Frank Harber, pastor of First Baptist Church of Colleyville, Texas, resigned Aug. 18 amid allegations he benefited from an improper real estate deal. But his is only the latest case illustrating the fine line between ethical and non-ethical benefits that pastors receive from often well-meaning parishioners.
Historically, many pastors have received, in good conscience, payments of food, housing, furniture and services. Most people agree these in-kind donations–even small luxuries like rounds of golf and free suits–help support the pastor and his ministry.
But probably many pastors have faced the temptation of using a church credit card for a personal purchase. Allegedly that happened too many times at Macedonia Baptist Church in Dawnville, Ga., when Steven Flockhart was pastor.
Church leaders didn't discover the discrepancies until Flockhart had left for another pastorate, leaving the church with a debt of $162,779 and facing financial ruin. The church sued Flockhart, now a megachurch pastor at First Baptist of West Palm Beach, Fla. He has since admitted to “poor stewardship” and repaid the debt.
But sometimes, even within legal bounds, the ethical line between kindness and extravagance is blurred. Some pastors get country club memberships, free condo use, and even stock tips from members. Others, like Harber, get lucrative deals on real estate.
Harber, the Colleyville pastor, recently bought a nearly one-acre lot in a gated community at well below market value, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. While lots in the ritzy neighborhood routinely sell for $200,000-plus, Harber paid just $25,000, according to public records.
The sale was shrouded by a series of questionable transactions that involved two other churches.
Developer John Fegan, a member of the Colleyville church, helped donate the land to the Trail to Heaven Cowboy Church, which is affiliated with First Baptist Church of Celina. Raymond Horne, pastor of the Celina church, said donors told him the land was worth only $25,000 and that they had already arranged a buyer for the land. That buyer, ultimately, was Harber.
Horne, although he declined to comment for this story, said in an Aug. 18 Star-Telegram story that he felt “taken advantage of.”
After the sale, Colleyville church member Tony Johann, who works in the same land development company as Fegan, signed the deed and helped begin construction of a 5,120-sq. ft., million-dollar home for the Harber family, the Star-Telegram reported.
Donald Schmeltekopf, Baylor University's provost emeritus who works as director of its Center for Ministry Effectiveness and Educational Leadership, said Harber's situation crossed ethical boundaries.
“At the ethical level, this is clearly a case of collusion,” he said. “In a situation like this, it sure does stink and is not the kind of thing that anybody should be doing from an ethical standpoint.”
Schmeltekopf said he always advises young pastors to discuss with trusted church members or advisors questionable gifts before accepting them. Had Harber and his aides done the same, he said, it may have changed the outcome.
Instead, when church members caught wind of the transaction, some voiced concern about the terms of the deal. Others, like member Joe Deupree, had previously questioned church finances and been ousted from the church for it, he said.
“People began to be suspicious [about church finances] because they were not allowed to see things,” he told Associated Baptist Press. “There had been rumors for quite a while that our pastor was going to be getting a new house.”
That lack of disclosure can be a fatal flaw for church leadership, according to ethicist Robert Parham. Parham is executive director of the Baptist Center for Ethics, located in Nashville, Tenn.
While a gift or deal between church leaders may be legal, he said, that doesn't mean it's ethical. “I believe it's always good for pastors to disclose [benefits and gifts] to an accountability group, whether that's a finance committee or a personnel committee,” he said.
A lack of disclosure among church leaders was one reason why First Baptist of Colleyville suffered. Locals were taken by surprise when they learned about Harber's real estate deal, and some of them didn't like it.
Reaction to Harber's Aug. 18 resignation has been “mixed,” said Michael Ray, the executive pastor at First Baptist of Colleyville. While most people felt “brokenhearted” to see Harber leave, Ray said, they have supported his decision and wish the best for his family.
Many church members have publicly supported the charismatic Harber, writing letters to the editor at the Star-Telegram and other local news outlets.
First Baptist member Teri Randall Brown, for instance, wrote that the scandal was caused by “bitter people digging up everything they can to destroy this very effective evangelistic pastor and his reputation.”
Deupree thinks otherwise. A member of the 2,753-member church since 1969, he and a group of about 50 people began questioning church policy and finances after being “stonewalled” when they requested information regarding a proposed church relocation and a building project on an unnamed 40-acre plot outside of Colleyville.
After the dissidents were rebuffed in their efforts to obtain member lists and construction budget plans, they consulted a lawyer about their right to the information. Later they were locked out of the church on a cold February morning, and Deupree was asked to resign as a Sunday school teacher. Then Deupree and three others received letters forbidding them to “set foot” on the church property, he said.
But Deupree's research into church records uncovered a June 6 property transfer involving First Baptist Church of Celina and Trail to Heaven Cowboy Church. For Deupree, that previously hidden transaction crossed an ethical boundary when it comes to pastoral benefits.
“If they had deeded it right to Frank Harber, I would have had no problem,” he said. But donations to non-profit entities like churches have specific Internal Revenue Service stipulations and requirements.
For Harber, as an individual, the transaction represents tax evasion, Deupree said.
Money mismanagement and tax evasion has led to other pastor scandals. One of the most notable involved the 1989 fraud convictions of televangelist Jim Bakker, which tarnished the reputation of other Christian TV personalities. Bakker also faced charges of tax evasion and racketeering, not to mention allegations about a sex payoff. He was sentenced to 45 years in federal prison but was released on parole in 1993.
Tax evasion also factored into Steven Flockhart's troubles in Georgia. Church leaders found out that in 1996, the IRS filed an $8,617 lien against Flockhart for not paying three years of taxes, the Palm Beach Post reported.
The paper also reported the pastor had left Macedonia Baptist Church in near financial ruin before moving to Florida. A lawsuit filed by church leaders in 2000 accused Flockhart of misappropriating hundreds of thousands of dollars, using church credit cards for personal bills, and writing checks to himself without clearance from church leaders.
Flockhart resigned in April 1998. Six months later, he offered to get a bank loan to repay the money with interest, according to the suit. Instead, he persuaded church leaders to co-sign a loan for $142,638. But he defaulted on the loan, and the bank came after the church, according to the suit.
Those deeds apparently were not known by members of Crosspointe Baptist Church in Millington, Tenn., which hired Flockhart after he left Georgia, or the 10,000-member First Baptist of West Palm Beach, which recently called him as pastor.
Parham, the Nashville ethicist, said pastors dealing with money issues have to be discerning and have an ethical commitment that exceeds legality.
“Pastors certainly have the right to accept gifts from church members, but accepting gifts may not be the right thing to do,” Parham told ABP. “It's incumbent upon pastors to practice discernment about the kind of gift and the size of the gift and the potential of the gift to drain the preaching and teaching of its prophetic witness.”
Parham noted when pastors practice discernment about the appropriateness of a gift, they assume an elasticity to the quality and quantity of gifts. That helps determine what is and is not appropriate.
Another way to avoid flagrant ethical violations is to utilize the ethics training many professionals within church congregations get at school or on the job. Parham, who said that Baptist churches have a strong history of laity leadership, said it's ironic that while almost any secular professional group now has ethical training, ministers and churches do not.
“Church staff members would do well to seek the advice of laity about the ethical standards and ethical training [they receive in order] to see what are the values and standards required by many different professions,” he said. “A cross-fertilization within a church could be very constructive.”