David Platt Documentary: Part 2

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00:02

It's clear that I'm asking, is McLean Bible Church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, right?

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It's clear? Okay. Yes or no? And I would actually like to make a motion for David's dismissal and removal based on gross violations of Article 9 of the

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Constitution. I would like to present those to you and the congregation if we could. The response to that was strange.

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First, you know, walking them out with security. And then being very

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D .C. in how they responded. Very carefully worded statements. Just kind of that real political dodge.

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Once the motion was presented, the evidence was attached to it. It was done constitutionally.

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The congregation has rights, and that was one of them. But the fact that there was no response, we heard nothing.

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Nothing from the church. And it was from then on that the covering up, you just saw it so amped up.

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The church leadership position became more defensive. A few days later, the head of church security,

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Lucious Thompson, emailed his security staff that there was a mental health crisis sweeping the nation. And they had seen the effects of that at the congregational meeting on March 31st.

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To this day, neither David Platt nor the church leadership has apologized for this remark.

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Following this meeting, David Platt had to scramble because his lies had finally been exposed with undeniable evidence.

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The evidence itself came from the Southern Baptist Convention and its executive committee. He urgently began to contact

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Ashley Clayton from the Southern Baptist Convention's executive committee, who had confirmed to me that McLean Bible Church was indeed a

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Southern Baptist Convention church. Is the Southern Baptist Convention, Mr. Clayton, a denomination? It is not.

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Jeremiah called. What he was saying was, hey, I'm just checking to see have we completed our process of joining the

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SBC denomination. That word was used several times from him.

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I didn't challenge that. If it had been the pastor, if it had been...

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In different circumstances, I should have and I would have corrected to say, well, just so you know, you're not becoming an

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SBC church. I mean, I say this all the time. I just don't always say it.

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I don't correct lay people when they bring up things like that. It just didn't seem to be that important to me. After this phone call, you recall that that came first.

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Then he followed up with an email. Is that right? Yes, I did. In our database of record, the data field affiliation status shows

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McLean Bible Church as affiliated at all three levels of affiliation slash cooperation, national convention, state convention, and local association.

03:13

Do you remember writing that to Mr. Clayton? I do. You just mentioned a moment ago you did not, since he was a lay person as you understood it, give him the other explanation that you would normally give in other circumstances.

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That's correct. To his second question, his second question is, secondly, is the Southern Baptist Convention a denomination?

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You've already told us today that it is not. Your response to Mr. Burke is that to your second question, the churches of the

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SBC would comprise a denomination. Is that inconsistent with what you've told us today in any way?

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This statement is inconsistent with what I have said and what is actually the truth about this, about how that plays out.

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In my estimation, this was not a good response, not my best response.

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Is it an accurate response? We are not a denomination. The term denomination is almost more structural.

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It's something that I know we are not. I'll end it there then. If I can leave it with that, yeah.

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Platt told him to write an email to Larry Cooper, who was at that time the chairman of the Board of Elders.

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David Platt was outlining what he wanted the email to say. Dear Ashley Clayton, as a follow -up to our communication earlier this week, it would be helpful if you could send a letter to our elders and copy me clarifying the following.

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That you, on behalf of the SBC Executive Committee, recognize that McLean Bible Church is an independent, non -denominational church, and we are not affiliated denominationally with the

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SBC. That you unintentionally miscommunicated to one of our members concerning the above reality in a recent email, but that we were not becoming a

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Southern Baptist Church or joining a denomination, and that your understanding of the partnership today is unchanged.

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The MBC is included in the SBC church database purely for the sake of accounting purposes.

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Obviously, you can feel free to communicate anything else in terms of the fruit of our partnership together in missions.

05:38

Thank you, Brother David. Ashley Clayton did as he was told, and MBC leadership then presented this email to the congregation, pretending as if it was from the

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SBC, when in reality, David Platt was telling the SBC what to say. The congregation then started to become aware that David Platt was a liar and a deceiver, and that the

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Elder Board, in existence at that time, was also lying. The church constitution gives one avenue by which the members of the church can replace corrupt leadership, and that is through a vote of no confidence during the annual elder election.

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So during a church business meeting on Wednesday evening, June 30th, 2021, that's exactly what happened.

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For those of you who have kept up with your emails, you have heard about a coordinated effort to get people to this meeting in order to vote against three wonderful,

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Christ -honoring, biblically qualified brothers as elders in the church.

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A group of members in our church family has interviewed and unanimously, joyfully affirmed each of them.

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And our elders have done the same. And ever since these men were announced to our church family, there has not been one concern expressed by any member of this church.

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They were very forceful that those people be voted on. David was making those decisions.

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David was, he was very vocal, well, fairly vocal about it in the elders' meetings of the people he wanted.

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We put an elder in charge to bring candidates forward, okay? And that's a process under the

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Constitution. And David said, No, I don't want that person. Here's who

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I want. I'd rather have this person. And so David realized that he's got to kind of find a way to manipulate this process.

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And then I wanted to raise these concerns at congregational meetings. And then the first one I came to, June 30, 2021, it opens with a threat from the

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Director of Security, Lucius Thompson. If any person disrupts or shouts out at any point during the meeting, whoever is speaking on stage at that point will immediately back away from the microphone, while our security team immediately comes to escort that person out.

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If anyone disrupts or shouts out during the meeting or refuses to leave with our first response team, then security and possibly law enforcement will be asked to hurry.

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If anyone here is representing any sort of media, we kindly ask that you would leave the meeting at this point.

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We were threatened from the pulpit. I felt very trapped. There was no role for the congregation as a congregation, at a congregational church.

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This seems very strange and then very controlled. And then the lead elder told us we couldn't take out phones.

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He questioned people who were there. We couldn't have any visuals. Sir, I notice you're photographing this on your cell phone.

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Is there a reason for that? We ask that you not do that, please.

08:46

I don't know how else to explain. Our relationships with ministries of the SBC are the same as when that relationship started in 2016, before I became pastor here.

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We have a process in place for the counting, observed and overseen by a third party for the sake of integrity, so there'll be no question about the outcome of the vote.

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Now, on to the vote. The vote was taken, and after about an hour or more, lots of singing and music, the chairman of the elders came on the stage and said,

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We're tabling this meeting. It's not going to continue, and we'll let you know what's going on.

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So stay tuned. The report I have for you right now is that we have a closed election, and we're going to have to process the provisional ballots, which in many cases is going to be ascertaining whether the ballot was appropriately passed or not by a qualified person.

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So we cannot call the results tonight. They said that we're going to have to put this, all the votes in a lockbox, and we're going to come back.

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And I go, like, is this a presidential, you know, to have a lockbox for elders?

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And I go, like, something's wrong. We will be getting back to you as soon as we do the processing that we need to do.

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We'll be getting back to you with the results through an all -church email. So that was a little bit of a red flag.

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Just tell us what happened. That's not a big problem, you know. Did you get 75 % of the vote, or did you not?

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Enough people scrapped up enough votes to say, no, we're just not going to rubber stamp everything that you're doing.

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And he used his power, his platform, his influence to shape his own narrative of what occurred.

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Elder nomination for new elders, it was defeated. But then the way the church responded was just horrible.

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July 4th, 2021, David went up into the pulpit and said...

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We have explained and have in writing from the SPC, we're not a member of the Southern Baptist Convention.

