Executive Summary
The Elephant’s Debt is a website dedicated to exploring some of
the underlying reasons why many people have recently begun to both
privately and publicly question the ministry of Pastor James MacDonald
and Harvest Bible Chapel of Rolling Meadows, Illinois.
Over the first ten years of its active ministry, HBC could have been
fairly categorized as a non-denominational, broadly evangelical church
that was largely conservative in its biblical and fiscal orientation.
However, critical events in the early days of the new millennium appear
to have brought about a significant shift in fiscal responsibility,
which was later followed by an apparent shift in theological and
methodological commitments.
By the close of 2010, Harvest’s balance sheet revealed that the
church, while under the pastoral leadership of James MacDonald, had
amassed approximately $65 million of debt. While this number in and of
itself is shocking, what makes it worse is that HBC leadership told the
people in a letter that they were “not going to put our church in a bad
position financially.” Moreover, as will be demonstrated later, this
debt load far exceeds what churches of similar size are known to carry.
Even more concerning is the fact that as of 2010, James MacDonald was
making more than half a million dollars per year, not including any
income potentially derived from sources outside of Harvest Bible Chapel
and Walk in the Word. Finally, in the midst of Harvest accumulating
these financial liabilities, James MacDonald purchased the $1.9 million
Inverness estate formerly owned by U.S. Senator Peter Fitzgerald.
Additional details surrounding these issues will be addressed under “The
Salary.”
In our opinion, weary of the consistent battles with the elder board
over these financial issues, James MacDonald decided to reallocate the
power within the church by redesigning the elder board and restructuring
the governing constitution of Harvest Bible Chapel. This reallocation
of power shifted power away from the elders to himself.
Shortly thereafter, in the fall of 2011, James MacDonald and the
recently expanded elder board of Harvest Bible Chapel rolled out the 5G
Campaign, a new fundraising drive that publicly maintains prioritized
goals of building out the worship center at the Niles campus and
retrofitting the recently obtained Harvest Cathedral, before addressing
“other projects … as funding allows.” Curiously, the relief of the
aforementioned debt was not listed as a top priority of the 5G Campaign
by the leadership of Harvest Bible Chapel. Thus, expansion of Pastor
MacDonald’s influence appears to be of paramount importance, over and
above the repeated admonition in Scripture to get free from debt.
As all of this was continuing to internally unfold at Harvest, plans
for the Elephant Room 2 were being laid by James MacDonald. As has been
widely reported around the web, this event was problematic for two
reasons. First, Bishop T.D. Jakes, a man who historically has been
linked to Modalist theology, was asked very few questions on this
controversial subject. Secondly, and perhaps more significantly,
nothing was said to Jakes in light of his associations with the
Prosperity Gospel movement. While this may not appear to be terribly
significant, what must be noted is that James MacDonald had publicly
stated prior to the event that he was “excited to hear [T.D. Jakes']
state his views on money, which may be closer to Scripture than the
monasticism currently touring reformed world.”
For these reasons and many more, numerous families within the Harvest
community have recently elected to worship elsewhere, while many of
those that remain continue to seek answers from within.
For
additional documentation and explanation, please feel free to either
click on this link or to make use of the tabs provided above, beginning
with “The Debt.”
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