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Elder Update—December 22, 2012

Elder Retreat Update

The Elder Board met on the evening of Sunday, November 25, and all day Monday, November 26. The focus of the retreat was to review and update the policies by which the church is governed, and to which the senior staff are held accountable. Parameters of authority for our senior staff in the areas of spending and staff management have been established for many years. And as the ministry of Harvest Bible Chapel has grown through its history, the Elders have seen the need to expand and clarify the body of policy used to govern the church at various intervals.

Reconciliation Update and Looking Ahead

The Elder Team announced in the last Elder Update that we have worked closely with Pastor James in the review of all criticism leveled against him this fall. As expected, and consistent with his character, Pastor James has demonstrated humility and repentance where needed. Further, he has modeled immense graciousness in the many instances where the criticism has been false or distorted. He has been active in the work of seeking reconciliation with certain former leaders of our church, modeling the importance of leading with forgiveness when pursuing reconciliation. We are encouraged that in recent weeks there has been some progress.

The Elders have also taken time to examine ourselves, and noted that we have often allowed our Senior Pastor to singly take the brunt of criticism and absorb, for the sake of the church, the fallout of difficult decisions made, not by Pastor James alone, but by the entire board. Now it is time for the Elders to assert their responsibility to protect our church family, our Senior Pastor, and his family.

For the remainder of the winter months, the Elders have asked Pastor James to focus his primary energies on preaching and leading the church, while we continue to provide direction regarding the pursuit of remaining reconciliation. Your prayers in this area are greatly appreciated.

Senior Pastor Review

The Elder Team noted above is conducting a thorough and effective review of the Senior Pastor’s Office and will be briefing the entire Elder Board at the January Elders meeting.

Budget/Year End

We encourage every member of our church family to be up to date with their tithes and offerings to the Lord by December 31, 2012. The financial needs of Harvest Bible Chapel should be a subject of focused prayer and faith for each of us.

Rejoicing in All God Has Done

As 2012 draws to a close, we are reminded of all the amazing things God has done in our midst.

This year brought the successful launch of a new campus on the North Shore, and a permanent home for our Chicago campus at the downtown Cathedral.
We hosted an amazing Men’s Conference, blessing over 2000 in attendance.
Our church completed the first year of a major funding campaign, and also helped to launch 17 churches through Harvest Bible Fellowship.
Our Senior Pastor authored and published the book, Vertical Church, while our worship team recorded their first nationally distributed CD, and over the course of the summer blessed over 80,000 people who attended a Vertical Church Tour event.
This past year we have seen many lives changed through the messages and ministries of this church. 128 students made professions of faith at Camp Harvest. More than 740 people were baptized in the past year. Just this past month alone, 76 individuals came forward to receive forgiveness in Christ during one of our weekend services.

While we have again experienced record attendance this fall, the numbers are not as important as each life changed, and we praise God for the work that only He can do. We also give thanks to our Lord for the opportunity to serve His church together.

Elder Leadership Statement to the Congregation—Weekend of November 17, 2012

If you have not read the October Elder Update below, please take time to review it and the documentation of our excellent financial systems for fair compensation, debt reduction and ‘best practice’ accounting principles. Our audit is also available below. Our church’s financial position is strong, and our goal of being debt-free by 2020 is reasonable. You have good reason for confidence in our church, doctrinally, governmentally, and financially.

Since early 2010, the Elder board restructuring recommended by the summer 2009 task force has produced increased feedback and criticism, through conversations after service, many emails, and through the small group structure of our church. Behind the scenes we have been working hard to strengthen the governance deficiencies that contributed to some of the problems from 2006-2009.

Expansion of the Elder board to include a greater diversity of gifts and experience among biblically-qualified men.
Further upgrading the strength of our organization’s financial controls through a finance, audit, and compensation committee chaired and run by lay members of our church.
Creation of Elder teams to establish policy, expand accountability, and more broadly distribute authority in decision making.

There have also been deficiencies in our leadership, and we stand before you today to acknowledge Elder deficiency and plans for improvement:

We have failed to regularly communicate the activity of the Elders.
We have failed to protect Pastor James from the backlash of decisions made, not by him, but by the entire Elder Board.
We have failed to make known Pastor James’ consistent submission to Elder board authority.
We have failed to actively seek reconciliation with former staff and Elders.
And for each of these failures and deficiencies, we are asking for your grace.

To address these issues, the Elders have created an Elder Team, chaired by Randy Williams. The following details how this Elder Team will strengthen our church’s governance.

