Willow Creek Megachurch Paid $3.25M in Lawsuits Over Sex Abuse of Disabled Boys

Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois reportedly paid $3.5 million in lawsuits over the sex abuse of two developmentally disabled boys.

The evangelical megachurch, which recently saw its entire elders board resign over unrelated accusations that former lead pastor Bill Hybels sexually abused women, made the payments in the lawsuits over several years, court records obtained by The Chicago Tribune show.

One payment of $1.75 million was apparently made in February, while another one of $1.5 million was made last year.

Former Willow Creek volunteer Robert Sobczak Jr., now 24, pled guilty in 2014 of abusing an 8-year-old with special needs at the church, alongside an older boy not connected with the church. A year earlier, he admitted to sexually abusing another disabled boy at the church, believed to have been 9 years old.

Willow Creek said that the experience was “heartbreaking,” and insisted that it has made changes.

“We have worked with law enforcement and security experts to learn how this happened and how we can ensure it never happens again,” the church said, according to FOX 32.

Cook County prosecutors had described in the lawsuits that Sobczak separately took the two boys to an isolated area of the church, where he molested them.

What is more, the document shows that another church worker had raised concerns in January 2013 that Sobczak was “emotionally unhealthy.” The volunteer was allowed to remain with the program, however, and went on to abuse the second victim.

The second victim reportedly suffered “great mental and emotional harm” due to the abuse he suffered, and underwent therapy.

The settlement showed that despite agreeing to the financial payouts, the church “has denied and continues to deny all material allegations of negligence and damages in this case.”

When the child sex abuse charges first came to light back in 2013, the megachurch said in a statement:

“Willow Creek engages in a rigorous screening and training process for all volunteers and staff in our Special Friends Ministry that includes a detailed child protection application process, checking of references, a national background check, cross checking the sex offender registry, and offering training in child protection. Mr. Sobczak had completed and passed this screening process before he began serving with the Special Friends Ministry.”

Heather Larson, who would go on to become Willow Creek’s executive pastor, before resigning this August over the Hybels scandal, insisted back then that church leadership is “very concerned for the child as well as the family.”

“We take rigorous steps to protect our children,” she stated at the time.

Larson, along with Willow Creek’s entire elder board, resigned earlier in August, admitting that they should have believed the multiple women who accused Hybels of sexual misconduct and abuse this year.

The church initially sided with Hybels, who has continued to maintain his innocence in the face of all claims. It later admitted that its founder had “fallen into sin.”

“While Bill Hybels was our founder and pastor, he was human, broken, and self-admittedly sinful. We believe that his sins were beyond what he previously admitted on stage, and certainly we believe that his actions with these women were sinful. We believe he did not receive feedback as well as he gave it, and he resisted the accountability structures we all need,” said in a statement about the issue Missy Rasmussen, one of Willow Creek’s elders.

Former SC Baptist Convention Employee and Missionary Charged in Texas For Sex Assault Accusation From 1997

COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) –

A South Carolina man has been charged with the criminal sexual assault of a person younger than 17 that happened in a different state two decades ago – and before his arrest, he resigned from the South Carolina Baptist Convention, headquartered in Columbia. 

 According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Mark Edwin Aderholt has been charged by the Arlington, TX Police Department following an allegation from 1997 in Texas. (Source: Tarrant County Jail)

According to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Mark Edwin Aderholt, of Columbia, has been charged by the Arlington, TX Police Department following an allegation from 1997 in Texas. He was originally booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on July 3, the newspaper says, and then booked into the Tarrant County, TX Jail on July 9. 

The newspaper did not expound on the details of the assault claim or what Aderholt is being accused of specifically. 

The newspaper says Aderholt, “prolific as an international missionary,” graduated from the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth in 2000. 

According to the SCBC, he resigned as the associate executive director and chief strategist in June prior to his arrest. The SCBC released a statement on June 15 following Aderholt’s resignation, saying: 

Dr. Gary Hollingsworth, the Executive Director/Treasurer of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, has received and accepted a letter of resignation from Dr. Mark Aderholt who had been serving for the past year and [a] half as the Associate Executive Director and Chief Strategist for the Convention.

While accepting this with a heavy heart, Dr. Hollingsworth did so based on the importance of staying focused on the Convention’s Vision statement of “seeing every life saturated and transformed by the hope of the Gospel.”

Hollingsworth informed the Executive Board of the South Carolina Baptist Convention, the staff of the SCBC, all the Associational Directors of Missions and leaders of the Convention’s Institutional Ministry Partners and wanted to make sure all South Carolina Baptists were made aware of this staff change.

He and the SCBC staff are committed to continuing to see the Gospel advanced here in South Carolina and around the world by working to fulfill the Convention mandated priorities of evangelism, church strengthening/discipleship, missions mobilization and church planting.

 Aderholt is now out of jail on a $10,000 bond with conditions. The conditions of his bond are not known. 

 

Gospel Singer James Hall Sued His Gay Lover for Giving Him A STD

Social media has it that  gospel singer James Hall sued Bishop Jeffery Thomas over the Bishop claiming that the two were in a romantic relationship, which ended in the judge throwing out the case! Bishop Thomas is stating that the two men were lovers and that is the reason why he relocated from North Carolina to live with Hall in New York.

Hall unequivocally denies the claims stating that he was only helping the Bishop recover from an unnamed sickness.

Mr. Thomas has never expressed any purpose to his actions other than some imagined relationship he believes he has with me, and is nothing more than a disgruntled fan. – (James Hall)

If Bishop Thomas was only a fan, the question is has Mr. Hall ever allowed another fan to live with him? Stories have the two meeting at a church event in 2015. It was not too long after that Bishop gave up his ministry to be with Hall. Well, we do not want to insinuate anything but it sounds extremely suspicious, to say the least. However, the gospel singer is adamantly denying any type of romantic involvement. 

It is no secret that the gospel music industry has more than their fair share of homosexuals and bisexuals. Although for a myriad of reasons, there are many who hide their sexual orientation but there are just as many who are open. 

There are pictures in circulation on the internet with the two men being a little more affectionate than two heterosexual men would be with each other. There is a picture with the Bishop shirtless together with Mr. Hall in a onesie on a bed. There is another picture with the two having lips really close together puckering up to one another. That one picture reveals that there is something else more going on between the two than a platonic relationship.

However, for some reason, this whole scandal began when the Bishop started to post pictures of him and Hall together. He also alleges that Hall is romantically involved with another man, Pastor Kevin Bond, a former member of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church (Atlanta, Georgia) under Bishop Eddie Long.

Bishop Thomas was threatening to release sex tapes but the court has placed a gag order. By the way, Hall is trying to get a whopping $15 million for damages.