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Put it out there in a way he had never before done, lying to everyone's faces. David Platt spoke

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July 4th, and so a red flag to me was, we normally call up our service members, and we have them each stand during the song, each branch stand.

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We didn't do that, and he spent a good majority of the sermon in anger towards people who voted against the elders.

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You see him panic, and in the panic, he has to take the pulpit and bully and humiliate the sheep.

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A small group of people inside and outside this church coordinated a divisive effort to persuade others to vote these men down using disinformation and...

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For David Platt to take up gospel -sharing airtime to talk about a group of people, including me and my husband and other people, long -term

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Christians who have been walking faithfully with the Lord for 40 more years, these were the people that he was slandering.

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David Platt lambasted those who had stood up against these three elders.

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Anywhere between 70 to 78 % of those who voted, depending on which ballots would be accepted from active members of NBC and which ones would be rejected from people who are not active members of NBC, which means that the final outcome of this elder election would be either just above or just below the required 75 % line.

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David knew what the ramifications were. If the elders didn't make it, the whole elder board would get dissolved, and under the church constitution, they would come up with a new elder board and could fire

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David if they wanted to. Yeah, that was definitely in play. As a result of us winning that election...

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It was announced that there would be another vote. The constitution requires that you put three additional, three new elders, not the same three, and they were putting the same three elders up again.

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Five of us made a very difficult decision to bring suit on the basis that the constitution under which the laws of Virginia regulate churches and every other organization, you must abide by your own rules.

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If you don't abide by your own rules, then we want to know about it. We asked for an injunction from the court to slow things down, to prohibit this vote from taking place on that upcoming

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Sunday. Unfortunately, the courts did not get it on the docket to hear it, so we didn't have weeks, we had days, which wasn't a complete surprise.

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So the vote went forward. There'd be a couple changes this time. There would not be secret ballots, which was another large red flag.

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They gave us ballots with our name stickers on them. I knew that a lot of people who currently did ministry, they could lose the room for their ministry that was met at, and so I just couldn't believe it.

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I took a picture of it. You can easily come to the conclusion that there's some intent to intimidate, since a lot of church staff is a couple hundred, they're voting, so it was weird.

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There was a rushed vote. We had no means to reach out to the congregation. David Platt and the elders were sending out all these emails encouraging the congregation to vote one way.

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And we've asked for anyone to contact us with any concerns about these men, and no one has expressed any concerns about any of them to us.

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To be clear, these are not yes -men or men with any agenda other than to follow

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Jesus as leaders in this church. Any suggestion otherwise means you do not know these men.

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They brought forth the same elders and took hundreds of people off the list, some of our friends, their names disappeared.

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I went into the church lobby and went up and asked them if I could get a ballot to vote. The girl got on the phone with somebody, couldn't hear what she was saying.

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She comes back and says, Oh, I'm sorry, we don't have you on our membership rolls. You're not a member.

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I said, Excuse me? I've been a member since 1961. Well, I'm sorry, we don't have you on the rolls.

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I can't give you a ballot. I never received any notification that I had been dropped from the membership.

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This was like a very ordinary task that we would do every single congregational meeting.

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You just line up in front of the kiosk, and they check you in, you take all your information, and they give you a name tag.

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And the person behind the counter said to us, Well, somehow your account's been made inactive.

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In my head, I'm thinking, I am an active leader.

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I've been solid in this church for years, decades, and why am

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I suddenly inactive? There was no explanation. They sent us to go over to another lady.

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I distinctly remember her whispering to a person next to her in a way that we weren't really supposed to hear, but my husband and I still heard it.

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Oh yeah, they were made inactive on such and such date, which was about a week before.

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It was a very clear, premeditated decision that the church had made to make a certain number of people inactive without their knowledge, without their consent.

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And so because of that, we weren't allowed to vote. My voice has just been taken away. I have no voice.

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I have no meaning to this church. I have no input to this church. They do not value me.

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And it just kind of reminded me of all the things that had been said in those leadership meetings where, you know, your small group is problematic and it's no longer fitting within the model and basically saying that you're not useful, what you're doing is not important.

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I can't begin to tell you how hurtful that is. After years and years of service, from 2008 until 2021.

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What happened to all these members? How were they purged? This happened to tons of people.

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And I wondered why they're challenging so many others who had been likewise members.

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These were very solid men of God. And so they did on a Sunday morning between services.

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Even then they were trying to basically squash the ability for people to ask questions because they had it up on the stage.

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They started with worship. All of a sudden we were having worship at the congregational meeting. And it was basically done in a way so that nobody could possibly be in a situation where they could ask questions.

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And what just spooked me was walk into the sanctuary at every door was a county police officer in our church.

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We were having a church meeting. And it was stunning. There were police in the sanctuary. Nobody better stand up or make a motion or talk or do anything.

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And it was just about that bland. It was just about that simple. But for those who have a ballot now, we ask you to mark it and pass it to the aisles where we'll be collecting them.

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You may have seen in the e -news that we used to describe the collection and counting process.

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But if not, it is this. Ballots from each location will be secured and handled the same way that we safeguard cash and checks.

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The results will be announced via e -news as soon as possible, possibly tomorrow afternoon.

19:18

At the final election for the elders, I was sitting at Prince William Campus.

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I hear, point of order. Larry, point of order. This is a difficult thing for me to do, to stand up here.

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Just a minute, sir. Just a minute. I have a point of order. The video feed was immediately cut off.

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I'm not accepting your point of order. We're conducting this meeting, sir. We're conducting the meeting the way it's been orchestrated.

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I couldn't believe that this was a congregational meeting and point of order, and then the meeting was over and the ballots are all collected.

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I'm going to have you step out. We're not going to proceed until you're done. Let him speak! How many of you know me?

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How many of you know who I am? This is a congregational meeting. We have shifted from praise and worship to a congregational meeting.

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You, my friend, are on camera. I have a mask on. I don't care. What I've got is, what is the purpose of today's meeting?

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It's a special meeting. And the voices in Fairfax need to be heard.

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My point of order is very simple. Can we start the meeting with a reading of the minutes of the prior meeting of June 30th?

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Hey, everybody. I'm going to ask y 'all to just take a step up for a second, and we're going to push you guys out.

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Stop touching me. What are you guys doing? I told him to not record.

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Get out of here. He's recording something for no reason. It's a business meeting. Get out of my way.

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It's always been an integral part of the meeting to allow members to voice their thoughts and opinions on matters of relevance.

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What they were doing was systematically preventing us from speaking.

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People are leaving. They want to have a congregational meeting. That's why they came here today.

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You guys have piggybacked this to put it right after a praise and worship ceremony. I've done this before.

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It's unfair to the congregation. We should be doing this at a picnic. We should be doing this in the evening.

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But they chose to do it during the middle of a congregational service. I'm serious.

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Can we just talk outside? Can we just talk outside? We do want to hear what you have to say. Then listen.

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How many people would like to hear what I've got to say? Yes! Yes! Yes!

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We anticipated this. We're following our normal protocols here. We will reconvene at the time this is resolved.

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We will reconvene at the time this is resolved. This is a business meeting.

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Give him the mic. All I want are the minutes from the last meeting.

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Tell us what happened on June 30th. You couldn't even get a quorum for the March meeting. What does that say about the elders in the church?

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So we've got to admit that December minutes into the June meeting they should be read here now so we understand where we were and where we're going.

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So the church has decided that it wants to have an open ballot.