First, we want to be clear that this team will account to the whole Elder Board regarding its work of active involvement and oversight of Pastor James and the Executive Staff.

We will establish a reliable system of Senior Pastor performance review to ensure his life balance, personal health, and effectiveness with preaching and with people. The first review will be completed before the end of this year.
We have asked Pastor James to make his personal ministry to our church family a higher priority. To that end he has gladly agreed to:

This team is currently reviewing a list of all Elders and Pastors who have left our church in recent years and forming plans to seek understanding, forgiveness where needed, and reconciliation where possible.
We are re-establishing the pattern of a bulletin insert requesting prayer needs and feed back from the congregation. Each will be reviewed by the Elder board and followed up personally.
This team will oversee and continue the current pattern of monthly Elder updates either on the website or in person on each of our campuses during weekend services.
If you need clarity on anything you have read here, please call the church and ask for a call back from one of the Elders. We would ask that any feedback regarding the Elders or our Senior Pastor come directly to the Elder Team.
Lastly, we ask for your prayers for the full Elder board meeting next weekend, as we continue to work on the governance policies which codify the authority of the Elder board in the oversight of our church.

Finally, we would like to express our thanks to God for the humility and perseverance demonstrated by our Pastor during the past several years. Pastor James’ continual readiness to embrace what the Lord allows and learn from it no matter how difficult, is an example to us all. We want Pastor James to know that our whole church loves you and loves your family, and we stand behind your ministry to our church without reservation.

For many weeks we have encouraged Pastor James to enter a season of personal reflection before speaking publicly about what the Lord has been teaching him, and just continue to preach through the gospel of John. Today on 5G weekend, we are releasing him to open his heart personally and share what the Lord has been speaking to him about. View Pastor James' message.

Robert Jones, Elder Board Chairman, on behalf of the Elders of Harvest Bible Chapel

Elder Update—October 19, 2012

Recent discussions among our Elders have revealed how our lack of regular disclosure to the congregation has led to confusion and even criticism. With this document we initiate our intent to communicate frequently the policies and principles by which the Elders govern our church and hold our senior staff accountable.

1: Elders and Accountability

The Elders of our church maintain accountability through frequent interaction with our deacons and senior staff, which ensures the biblical fidelity and fiscal integrity of people and ministries associated with Harvest Bible Chapel. Undergirding that serious responsibility is the collective awareness of our direct accountability to Jesus Christ.

2: Elder Structure

In the summer of 2009, to ensure that the trials of 2006-2008* would result in a stronger church going forward, the Elders established a task force to study like-minded churches of our size and return with recommendations. Their 21-page report, presented in September 2009, detailed an extensive expansion of both the number and skill diversity of biblically-qualified men. Much of the report was adopted by the board and has facilitated a greater effectiveness in the Elder role as stated above.

*Many sermons and family chats during those years detailed for our church family the latest news on the construction problems and its financial implications. Details are also included in these excerpts from the books When Life is Hard, 2010, and Vertical Church, published in 2012 and distributed to Harvest families August 4-5, 2012.

3: Financial Policy

Since 2006 we have developed and implemented an extensive revision of our financial systems and controls. Our accounting department employs several CPAs, which, at the Elders’ direction, established an audit committee, a finance committee, and a compensation committee, each entirely overseen by lay leaders with expertise in these areas. Our auditor, CapinCrouse, has repeatedly affirmed that Harvest Bible Chapel’s financial statements are prepared in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles and meet or exceed standards for financial integrity and accountability. 2011 Audit

4: Debt

Since 2009 our Elders have mandated “no new debt,” and we are currently on track to be debt free by 2020, by paying back our loans at a faster pace than even our lenders require. Adhering to long-taught financial principles, at no time have we spent more than 30% of our income on interest and principal payments, including all the additional principal payments that have been made. By year-end 2012, our debt will be $59.5MM; by 2015, $43.3MM; by 2018, $19.4MM. Click here to see how our historic trends, continuing as the Lord allows, make our goal of debt-free by 2020 reasonable. At current rates of debt reduction, if the church stays at its current size, we would be debt-free by 2023. Either timeline exceeds lender expectations.

5: Financial Strength

Our finance team feels blessed to report that the church’s existing assets are approximately $150MM, with $90MM of equity. For seven consecutive years, giving has exceeded and expenditures have been below the elder-approved budget. The generosity of the Lord’s people is a trust that the church’s financial team takes very seriously. Auditor's Letter

6: 5G

The purpose of the 5G campaign is to increase the impact of Harvest Bible Chapel upon a world greatly in need of our Savior, Jesus Christ. We have challenged ourselves to live as glorifying, growing, gracious, generous, and grateful disciples. The current pledges total $30MM, of which $25MM is designated for ministry development, facility needs across our campuses, and church planting around the world. The additional $5MM is available for debt reduction but is not part of the 2020 debt-free plan presented above. Campaign projects progress only as gifts are received.

