.

WAGENMAKER: There's an awful lot of pastors who the expectations are so much. They work a ton of hours. So to have something that has to do with leader care, I think is really important.

Sally Wagenmaker is an attorney who works with nonprofits and churches.

WAGENMAKER: I don't know of anything that is as well developed as this with respect to other denominations or non denominational organizations. This just seems like a really helpful tool.

But not everyone is happy about it. Days before the announcement in October, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and humanitarian group Samaritan’s Purse both announced they would not renew their membership in ECFA. Warren Smith once again…

SMITH: Franklin Graham was very explicit in a letter to the ECFA, a letter that we have a copy of, that he says that leader care is not an issue, and that he accuses the ECFA of being the moral police for evangelical organizations.

BGEA’s press team sent WORLD a copy of that letter. In it, Graham says, “The Leader Care Standard deals with spiritual maturity and behavior, matters clearly outside the scope of ECFA’s expertise.”

The letter concludes with Graham’s concern that the policy cannot address or prevent a leader’s deceit. In his words: “This is ultimately a sin problem, with its root in the human heart, which only God can fix—not ECFA, even with a mountain of standards.”

WORLD asked ECFA CEO Michael Martin about Graham’s letter, and he said “While we are disappointed that the leaders of BGEA and Samaritan’s Purse have decided to withdraw from ECFA, we honor their legacy.” Evangelist Billy Graham was among ECFA’s founders in 1977. Now his organizations are out…but Warren Smith says it does not look like a larger exodus is happening.

SMITH: Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, at least so far, are the only organizations that I have heard about that have left and explicitly identified this new standard as the reason for their leaving.

Ministry Watch has downgraded its donor confidence scores for both organizations, but quickly adds that the scores do not mean a ministry like BGEA is failing to do good work…

SMITH: But it fails to do certain things, including release their form 990s and become members of the ECFA, that allow them to be part of the top echelon of Christian ministries. In other words, if you're going to ask people for money, you should tell people where the money's going.

Nonprofit organizations registered as 501(c)(3)s with the IRS are required to submit information about their executives’ salaries and board members…in the Form 990. But churches, mission societies, and denominations are exempt from this requirement. In 2013, BGEA stopped filing a Form 990 after declaring itself a mission society.

Samaritan’s Purse does file a form 990, and posts financial statements on its website. But because it withdrew from ECFA, Ministry Watch moved it into the Withhold Giving category as well.

When asked about this change, a spokesperson for Samaritan’s Purse pointed to other metrics showing greater confidence in the organization’s financial accountability. He also told WORLD that Samaritan’s Purse would welcome ECFA’s return to the original scope under which it was founded…without the rules for leader care.

Back in Louisville, Merritt says Highview Church does have plans in place to care for senior leaders…but he’s not sure that it should be part of ECFA’s accreditation program.

MERRITT: I think when organizations can sometimes go in directions that are good, but aren't really at the core of what purpose that organization has, I think it can kind of distract from its core mission.

For WORLD, I’m Paul Butler. Washington Producer Harrison Watters reported this story.

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