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You're right to vote secretly after 60 years at the Plains Bible Church.

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Look at your ballot. It has your name on it. This is an unfair ballot.

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I'm going to ask you guys to take a step back. Hit the pause button.

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Let's have a legitimate meeting. Do I stand or do

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I go? Stand! He eventually was put out of the meeting and it was those sorts of tactics that were appalling.

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So we're going to proceed and if you've already cast your ballot I know somebody passed it in already please continue to do that.

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Pass it in to the right. Since that July 18th vote

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NBC leadership has never held another in -person congregational meeting. There's a big legal battle for control of a church with a huge footprint in our area as you can see right here from this map.

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The Virginia Court of Appeals decided this week to allow parts of the lawsuit to move forward for control of McLean Bible Church.

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This is at the center of a political controversy with allegations of election fraud. WUSA 9 investigative reporter

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Nathan Baca walks us through some of those claims. McLean Bible Church was last in the news when then -President

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Trump visited for a prayer service June 2019. David felt remorse for praying for Donald Trump.

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He wrote an apology letter the day afterwards. He floated that to the elders and he says I'm going to send this out to the entire congregation through emails and through a letter.

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I'm going to post it up on social media. And I read that and I immediately emailed

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David back and so did a couple of the other elders, bless their hearts. They said, this is an apology letter,

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David. But he didn't take anybody's criticism or anything and the letter went out.

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My email lit up like, Craig, this is an apology. I mean, how can you allow this stuff to happen?

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Well, I don't know how I can allow this stuff to happen. I'm just, just an elder.

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Now, accusations by some church members of purged voter rolls leading to a stolen election sounds more like the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election.

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Five people sued the church. God, through the Holy Spirit, ought to be able to lead his people to devote their consciences and we believe it was about 400 members who were illegally purged against the constitution of the church.

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So at that point, pursuing this injunction proceeded over the next couple of years and we've been in the circuit court and won most of the motions.

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When the church asked that the case be dismissed on the basis that the issues were moot, the election had been had, the church was happy, and the judge bought the argument, which caused us to make another tough decision to appeal it.

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Virginia Court of Appeals decided to let the lawsuit against the church continue. They turned it back to the circuit court and said, you might have gotten some of this right, but there's some of it you didn't get right, and this case needs to proceed and these plaintiffs need to be given the right to depose and ask questions.

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My name's Chap Peterson. I'm an attorney in Fairfax City, Virginia. I'm a Christian. I attend Truro Anglican Church.

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I've been to McLean Bible Church multiple times. I was retained by a group of members of McLean Bible Church.

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This was an unusual case and I'm a trial attorney, and usually when I file a suit,

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I'm looking to go to trial. I'm looking to go in front of a jury. I'm looking to prove facts. I'm looking to win money.

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This case was unique. It was one of the most unique cases I've ever had because once we got the information, it was a matter of getting it out to the public.

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There was no point in having a trial or a jury trial in front of seven complete strangers, many of whom were probably not

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Christians or certainly not McLean Bible members. And so talking to the clients and saying, we've filed this lawsuit, now

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I want to non -suit it, which means withdraw it, but have the right to take this information and go public with it, and that will be the victory in this case.

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The law firm stonewalled the court proceedings by filing multiple and repeated technical pleadings using a myriad of arcane legal tactics, which we didn't know about until they were used, such as demures, pleas in bar, motions craving oyer, whatever that is, and other frivolous motions to dismiss to delay the proceedings to try to bury the plaintiffs with huge legal expenses instead of just addressing the allegations.

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There are two types of churches in the United States. There are hierarchical churches, in which the classic example is the

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Roman Catholic Church, where you have a leader, and they direct the congregation what to do.

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Then you have non -denominational churches, or most Protestant denominations, in which the congregation is in charge, and the leadership serves at their sufferance pursuant to bylaws or a written constitution.

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And in the latter case, in a non -denominational, non -hierarchical church, where you have church leadership that's violating the church constitution, courts can get involved and should get involved.

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Are you familiar with the phrase box budget? Yes. What does that mean? The box budget was the surplus budget at McLean Bible Church.

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When David Platt came on board, we had no idea that the Southern Baptist Convention and Radical would have the kind of access that they had.

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Leadership created this box budget. It's what they call this box budget, and it was created when David came on board.

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It was a no -man's land for money, a gigantic pot that who knows who was taking what out and when and how much, and it just became just so vague.

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I mean, again, that was a lot of money being spent, and I've been involved in churches for years. I've also served on the board of colleges and nonprofits and, you know, all kinds of charities.

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And every transaction is identified, and to the extent you spend several hundred thousand dollars, much less a million dollars, you need to have a report on how that money was spent, what the purpose was, how it's consistent with the mission of the church or the nonprofit.

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And there was no accountability like that. I found that very surprising. Do you see the question about 2020 Radical and SBC donations?

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Do you still want these donations to be budgeted in admin for 2020? Correct. What does admin mean?

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Admin was one section of the budget. Okay, was there a reason that those donations would have gone to admin?

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There wasn't any other good place to put them, and so we put them in admin. If you put them in admin, would that mean they would not actually be itemized in the church budget?

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Well, nothing was truly itemized in the church budget, or the budget would have been 40, 50, 60 pages long.

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So everything was summarized. Everything was summarized. The budget didn't really have line items for the

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SBC and for Radical. The church's response has always been, well, we don't want to have granular 100 -page budgets for the 1 % accounting geeks that care about this stuff.

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I don't care about $900 a year for janitorial supplies or something like that.

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But when you have six - and seven -figure expenditures, they should be in their own category.

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I mean, even to a non -financial person, it just didn't make any sense.

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Things like, you know, make it easier for the auditing process. We won't have to spend as much manpower figuring out where every dollar is going.

31:41

My name is John Leonard. I work for a firm called Finance and Evaluation Experts Incorporated.

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When I look at financials of a business, and I know that this is an organization, this is a church, but I look at it like a business.

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I'm always very curious, first and foremost, to see complete and accurate records.

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And I don't feel as if I've been able to see that yet.

32:12

It seems like they were trying to obscure what money they were moving around. It looks like an email you sent to Dale Sutherland on October 4, 2018, about a box budget.

32:24

Correct. I pulled together the box budget explanation and placed the current amount, $1 .5 million, into the box.

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That would be effectively the surplus at that point? Yes. Okay, the document is attached. I'm also attaching the box budget explanation from last year, but that is a little bit more convoluted.

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Next paragraph. I am not at all comfortable with the language for the donations to SBC and Radical, so we can work on cleaning that up, up the language there.

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We only have $1 .5 million in the box currently. I assume we should put at least $4 million in the box.

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Do you see that? Yes. What did you mean by that? You're not comfortable with the language, the donations.

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At the time, there was some specific language in there. I don't recall exactly what it was, but I wasn't comfortable with the way it was describing it.

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But I don't really know what it was. I can't remember that far back. Okay, and what was being described?

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The donations to Southern Baptist Convention? I'm guessing from this, but I'm not supposed to guess.

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All right, well, don't guess. What's Radical? Radical is a separate Christian organization, separate 501c3.

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The paid Radical, founded by David Platt, $650 ,000.

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David Platt really didn't want the congregation to know any kind of granular details on how money was spent.

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People would ask questions like, hey, is that really right that we're spending money on David Platt's personal charity?

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So I think that's where there was very little transparency, and they never wanted to put anything in writing.

