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. 

 

Darick Favors, Bishop Known for Miraculous ‘Laying on of Hands’ Found Dead in Motel With ‘Drugs’

A Dallas pastor known for his miraculous “laying on of hands” ability was found dead about noon Wednesday, Dec. 13, at a Star Motel.

According to The Christian Post, bishop Darick Favors, 42,  had checked in to the motel on Monday and was expected to check out on Wednesday. He was found deceased in his room.

Favors — who had been teaching at Full Gospel Tabernacle in Dallas since he was 19 — was allegedly found in the hotel with unknown drugs, and police have yet to determine his cause of death.

His wife shared a post to Facebook asking for people to “show [the] family mercy” and to “not interfere,” but rather to remember the good things about Favors and to pray for her and her family.

 

Chron.com reached out to the church for comment and were unable to reach anyone.

Benny Hinn’s Nephew says that Prosperity Teaching Is ‘Twisted’

The nephew of Benny Hinn Costi Hinn, who is a pastor in Southern California criticizes his uncle’s prosperity theology and teaching, explaining how it cost him personally as a member of the Hinn family. The theology his uncle espouses is “twisted,” he said.

In an HLN exclusive interview with Carol Costello, Costi Hinn described growing up in the Hinn family as a hybrid of being a “royal family” (lavish riches) and the “mafia” (strict enforcement of the mafia). 

“You keep to your own, you defend your own. You never, ever, regardless of what the truth might be, do anything to harm or expose at the expense of family. It’s just a tight-knit, tight-lipped community,” Hinn explained.

He recounted that the first time he ever said anything publicly about his family — as people had been asking — he got a phone call from a family member who told him “you need to pipe down, don’t talk about family.”

Hinn further explained that the luxurious way of life that he had was “living the dream,” with flights on a G4 or G5 private gulfstream airliners, layovers in Monte Carlo, and stays in a fancy hotel suites that cost $25,000 per night.

Costello asked Hinn how they justified preaching the message of Jesus, who was not a wealthy man, with such a lavish lifestyle.

The theology they used was “twisted,” he replied.  

 Costi Hinn

“If you take the Bible and you take what Jesus taught and you take some of the promises of heaven and the riches of heaven and the wonderful glories of heaven and you make them a now thing, then you really have a model for your best life now.”

“That’s really not the heartbeat of Christianity,” he continued, “the heartbeat of Christianity is, if you have wealth, you want to be generous and rich in good works. If God has blessed you with a lot, you have a great responsibility.”

Conversely, if one is poor, he added, God still loves you and has a purpose for your life, and in your poverty He is still with you; and the hope of Heaven is much greater than worldly riches and temporary earthly pleasures.

The heart of prosperity preaching is a formulaic prescription, that if you do certain things you will become wealthy and that is what God wants, he explained. This approach to Christianity fails poor people in impoverished nations who are doing all the steps to become rich and show up and give the last of their money to prosperity preachers in hopes that they will receive material blessings.  

“You put a guy on a platform in a real nice suit in a very beautiful auditorium and he’ll tell a whole bunch of Americans, ‘if you do this, and do this, and do this, you’ll get this.’ And God is like your magic genie,” Hinn said.

“If you rub Him right and do all the right things, your bank’s going to grow, you’re going to get that promotion, you’re going to get that woman that you want to marry, that perfect man, your life is going to be perfect, because that’s what God wants for you.”

But when that does not happen for people, people get hurt, he said.

“Real pastors and real churches have to stand up and say ‘No, that is not Christianity. That’s not what the Bible teaches.'”

Hinn told Costello he is “disgusted” with his former self, but thankfully the power of the Gospel became real, and the Gospel includes the good news of hope and the bad news of the reality of sin.

“Our job as preachers and pastors is to give the whole story,” Hinn said.

“It’s bad news. I was greedy. I was very ambitious for all the wrong things. We were teaching things that were wrong. We were taking advantage of [people], exploiting the poor, using our greed, squeezing every last dollar out of people so we could live the way they could never,” while using Jesus to do that, he explained.