7: Elephant Room 2

Before Elephant Room 2 even took place, January 25, 2012, Pastor James informed the Elders that ER2 could become a source of confusion to our members and friends. A potential unintended consequence might be to cast doubt on our church leadership’s long-established conviction against prosperity teaching. Hoping that ER2 would actually clarify our stand on this and other important doctrinal matters, we decided together to proceed with the conference. In the February 2012 Elder meeting, we agreed that never again could we allow a breadth of association to bring confusion to our own church, or to any of our pastors or churches within Harvest Bible Fellowship. The possibility of a third Elephant Room remains in doubt, and any plan to proceed would again need advance approval by our Elders and additionally, in the future, Fellowship pastors. Important lessons were learned about the priority of our primary relationships.

8: Compensation

The compensation of our senior pastor and all senior staff at Harvest Bible Chapel is governed by a formal Compensation Committee, made up of our Elder Board Chairman, our church Treasurer, and our Audit Committee Chairman, with representation from our auditor, CapinCrouse. Salary review begins with a consideration of responsibility, training, and experience, as well as objective review criteria. Salary ranges are based on salary survey information from like-minded church ministries of similar size and function, and from the experience of our auditing firm that serves over 300 churches. All salaries set by the Compensation Committee are toward the middle of the ranges supplied by the auditor and the survey. Auditor's Compensation Letter

9: Growing in Christ

For more than 24 years our pastor has weekly laid before us the entirety of his life, strengths and weaknesses together, with transparency and humility. He is tireless in his pursuit of truth and, at times, though much less in recent years, can be impatient and abrasive. The Elders are encouraged to see that, in line with his teaching, James is growing in the balance of grace and truth that Christ exemplified (John 1:14). The Elders are also encouraged that, in matters of lifestyle and personal liberty, James has committed to clear parameters established by the Elder Board.

10: Multi-site

We are a seven-campus church. Each of the six campuses that have followed the Rolling Meadows location is a miracle story—not a plan, not a strategic design, not sought, but wonderfully provided. The financial investment in these campuses is more than compensated for by the spiritual impact in the lives of people. Watch the story of this couple who attend one of our Chicago campuses.

The Elders commit that in the coming weeks and months, we will do much to communicate to our church family the systems and policies we operate under to strengthen your confidence in our ministry. These 10 statements are not an attempt to conclude our work, only to summarize and document our current status and practices.

Our plans for the immediate future:

Produce a video series on the financial integrity, accountability, and transparency of Harvest Bible Chapel.
Implement a whistle blower policy that allows staff to anonymously, without consequence, report variances from scripture or our staff handbook.
Conduct an Elder retreat to review, update, and document the governance policies of our church.
Conduct a thorough (I Timothy 5:19) review of our church’s history since 2004 in search of any failure or offense in need of repentance and reconciliation, with special emphasis given to former church leaders no longer worshiping with us. Our Elders, Pastor James, along with the remaining elders from 2006-2009, are actively preparing to seek a God-honoring resolution in every way possible from that difficult season in our church’s history.

In the months ahead:

Preach a series on money in the life of a Christian according to God’s Word.
Establish a system for regular communication from the Elders to the congregation.
Host a session during a weekend service in which the Elders disclose what the Lord is teaching us during this season.


Fred Agase	Tom Barber	Donald Bodel	Bill Ciofani	Jim Clegg

Tod Desmarais	John Dierker	Rick Donald Assistant Senior Pastor	Mark Fisk	Ron Frahler

Dan George	Jamie Harrison Deacon Board Chairman	Ernest Holton	Mark Hopwood	Steve Huston

Paul Inserra Audit Committee	Robert Jones Elder Board Chairman Audit Committee Compensation Committee Finance Committee	James MacDonald Senior Pastor	Dan Marquardt	Marcel Olar

Scott Phelps	Jim Rowan	Kent Shaw	Barry Slabaugh	Jeff Smith

John Southard	Bill Sperling	Stephen Stewart	Dave Streich	Stan Ueland

Bill Williams	Randy Williams

Fred Adams Chief Financial Officer Finance Committee	Joe Martin Church Treasurer Audit Committee Compensation Committee Finance Committee	Dan Tolbert Audit Committee Compensation Committee Finance Committee