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From David Platt at Radical .net to Bill Steele. Hey, Bill, as we look towards using money via the box budget,

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I think I remember some of the money going towards SBC stuff. I'd love to make sure that this giving toward anything related to the

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SBC goes to, through channels that count in the SBC world. I hate that there's even a game around this sort of thing, but it will be helpful in terms of our partnership with the

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SBC. So this just begs the question, David, do you really hate that there's a game around this kind of thing?

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Yet when David was leaving IMB, he was quoted as saying, I hate the politics of the

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SBC, and I don't say that as an outsider. I say that as an insider these last four years.

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Some of the lowest points in my leadership have been when I found myself participating in them, jockeying for position, continual self -promotion, backroom deals, followed by spin in the front room, strategizing like brothers are your enemy, feeling like others see you as their enemy, getting to the point where you wonder if you can trust anyone, even as you start to wonder how trustworthy you've become.

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This is a fascinating statement. These characteristics that he's describing, these are not characteristics of a

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Christian, and he's stating this is who he is, and he doesn't want to be a part of these backroom deals, but you look at the whole entirety of his time at McLean Bible Church before he came in to the present.

35:30

It's all backroom deals. It's all corruption. David Platt's entire career is based on lies, deceit, and corruption.

35:37

There's nothing else to it. You remember getting a question about how much money has NBC given to SBC or its related organizations directly and indirectly?

35:46

Not really, but that doesn't, it's here. Okay, your response is, given what they're asking for, especially going all the way back to 2017, and it is going to be more explosive when this information gets out potentially.

36:02

Do you see that? Yes. What did you mean by more explosive? I think it was going to beg more questions.

36:08

Here was money coming from the McLean Bible Church to plant Southern Baptist churches.

36:14

New City Network, have you heard of that? I don't think I'm familiar.

36:23

New City... New City Network, there's three words, New City Network.

36:31

I'm not. Have you ever heard that phrase before? I don't think I have. Hey church family, you may not know that over the last three years, we have had the opportunity, by God's grace, to be a part of planting over 50 churches in the

36:48

Washington, D .C. area. It's been awesome to see the gospel multiplying. This is our mission statement.

36:54

We glorify God by making disciples and multiplying churches. Think and pray and dream.

37:00

Yes, praise God for 50 churches. We want to see hundreds of churches spreading the gospel among the hundreds of thousands and millions of people in Metro D .C.

37:12

So, on October 5th, 2018, we are actually hosting a gala where we are going to, along with the

37:19

Museum of the Bible, actually be at the Museum of the Bible, be talking about our efforts to plant more churches and multiply more churches in the days to come.

37:28

I'll be speaking. There'll be a variety of things happening that night. And I just want to encourage you to put that on your calendar.

37:34

October 5th, 2018, New City Network Gala. I look forward to seeing you there.

37:40

The analogy that I would use is the Southern Baptist Convention has somehow become like a kudzu.

37:49

It's a plant. It's an invasive species plant that sends out tendrils and starts climbing up over any structure that it can find.

38:00

And it goes to the highest point to take all of the resources of whatever scaffolding it creeps up on.

38:09

Looks like McLean Bible contributions to New City Network. Yes. See that? Yes.

38:15

And does this look accurate? Yes. It aggregates to 5 .276 million.

38:21

Yes. Were you sent invoices for these amounts, or where did they come from? These were generated from NCN.

38:27

There was a person there that worked over at NCN who generated these.

38:33

Was anyone getting invoices for this, or any type of... There's backup information in the accounting system, but nobody was getting an invoice.

38:42

This was generated from us, not getting an invoice from somebody else.

38:48

There wasn't. Okay. So the NCN check for being written, did NCN have a different treasurer, or were you writing those checks also?

38:56

So McLean was doing all of the financial work for NCN. Those checks coming, that would have been going from NCN, were actually coming on NBC check stock.

39:09

Okay. And then an accounting entry would have been made that NCN owed

39:14

NBC for the money that was on those checks. So at the top of the check it would have said

39:20

McLean Bible Church. Correct. Which is probably why they're listing all of these as coming from McLean Bible Church.

39:26

Okay. But McLean Bible Church was actually writing the checks, correct? Yes. And then

39:32

NCN was reimbursing McLean Bible Church for any check that was written on their behalf. Did New City Network have any funders other than McLean Bible Church?

39:43

No. Okay. So in that sense, when you're getting reimbursed by New City Network, you're getting reimbursed by yourself.

39:50

But it's a different 501c3 organization, so you're trying to keep the monies in the right pots.

39:56

Man! This really is upsetting because I just know, I know Bill, I've known him for years.

40:01

I used to go out with him and his wife all the time. When Lon left and Dale came on board, the next meeting,

40:08

Dale said, I want to fire Bill Steele. I said, Dale, where's your head? I said, do you know how complicated this stuff is?

40:16

He does three people's jobs. I said, Dale, we're not going to do it. And Bill said,

40:22

Craig, he said, I am glad you stood up for me. He said, I know that they want to get rid of me.

40:28

He said, I know too much. I didn't know exactly what Bill meant, but he said,

40:33

I know too much. But now I'm beginning to understand it. So your elder board watches every single check that goes out of here.

40:42

Your money is carefully watched. Okay. Who would have written the checks for McLean Bible Church?

40:47

Would it have been the church treasurer or somebody in the finance department would have actually made the checks unless they were in concur?

40:56

Let me just say this. That was not allowed. That should have been going through concur. We had an agreement that I was not going to sign all 400 or 500 checks a week.

41:07

The elder board and me, we gave Bill written permission that he could sign certain checks.

41:13

And we told him what they were. But any other checks he could not sign. Southern Baptist Convention checks, they could not sign those things.

41:22

They were going against the agreement that the elders had with senior management.

41:29

Totally. That was in total violation. They could not sign those checks. And that's why when

41:35

I did get a few of them and there was nothing in the notes and I asked about it, don't worry about it,

41:41

Craig. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. I even questioned to David and to the rest of the board, there's money going to the

41:51

SBC here. And there's nothing in the notes about it. What is this all about?

41:57

We're not a member, Larry, as far as I know. We can't be. What are we doing this?

42:03

And I was told that it's for church planting. Here's the ones that I did.

42:10

These are the smaller numbers. See the 1250? That's me. 1346?

42:15

That's me. The rest of these? That's dark money that I did not know about as a treasurer.

42:24

These $100 ,000 checks and all these other, what, there's 30 or 40 other checks that were made out that I had no idea was going out.

42:33

How many churches were actually planted by New City Network? Uh, you know, I don't know exactly. Did you know generally?

42:42

If I was to say more than 10, more than 20? That's my understanding, yeah.

42:47

Okay, could you name them? Name all the churches? Yeah. No. Okay, can you name any of them?

42:56

Sure. You want me to just give you the names of churches? The ones you remember, sure, if you can remember.

43:05

Let's see. You got, now you got me. This is like a quiz. No. For heaven's sakes.

43:12

I don't remember. I mean, I don't remember the names. I mean, yeah. I mean, New City, excuse me, let's think.

43:18

City Light Church. Well, City Light, right? Yeah, City Light Church, I know, because that's a church I go to. Yep. A church

43:23

I'm a pastor at. Oh, for heaven's sakes. I can picture all the pastors in my head.

43:30

I just can't think of the names they gave their churches. Okay, oh boy.