But the Gospel is also good news, he would come to find out.

“Jesus died to forgive my sins. He loves me just the way I am in all my mess and all my greed. And if I commit to a change He’ll meet me right where I am. And He did. He changed my heart and I just had no taste for it anymore. I did not want that life.”

Benny Hinn is reportedly not happy with him, and their relationship is limited, he said. But he hopes that he gets a call from his uncle one day and will spend the next 10 years of his life showing people what the grace of God really is.

Costi Hinn is now an executive pastor at The Mission Bible Church in Orange County, California.

written by By Brandon Showalter

South African “pastor” Daniel Lesego tells followers to drink fuel, eat grass and poisonous tree leaves to be closer to God

This monster  pastor Daniel Lesego from Pretoria, South Africa must have a POCKET FULL of fairy dust to be able to convince his followers to drink fuel, and eat grass to be closer to God, and to eat the leaves of a poisonous tree. He also claims to have turned his followers to “goats”, and has even taken his congregation to “heaven” and “hell” via his “spiritual taxi”. 

 

This clown called Pastor Lesego Daniel Mosoue is a charismatic “faith healer” from Ga-Rankuwa, Zone 5, North of Pretoria. He is the founder of Rabboni Centre Ministries and has ties to the ritualist TB Joshua. 

On their website he actually compares himself to Jeremiah, John the Baptist and William Brenham.  Just another example of how foolish religion is and the reason why Yeshua, the son of God commanded his followers to “Come from among them.” I often hear Christians say “Christianity is being attacked”, well, the truth is that God didn’t form Christianity or any other religion, religion is Man-Made which is why the leaders (and followers) make their own rules. 

There’s no doubt that we are living in perilous times, a difficult season- a period where you can’t discern who’s who spiritually without having a genuine revelatory gift of God. An elevated level of deceivers have emerged and are operating mainly within the Christian churches calling themselves prophets, apostles, pastors and bishops.  Paul compared these false prophets who will arise in the last days to oppose the truth of God with the story of Moses and Jannes and Jambres. Paul said the same way Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses in the presence of Pharaoh, would be the same method that the diviners, sorcerers, and the psychics who will secretly introduce destructive teachings in the church will resist the truth. Paul called them men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith (2Timothy3:8).  

However, one of the main reasons why most are being deceived and will continue to be deceived is because the deceivers are performing their lying wonders using the name Jesus Christ because it is generally believed that anyone who uses the name “Jesus Christ” to perform miracles is of God. However, this false idea that anyone who performs miracles using the name “Jesus Christ” is of God is based on misconception of a few scriptures from the new testament…

Written by Mordecai Uka Dike

Aspiring pastor kills wife and blames it on cough syrup

A young aspiring pastor has been charged with murdering his Sunday school teacher wife. 28-year-old Matthew Phelps was arrested after he called 911 early in the morning on September 1.

“I think I killed my.. (redacted). I had a dream [breathing heavily] and then I turned on the lights and she’s dead on the floor,” said Phelps.

“I have blood all over me and there’s a bloody knife on the bed. I think I did it. I can’t believe this.”

Phelps said that he had taken cough medicine before going to bed in order to aid his sleep. When he awoken he then noticed he had killed his wife.

“I took Coricidin cough and cold,” Phelps said.  “I know it can make you feel good. So a lot of times I can’t sleep at night. she’s not moving at all [crying] oh my god. She didn’t deserve this. [sobbing uncontrollably]”

Officers arrived at the home just after 1:15 a.m. and discovered 29-year-old Lauren Phelps with multiple stab wounds.

“He qualifies that yes it does look like I did kill her,” said an officer on the scene. “The knife is here – I have blood all over me. However, this medicine made me do it. That’s not an uncommon way for people in his position to respond”

There’s no proof that the medicine caused him to commit the crime and Matthew Phelps is still being held on murder charges.