“So then let us pursue what makes for peace and for mutual upbuilding.” (Romans 14:19)
Harvest Bible Chapel was our lifetime calling, the only church our children ever knew, and the centerpiece to most of our greatest joys. From the time Kathy and I were 25 and 27, everything we did was for the people of HBC, and everything we loved was deeply intertwined with the church family we openly prayed to spend our whole lives serving. All three of our children met and married their spouses at HBC, two from HBC families. Our grandkids were deeply enmeshed with Harvest Christian Academy. Nearly all of our closest friends served or worked at HBC. And with a few exceptions, all of those relationships remain severed from us. Our deepest sufferings have come from being so ostracized, while waiting in silence for friends to love us despite what they have heard and fight for the truth to come forth. Nearly two years later, the vast majority at HBC still apparently believe what a handful of HBC Staff and Elders communicated falsely.
Only recently have we even considered the thought that the lifetime call God gave us in the spring of 1988 to remain in Chicago, and the call that came soon after to plant Harvest were not forever linked. We have chosen to remain in Chicago and do ministry as the Lord leads, apart from the church we loved so long… but that has not been an easy decision. Like many before us, we have struggled to find a place of joyful worship outside HBC. We miss the powerful services, the many faces and families we loved but no longer see. Many have told us they miss what Harvest was too.
Please know that you, as a member of the HBC family, did not deserve any of what has happened.
You came and worshiped, you served, you gave, you prayed, and your church imploded. I want you to hear from me how very very sorry I am for how you have suffered, for the hurt you felt over the betrayal I was portrayed to have committed against you, and for the damage that kind of broken trust does to a person’s soul. I am so very sorry these things happened and for my relational role in them. It was our family’s great privilege to serve you with our whole hearts and we each desired to continue long into the future.
After giving our lives and family to Christ for the upbuilding of one of the furthest-reaching local church ministries in America… After what may have been our best year ever, the 30th anniversary, Easter at the Sears Centre with so many decisions for Christ, Summer Revival Nights… Just after a successful “Closer” campaign, with so many getting behind the future of HBC sacrificially, and an unsolicited vote of confidence from the Elders of HBC…
I was fired on a conference call I was not allowed to join – over issues I had never heard, sourced in letters I had never seen – from my 30+ year position as Senior Pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel (HBC). A group of Elders, who never met with me and mostly didn’t know me, fired me over a falsely edited recording they didn’t review and unvetted letters with many false allegations that were leaked to intentionally cause me and my family harm.
“Therefore I testify to you this day that I am innocent of the blood of all of you, for I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention … I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them.” (Acts 20:26-30)
Answer: Three factions came together to have me fired from HBC, which we were unable to withstand.
“It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting the entire body, setting on fire the entire course of life, and set on fire by hell itself.” (James 3:6)
HBC Elders do not know nor have ever sought to understand the three factions described above, because I had not met with an Elder Board of HBC since October 2018. There were two Executive Committee meetings a month before I was fired, but I never met with the full board. The Elders have consistently portrayed themselves to the congregation as wanting to meet, to resolve, to restore, etc. But the reality is that no HBC Elder board met with me related to the lawless termination led by Greg Bradshaw, or the false financial accusations voiced by Tim Stoner, or the rancid disqualification process led by Brian Laird – much less to offer any path toward interpersonal restoration despite my many attempts to at least begin a conversation.
Finally, on October 19, 2020, HBC Elders met with me in a meeting led by guest Pastors Jeff Gill and Dave Stone. We were blessed by increased humility from Brian Laird, but saddened by other realities that dashed our collective hope for reconciliation progress – the real reason they had flown in to lead our meeting. How sad, when HBC Elders could have shown humility, owned their wrongs, and met me at mutual grace and forgiveness.
With that long-awaited meeting unsuccessful, we have prayed and waited three more weeks, given the news the Elders had agreed to pray together about “how we may have sinned against James MacDonald.” Yet still nothing but more legal threats and… total silence. All of that brings us reluctantly to the realization we have to set the record straight and move on. Below are One and Two, of 5 areas where HBC leaders have willfully caused irreparable harm to myself, my family, ministry associates, our Walk in the Word family around the world, and the Harvest Bible Chapel congregation.
Covering four topics (click to read and view supporting documents):
Multiple times I expressed to HBC Elders that their false statements protected by their refusals to meet would inevitably come to light and under the rule of law and to the detriment of HBC, but they forged ahead…
“Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper, but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).
For 20 months, HBC unlawfully held (then released under force of arbitration) my Bible-teaching ministry, my pension, and my intellectual property, as well as personal property, attempting to force my acceptance of their false conversion of Walk in the Word donor assets.
HBC 2019 Elders began by declining my resignation, encouraging me to take an overdue sabbatical, with full assurance of a discussion about my tenure in the Spring of 2019. Four weeks latter, I was fired on a conference call I was not allowed to join – over issues I had never heard, sourced in letters I had never seen – from my 30+ year position as Senior Pastor of Harvest Bible Chapel (HBC). A group of Elders, who never met with me and mostly didn’t know me, fired me over a falsely edited recording they didn’t review and unvetted letters, created in a collusion led by Dallas Jenkins with many false allegations that were leaked to intentionally cause me and my family harm.