43:36

I went and looked up some of these names to try and find out what church was planted, and sometimes

43:42

I would find information on them, and sometimes I would find nothing on them. Well, they were collecting all this money to plant churches.

43:53

My understanding is that very few of these churches survived, and if they survived, they survived only on paper only.

44:01

What if you used that $10 ,000 now to support a church planter?

44:07

Just dream of all we can do. We were hearing from the pulpit that there was a small divisive group that was seeking to break apart the church, basically.

44:17

We've heard people asking about affiliation with the SBC, money going from NAM, SEND, New City Network.

44:26

Where's money going to coming from? Our goal was just to say, hey, can we put some of these rumors to bed?

44:32

Can we get people talking to each other and being good Christians again? We just want to bridge the gap.

44:38

People are asking these questions. We're hearing a lot of questions about the budget. We thought it would be easy for us just to, hey,

44:44

Nate, can you help give us this information that we can share with our friends? We thought it would be an easy ask, and it wasn't.

44:51

Our goal was always to give them the benefit of the doubt. And we told them that. We were like, we want to trust you.

44:58

We want to give you the benefit of the doubt. We heard a lot of voices saying a lot of things. We said, well, at least let's hear what the church has to say.

45:05

We were asking, how was New City Network funded? We were actually sitting in the room of the New City Network room. And so we said, we're sitting,

45:10

I think you pointed that out, we're sitting here in the New City Network room. People are asking questions about it. We just want to know how is this funded?

45:17

Wade said, oh, hold on, I've got an answer for that. I can answer that for you. And he ran out of the room and he got a book and he came back in and it was a book written by Clint Clifton.

45:26

And he said, let me read this quote to you. And it was something to the effect of, oh, Clint Clifton's amazing.

45:32

He plants all these churches. We think he's incredible, yada, yada. And then he said, from Lon Solomon.

45:40

He said, Lon wrote that. There you have it. That was his answer to us of the money.

45:47

So it was kind of weird. And he proceeded to say, he said, if you have any questions or concerns with the

45:54

SBC, you should be concerned with Lon, because that's where it started with. Clint Clifton is a big

45:59

SBC guy. Lon knew that. He basically put it all on Lon.

46:05

That was kind of a theme. Yeah, that's a problem, but it's always been a problem since this was

46:10

Lon's show. After that meeting, we emailed them and said, hey, we still want to see these numbers. Can you still show us these numbers?

46:17

Every couple of days, we sent an email and asked. We said, there's a budget meeting coming up. We just don't feel comfortable voting until we see this information.

46:24

And it was, oh, we're working on it. Somebody else has asked for that. Bill's pulling the numbers. And then come

46:30

December 16th, I think that morning, we said, hey, the meeting's tonight. Can we get something? And they went radio silent.

46:36

Another level of corruption that we see is with the PPP loan during COVID in 2020. The church took a $1 ,848 ,800

46:44

PPP loan, which they didn't need. It wasn't approved by the congregation, but they took it anyway, in a year where they ended up having a significant surplus.

46:53

I will tell you that we had a surplus in 2020 of approximately $5 .4 million.

47:00

And this says we spent about 2 .6 of that in 2021. So we would think that they would pay it back, do the right thing, pay the money back.

47:08

2021 comes along. They don't pay it back. And you might say, well, okay, Larry, what happens to the extra money?

47:15

You didn't spend 5 .4, but it was there. What happens to it? And the answer is, it flows into our reserve account.

47:22

2021 is also a year where the church has a significant surplus. We're talking millions of dollars, a surplus in 2021 and the prior year of 2020.

47:32

And instead of returning the money and paying it back, they seek forgiveness. We used the funds as they were intended.

47:38

And it was converted to a grant. So that is a $1 .8

47:44

million number. It's a big number. 2021 in summary was a good year for us financially.

47:49

It was healthy. Our reserve has been built. The interesting thing about this is that in a private meeting, the church leadership has asked what they did with that money.

48:00

We took the PPP money and I thought we were going to pay it back, but I don't see that it looks like we're going to.

48:08

Has that plan changed? That was never the plan. Okay. So we were never going to pay that back.

48:15

Well, the PPP money was taken by the church and actually, just as an aside, one of the sponsors of that program in the

48:24

Congress goes to our church and came to us and said, if you want help, my office will help you get it even though we aren't in his state.

48:32

The PPP money was accepted. We parked it in a special account and did not spend it and did not reflect it on our books because initially, it's granted and it isn't granted.

48:45

It's given as a loan. If you know anything about the PPP program, you actually had to use that money. You can't put that money into reserves, but that's what the church leadership stated that it actually did with the $1 .8

48:55

million was just put it into reserves. It wasn't until the point in time that we found out that our money was a grant not a loan anymore that we said, okay, now we can think about booking it as income.

49:18

On November 29th, 2021, Laura and I were allegedly trespassed and disfellowshipped by David Platt and his illegitimate elder board.

49:26

They stated in an email the following, Dear Jeremiah and Laura, We have previously notified you of our desire to meet with you to discuss your persistent and public efforts against the leadership and body of Christ at MBC.

49:38

In light of your unwillingness to meet with us and out of concern for the spiritual health of our church fellowship, we are writing to inform you of the following.

49:46

In accord with God's word and in light of Article V, Section 6 of the MBC Constitution, which states that members of this church who engage in conduct that is a reproach to Christ and a derogatory reflection on the reputation of his church shall be publicly dismissed from the church fellowship.

50:01

We are dismissing you from membership in our church fellowship effective immediately and will be communicating this to our church fellowship appropriately.

50:08

We are taking this step after much prayer and with much sadness as we sincerely desire your restoration to the church.

50:14

As we have previously communicated, we remain willing and open to meet with you to discuss these matters at any time, including discussion of the specific conduct that forms the basis for this separation from church fellowship.

50:25

Until that process is carried out and also effective immediately, you may no longer enter MBC property unless it is to attend a previously agreed upon and scheduled meeting with church leaders to pursue restoration in accordance with the

50:37

MBC Constitution and Matthew 18. If you have any questions at all, we look forward to addressing those in personal meetings with you.

50:44

Sincerely, the MBC Board of Elders The funniest part of the whole letter is that the Elder Board had never actually reached out to us, nor had they expressed any concerns at all whatsoever.

50:54

What they didn't like was that they were being exposed for their corruption, which I can totally understand. You know, in a situation like that, it's imperative that you silence the truth.

51:03

Hi, Jeremiah. Hey, how are you, Nate? I'm good, how are you? Doing well. Good to see you. That same evening, we attended a meeting that was scheduled by the church leadership.

51:14

Yeah. How are you doing today? Good, how are you? What's your last name? Burke, B -U -R -K -E. What's your first name?

51:20

Jeremiah. Did you have surgery?

51:27

Arm surgery? I did. Shoulder surgery. One month ago. How's your pain today? It wasn't rotator cuff. Slap tear.

51:33

A whole bunch of other things. And then it's going to be in the roster guide, so be just down there next to the left.

51:39

Awesome, thank you. Britton, how are you? Good. After entering and getting our member badges, they ended up kicking us out of the meeting.

52:04

We did not receive a trespass. I can do that for you right now. Yeah, if you can do that. Yeah, I can do that.

52:24

As long as we know. You guys are trespassed. No, we need a formal written. You have nothing formal written.

52:30

There are rules and you are not abided by them. Ma 'am, you have to leave or you will be arrested for trespassing.

