DALLAS (ABP) — A called meeting of the board of the Piper Institute for Church Planting was scheduled for Nov. 14 in Dallas to consider allegations of misuse and mismanagement of church-starting funds by the institute's founder, Otto Arango, and others in the Rio Grande Valley and northern Mexico.
A five-month investigation by the Baptist General Convention of Texas uncovered evidence that 98 percent of the 258 BGCT church starts in the Rio Grande Valley reported by Arango and two of his colleagues no longer exist, and some never existed. The BGCT gave more than $1.3 million support to those 258 church starts in the Valley.
Meanwhile, a separate inquiry of church starts in North Tamaulipas in northeast Mexico found that while 43 pastors reportedly started 75 percent of all new churches in the area, only 12 percent of those church-starts could be verified. The survey, conducted by Dexton Shores of the BGCT last December, also pointed to inflated figures regarding the number of active students and graduates in church-planting programs reported by the Piper Institute.
The Piper Institute for Church Planting evolved two years ago from the Institute for Church Planting that Arango founded in McAllen, Texas, years before. The Piper name was added after one of two foundations started by Baptist philanthropists Paul and Katy Piper provided major funding to Arango's institute to start churches in Mexico.
Arango has not returned requests for comment, except to claim the reports held mistakes and to refer all questions to E.B. Brooks, executive director of the Piper Institute.
Bill Nichols, chairman of the Piper Institute for Church Planting board, said he had confidence in Brooks: “In all the time I have known E.B., I have never known him as anything other than a man of the highest integrity.”
Likewise, Nichols said, Arango never did anything to compromise his integrity or credibility. He noted the board sought to verify numbers reported to them, and all indications pointed to the truthfulness of the statistics.
“However, because of the cloud that has come over our two leaders, justified or not, there is a decision our board must make: whether the cloud has become so overwhelming that we cannot afford to keep the Piper Institute going,” Nichols said.
Nichols remained committed to the strategy of training laypeople to start churches. The cause of starting new churches in Latin America and empowering laity is bigger than a single organization, he added.
Some leaders in the effort to fund mission work, and church-starting in particular, have expressed concern that the cloud of suspicion cast by this scandal should not darken one of Texas Baptists' most prominent names — the Paul and Katy Piper family.
The Piper family's support for Baptist causes exceeded $5.4 million during the 2006 fiscal year — a figure similar to 2005 and expected in 2007. Total distribution to all causes was almost $10 million. The Baptist total included grants of almost $3.6 million and no-interest loans of nearly $1.9 million.
Paul Piper Sr. died in January 2004. Trustees of the Christ is Our Salvation board, a Piper foundation, are Katy Piper; the Pipers' son, Paul Piper Jr.; and their granddaughter, Polly Piper Rickard. Paul Piper Jr.'s wife, Shirley Piper, also is actively involved in the foundation's work.
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