52:37

We have not received a formal trespassing order. He just said. He's letting you know right now in front of me. I'm a law enforcement official.

52:43

So therefore, you do have to leave. No, we're members of the church and under Virginia code, you have to give us a no trespass.

52:50

They gave us our membership. We're allowed in. You can't deny us access unless we get a formal no trespass.

52:56

Sir, will you close that door? Stand by that door. Sir. You cannot go in there.

53:04

You can give me a no trespass if you'd like. Sir. I can get a no trespass. I'm happy to receive one.

53:10

We can make this easy or hard. Let's make it as easy as you'd like. We have not received a formal no trespassing order at all.

53:20

None. And I'd like to see if Larry's here because Larry's the only authority in the church. Okay, sir.

53:26

I'm just going to ask you to stop. There's Larry. I'm going to speak with Larry.

53:36

Hey, how are you? Yeah. There you go.

53:42

Hi, Larry. I need a formal no trespassing order if you're going to remove me. I haven't received one from the elder board.

53:54

I'm sorry. I didn't hear you. My name is Jeremiah Burke. Yeah, I know who you are. I have not received any correspondence from the elder board.

54:01

I received a notice that I was dismembered but no correspondence from the elder board at all. Well, you got the notice that the elder board approved so you need to abide by that.

54:10

No, no. It says I've been notified I've been corresponded with by the elder board which I've never been. She's never been corresponded with by the elder board.

54:17

And I need a written trespassing order if you're going to move forward with this. Larry Cooper, where are you going?

54:25

You're the elder chairman of this church. Larry, you're the chairman. Why are you running away, Larry? Where are you going,

54:31

Larry? Why are you so scared, Larry? You guys have to leave.

54:37

You are trespassing. We have not received a no trespassing order. We have not received a no trespassing order.

54:44

We have not received a no trespassing order. This has been a time where none of us had been able to speak up, really ask questions.

54:59

They were questioning people's memberships, doing things to them. I had seen several people harassed.

55:05

I came to the meeting like, oh, we're finally going to get a chance to maybe ask a question, speak. And all of a sudden there was a scene with Jeremiah, Laura, and their four children.

55:16

I'm not sure why they were let in to then be dismissed at that meeting.

55:23

They had done this numerous times with Jeremiah and Laura. They were isolating them, pulling them out like a criminal in front of their children.

55:31

We haven't received a formal trespass, yet they say we're trespassed. That's the issue. Sir, he has told you in front of me, a law enforcement official, that you are trespassing.

55:39

You have to leave or you will be arrested for trespassing. This is a private property. I'm a member of a private property.

55:47

Member or not, he is saying that you are trespassing and they do not want you on the property. The Holy Spirit just prompted me to get up and speak.

55:55

This guy is a member of our church for a long time and they gave him a badge to get in.

56:01

I got in. And now they want to say that we trespass on a church? There should be notification.

56:09

There should be notification for members of any breakage of rules and due process.

56:15

And we have not had due process. And those of you who are leaving because of detention, you need to stand up for your church before every liberty is gone.

56:27

Amen. We haven't received one reason as to why we are dismembered or banned.

56:39

In fact, the elders sent an email today, it was actually probably Wade, saying that they contacted us multiple times, yet the

56:46

Elder Board has never contacted us once. Not once. We have no idea what they're talking about.

56:52

This is the reason why we're being dismembered. I don't know who's going to be given the opportunity to speak.

57:01

There's a sign that says this is not the way to conduct a meeting. It's not the way Christians are supposed to conduct a meeting.

57:07

So, please let me finish the sentence without interrupting.

57:12

I apologize for the inconvenience but this is not the way we're going to be meeting at the church. So we'll give this a minute for Tuesday to calm down and we'll suspend the meeting and try to do this in the next hour.

57:24

Hopefully, people will have to prevail. This is not okay. So what's the issue? He's a church member.

57:30

Can I ask a question? Excuse me, can I ask a question, please? Can you explain the issue?

57:35

Can you explain what's happening? Excuse me, can I ask a question? All of a sudden, they wanted to shut the microphones off and cancel the meeting.

57:46

We will go. Let us speak.

58:17

All right, everybody. The church is always about solving.

58:36

I'm trying to understand what's changing. All right, we're into the meeting, everybody. Do we have a microphone?

58:57

Who are you? Turn on the mic.

59:12

Where are the elders? Where is David Platt? You have to leave.

59:22

You have to leave or you'll be trespassing. Everybody, if you haven't been introduced,

59:30

Joe Carter. Joe Carter writes for the ERLC, part of the Southern Baptist Convention. You know, some of these people that were brought on we did not know about.

59:39

You know, now Joe Carter, I just remember having a conversation with Tom McMahon. We were just shaking our heads on some of the stuff that Joe Carter was saying about the

59:49

Department of Defense. He thinks we're an evil nation, it sounded like. And I'm thinking, who is this guy?

01:00:00

Eric Saunders, a graduate of the Southern Baptist Seminary. I'm a pastor here at McLean Bible.

01:00:06

And my question today is how do I love my transgender neighbor? We have a Savior, Jesus, who has experienced the ultimate feeling of not belonging in his body.

01:00:16

You could say in that moment that he experienced a kind of dysphoria. He did that for what?

01:00:23

For us. These are all, this whole thing is Southern Baptist. Joe Carter, if you don't know him, now you know him.

01:00:30

Brother, this is not the way to do things, brother. Southern Baptist, Southern Baptist, David's got Southern Baptist.

01:00:35

This is not the way to do things, brother. I'm praying for you. Good night,

01:00:42

Nate. Unfortunately, they canceled the meeting, I heard. That's crazy. We're still waiting to hear from church leadership on what sin either of us committed to warrant their failed attempt at disfellowshipping us.

01:00:58

So after they kicked us out of the meeting, they pressed criminal trespassing charges where they took us to Fairfax County District Court where we faced up to one year in prison each.

01:01:13

Are you guys trespassing? Sure. So I will need IDs for the both of you. Sure, she has them. Sorry it had to be this way.

01:01:19

It's okay, we understood. We're doing your job. Thank you.

01:01:25

You guys need to walk with me over here. Yeah, wherever you want. My crews are over here. Here.

01:01:36

So are you being arrested? I'm not sure. He's being charged with trespassing. Why? He hasn't been formally trespassed.

01:01:43

So the manager of the church... Okay, so I'm not going to argue law with you? He's actually part of the security of the church.

01:01:50

That's the only reason he's coming over. Like I said, whoever's in charge said that he wanted to... I'll speak on your behalf.

01:01:56

She's being honest. Lucious, we got in and Lucious said you're trespassed. And we said we haven't received a formal notice. He goes, I say you're trespassed.

01:02:02

And that's all they did. And she knew, she did great. She was awesome. She was respectful. She did nothing wrong. Nothing was signed by Larry or the elders.

01:02:09

And so we walked in and then David ran away. Larry ran away. They all ran into a back room. And then

01:02:14

Wade started filming. And we started filming Wade. So is he just getting a citation, ma 'am?

01:02:21

Yes, he'll get a summons to appear in court. Summons to appear in court? Yes. Well, but he wasn't he wasn't given any formal notice until he got here.

01:02:33

Like I said... I'm being interrogative. I'm not being accused of hoarding. So people do have the right to let you into a place and then ask you to leave.

01:02:41

Even though they... So he left. He did not. He was in there for a while. Being asked to leave and he did not.

01:02:48

And therefore he was trespassing and the church did want to prosecute him. Well folks, during the last part of our meeting tonight,

01:02:57

I'd like to share our current financials. But first I want to share that in elder updates over recent days we have communicated how we are praying and working toward biblical peace and restoration with certain people.

01:03:13

Some of whom are members and others of whom are just attenders of our church. We are publicly sharing with you tonight that we have removed a couple from membership and we have asked them not to attend

01:03:26

NBC until such time as they are willing to sit down with us and prayerfully work toward restoration.

01:03:34

You were summoned to Fairfax County General District Criminal Court 4110

01:03:39

Chambers Road on January 13, 2020 at 9 .30 a .m. Oh perfect, yep. I'll be there. That's actually a good time.

01:03:44

Yep, for the charge of trespass. Perfect. So I'll just need you to sign here. Platton ended up sending his proxies to the court to urge the prosecutor to move forward with the prosecution.

01:03:57

However, the judge dismissed both of our cases almost immediately. We may be taking similar steps with other individuals in the future in an effort to follow

01:04:07

Jesus' instructions to us in Matthew 18, 15 to 20. Fast forward to 2022 McLean Bible Church leadership continues to deny its affiliation with the

01:04:15

SBC despite all of the evidence. So we ended up filing a lawsuit to get an accounting of the church's relationship with the

01:04:22

Southern Baptist Convention. David Platt and his elder board spent nearly a million dollars in this lawsuit to prevent the lawsuit from moving forward.

01:04:28

The church even attempted to indicate that we had no standing in the case because they had removed us from membership. However, the witness that the church brought forward to testify had no firsthand knowledge and was not present when the church allegedly removed us from membership.

01:04:42

Additionally, the church didn't follow the process for removing members. So in reality, the judge rejected David Platt's attempt to enforce church discipline on us.

01:04:50

One of the things I do in addition to being a lawyer is I also teach constitutional law at George Mason, the

01:04:55

Scalia School. And First Amendment cases are all about transparency, they're all about getting information out to the public.

01:05:03

Now, this is a church, so it's a private organization, so it's not the same as, say, a public agency.

01:05:10

But the principles are the same, that where you have information, the people that have a right to that information should not be shielded from that information.

01:05:19

And there are a lot of famous First Amendment cases, for example, the Pentagon Papers, which had to do with the

01:05:24

Vietnam War, where, for example, the Nixon administration said, well, we don't want this getting out to the American people because they might get mad and start questioning our strategy.

01:05:32

Well, that's really almost a perfect parallel to what happened in this case. And I said to the court, you know what, it's not enough for the lawyers to the church to say this is a harm to us because our own parishioners might find out what we're doing with their money.

01:05:45

That's not an effective argument. And the judge agreed. And that was very satisfying to us. I think it was middle of January, we reached out again and said, we never heard from you.

01:05:55

We'd still like that information. And they said, I'm confused. Why do you need this information? We just passed the budget.

01:06:01

Because they just passed the budget at the December 16th meeting. We said, well, because we've been asking for the information for two months, can you please give it to us?

01:06:09

We can't give you this information, you have to come in and sit down with us. We were being questioned, like, well, what are your motives?

01:06:14

Why do you, when we had the January meeting, it was like, well, I'm concerned, why do you want this information? What Chuck said, if you see that there's money coming from SBC, will that, is that going to alarm you?

01:06:26

Like, why does that matter to you? I mean, they just kept, they said, we just want to know, like, are you really a member here?

01:06:32

Are you really involved? Is this still your home? Before we give you this financial information, we want to know that you do have a good intention.

01:06:39

So that was literally the first 43 minutes of that meeting before they actually called the lady in to finally show us some numbers.

01:06:46

I would say the numbers were unclear. You know, they would show us one year that showed some itemized and then one year, like 2020, was just a blank bucket, like 176 ,000.

01:06:57

Didn't show where it was from or anything or who it went to or anything like that. Given that, at that point, I think we had paid a babysitter to watch our kids for an hour -long meeting and spent the first 45 minutes going through the, hey, can we trust you with this?

01:07:10

We didn't get very far. We got to look at some numbers and it was kind of a, hey, are you satisfied now?

01:07:17

I'm a CPA by background and kind of feel like I owe it to the church. I should pay attention to the financials.

01:07:24

My husband wrote a couple of lengthy letters asking just simple budget questions and he got a letter saying that he was under Matthew 18 discipline and in, what was it, they were threatening,

01:07:35

I guess, excommunication. Didn't explain anything, just, dear brothers and sisters, the elders have decided this and until you come in and meet with us, we're breaking off all communication.

01:07:48

And then they actually said, your wife has refused to come in and meet with us, but since you're the head of the household, we suppose we'll let you come in without her.

01:07:57

They had never asked me to come in, so that wasn't true. He said, I'll go in and he met two and a half hours behind closed doors with one elder and the campus pastor and they didn't answer a single question.

01:08:11

And they couldn't explain. So we got talking about the barks that they were just impugning and said, wait, do you know these people?

01:08:23

In fact, Nate, the pastor, said, I know you know them. And then they attacked this other guy,

01:08:32

Sal. I made a satire video of the attendance history of McLean Bible.

01:08:38

No elder, no one in leadership said, Sal, what you're doing, we need to have a conversation. No one said that. The first that I heard that they were disappointed was a letter to the entire congregation.

01:08:48

They wrote, they said, there's a certain individual who's been targeting the four campuses. He's been a security threat.

01:08:54

And no mention of specifics. The first action that they did was to pull me out in the middle of a worship service at Loudoun County.

01:09:03

In the forums, if you couldn't make it, you could send your questions in by email. I had several questions about the

01:09:10

SBC and Radical, and I sent those questions into the church. About 10 days later,

01:09:18

I got a email from the church. It looked like a template, and I wasn't sure why

01:09:23

I was getting it. Then it came to me that it was because I sent the questions in.

01:09:29

Dear brothers and sisters, the board met last night to pray and to talk through the current status of our relationship with you.

01:09:36

As evident in both your recent communications to us and in online activity, the concerned members of our church continue to send to us.

01:09:44

It even has some things in here that I never, never did in online activity.

01:09:51

And I never, never did such a thing. In Matthew 18, when relationships reach this point, we are called specifically to pursue the biblical process of restoration.

01:10:02

You are receiving this email because the entire board believes this step is critical and must occur sooner rather than later.

01:10:10

We are pausing all communications with you until the Matthew 18 process of restoration has been followed.

01:10:18

Prayer for Lee, the MBC elders. They attempted to intimidate me for sure with calling me and saying

01:10:26

I was reproached to Christ, things like that. They would say to my friends and me. So then

01:10:32

I responded to the elders. Dear MBC elders, this is Michael Hyben, Carolyn Hyben's husband.

01:10:38

Your email to Carolyn appears to be formulaic. Why would you send out a generic letter dealing with church discipline?

01:10:44

You didn't even dignify the process by calling Carolyn by name. Gentlemen, your communications has all the hallmarks of an email scam or a prank.

01:10:53

For the record, since Matthew 18 deals with unrepentant sin, what sin do you feel she is guilty of?

01:11:00

Since you are pausing all communications with her, I can only assume her alleged sin is grave.

01:11:05

Please answer my specific questions sincerely and clearly, Michael Hyben. We were trying as Christians to understand why our friends were being disfellowshipped from the church.

01:11:17

They keep quoting Matthew 18. Our understanding is that if somebody is in sin, you're supposed to go to them, you're supposed to go to them together, and then you're supposed to bring them to the church.

01:11:27

And if they're asked to leave, then they are out of fellowship with Christians. So we were asking, hey, could you tell us why?

01:11:33

Later they said this was really not a traditional Matthew 18 process, which

01:11:41

I took to mean it was more like of a sinless Matthew 18 process. Some of you may recall a situation that occurred before I came here as pastor involving one adult here at the

01:11:53

Tysons campus who engaged in inappropriate communication and conduct as a volunteer from The Rock, our student ministry.

01:12:02

The family brought the allegations against the perpetrator Scott Woods in 2016, December of 2016.

01:12:09

Here we have the congregational meeting minutes from September of 18 when Scott Woods is officially removed from membership.

01:12:17

So I'll just read Larry Cooper's following statement. As provided for in the scriptures and in our constitution, one of the responsibilities of the elders is the manner of discipline of airing members and regular attendees and their reconciliation if they repent and demonstrate the fruit of repentance.

01:12:35

Sadly, we have had separate incidents related to conduct involving a former member who ceased to attend on his own volition,

01:12:42

Scott Woods. So I guess one of the big questions that everybody has is why if the allegations were brought in 2016, is it not until 2018 that any of us are even hearing his name?

01:12:54

No one knows what he did. The congregation is completely in the dark as to what happened. So Jeremiah and I had never heard the name

01:13:01

Scott Woods before this congregational meeting. So it was as if the church handled it very quietly, kind of warning him to just leave, please, and that way everybody's safe and sound.

01:13:16

In November of 19, David Platt gives a sermon and he specifically addresses this situation in the student ministries with Scott Woods.

01:13:24

Here's what I've put in motion just to make you aware. Months ago, I commissioned an outside group with expertise in helping churches and other organizations like churches protect children.

01:13:34

I have asked them to evaluate all of our policies, procedures, and practices at NBC in the past, including that situation, and the present, to make sure that we are doing everything we possibly can to protect children.

01:13:49

The families were encouraged to hear that David was doing this effort, but one of the mothers challenged him, if something is uncovered, if a cover -up is revealed, are you going to do the right thing?

01:14:01

And he promised her yes. Yes, that situation was years ago. Yes, that volunteer is no longer in our church, and yes, these security improvements were good.

01:14:13

To this day, we still don't know the results of that. We got a very high -level this is not good, but we never got any details.

01:14:25

We never got any details of it. I never knew what the final outcome was. In a private meeting between the families and David Platt, the families are questioning what the church's response was to the allegations and the evidence that they brought forth regarding the predator,

01:14:39

Scott Woods, and his grooming. David's response to the mishandling of the situation, David Platt tells the family,

01:14:46

I see dropped balls all over the place. So who actually received the 130 -page document that this family left for Lon Solomon?

01:14:56

Here's the heartbreaking letter to Lon from an attendee of 22 years. Lon, we left for you at McLean Bible Church a 130 -page letter in supporting documents dated

01:15:07

July 5, 2017, providing irrefutable proof of inappropriate sexual and illegal behavior by Scott Woods, a volunteer youth leader at The Rock.

01:15:18

We would like to know if you ever saw and read the information that we left for you. If so, why didn't you ever say anything or contact our family or the other families?

01:15:29

I just received the copy of your email to me via Lon Solomon Ministries regarding your son dated

01:15:36

May 20, 2018. I must confess that I was shocked, saddened, and taken totally by surprise.

01:15:43

I had to read it over and over several times to be sure I understood all the things you said in it.

01:15:50

I have never received any correspondence of any kind from you or anyone else regarding this situation.

01:15:58

I certainly did not receive the 130 -page document referenced in your email that you left for me at McLean Bible Church in July 2017.

01:16:10

Nor was I ever informed by anyone at NBC about your situation or that it even existed.

01:16:16

Your email represents the first I have heard about it. By early 2017,

01:16:23

I had signed my succession agreement with NBC and had been removed by the elders of NBC from all operational responsibilities.

01:16:31

So, in July 2017, although it may have appeared differently to some, the truth is

01:16:37

I had been transitioned by the elders of NBC to the role of Senior Teaching Pastor, a role with no formal operational function or control at NBC.

01:16:48

I can assure you that had I been told about your situation or received your letter that you mentioned in your email,

01:16:56

I would certainly have contacted you right away. Furthermore, I do not know who this

01:17:03

Scott person is. Nor was I aware until I received your email of any of these allegations against him.

01:17:11

Moreover, I was not a part of, nor did I have any knowledge of, the way this situation has been processed by NBC.

01:17:20

I'm leaving for Israel tomorrow for ministry until early June. As you know, I am no longer preaching or involved at NBC in any official or unofficial capacity.

01:17:31

But as your former pastor, I want to be available to the degree I am able to minister to you and your family upon my return.

01:17:40

Sincerely, in Christ's name. So it begs the question, who actually received the package with 130 pages of evidence that his family left for Lon Solomon?

01:17:50

Obviously, according to Lon's email, he didn't receive it. But David was notified about this incident when he joined the church.

01:17:57

So someone had to receive it and become aware of these allegations. Someone in leadership or multiple individuals in leadership had to know about this.

01:18:04

Because we're hearing things about what the parents are saying and what went on. And, you know,

01:18:10

Dale, he's just trying to kick this thing down the road or kick it under the rug. You know, he's hoping it will just go away.

01:18:17

It's like a bad dream. But it didn't go away. You know, and Dale never handled it correctly.

01:18:23

Justice hasn't been served for this man. I've seen images that he sent to these children myself.

01:18:31

And it's vile. It appears that David Platt and the leadership of McLean Bible Church care more about the reputation of themselves and their institution than the children in that institution.

01:18:45

David sees all the chaos going on and the bad publicity. And if it gets worse, David just wants to get out.

01:18:52

David's going to come up with a resignation. Hey, I'm going to go now do this. This is what

01:18:57

God wants me to do. Maybe even after this documentary comes out, you know, who knows where he could go.

01:19:03

They've set the Constitution up so that he could leave without notice. Basically, he could leave on a dime which feels like if things got too difficult for him, he would just walk out and he would claim,

01:19:16

I don't know, being called to the missions field or some other urgent business that he had to leave on.

01:19:22

And he hasn't quite let go of the reins to Mike Kelsey yet, almost as if he doesn't trust him.

01:19:28

So I go back and forth on it. I don't know whether he's setting himself up to leave or not. Well, I know he's setting himself up to leave.

01:19:37

Whether he will leave or not, I don't know. It feels like he's just keeping his options open so he can leave in a hurry if he wants to.

01:19:43

What matters after all this time has gone by, after all the pain that people have gone through, what matters is that we follow

01:19:54

God's commands. And God's initial commands were the Ten Commandments. And one of those

01:19:59

Ten Commandments is do not lie. And that is the main problem here.

01:20:06

Lies have to be revealed. The process that I witnessed was wrong and it was without integrity and it needs to be exposed.

01:20:16

The founders of this church would be appalled. My parents would be appalled.

01:20:22

And my father would be sitting here in this chair instead of me. So I'm here representing and standing firm, first of all, for the

01:20:32

Lord, for McLean Bible Church, and the founders and my parents. Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead, expose them.