A Bondservant's Musings

Harvest Bible Chapel Naples was the eighth campus of Harvest Bible Chapel in the Chicago area. (Yes, I know Naples, Florida is in no way in the Chicago area. March weather alone would tell you that.) What was a 2-year-old church in the old Harvest Bible Fellowship network became a campus in September 2018. Then in January 2019, everything changed with Harvest Naples. In a January 17 email to the Harvest elders and pastoral leaders -- an email that the elder Executive Committee chairman did not forward to the full elder board -- Harvest Naples pastor, John Secrest, asked that the ministry agreement between Harvest Chicago and Harvest Naples be revoked. In that same letter, Secrest requested that James MacDonald, who had been placed on "indefinite sabbatical" just two days before, not be allowed to preach at Harvest Naples that next weekend or on subsequent weekends while on sabbatical. Secrest's request about MacDonald was very reasonable given that MacDonald's sabbati...

In February 2021, I was interviewed by Jackson Elliott for The Roys Report for Part Two of "On Leading Well," a series on leading well in the church. I shared several lessons learned from my time serving as an elder at Harvest Bible Chapel. You can listen to that interview here:  On Leading Well: Part Two  or on The Roys Report podcast.

Just when you thought 2020 was something, the first full week of 2021 brought things we have never seen before and never want to see again. The reaction has been very strong outrage. What the authors of The Coddling of the American Mind  call the polarization spiral is spinning faster and winding tighter. Liberals are screaming at conservatives for whatever evils they attribute to President Trump. Conservatives are screaming that the election was stolen. Sadly it isn't any better in the church, among Jesus' followers in America. Just read Twitter. The demands for apologies and acknowledging being wrong for voting for President Trump are everywhere. The "other side" cannot believe a Christ follower would vote for anyone who backs abortion, etc. Instead of looking for who to blame for ________, Christians in America -- ALL who call on the name of Jesus -- need to repent. (The people who breached the US Capitol January 6 need to be identified and held to account through...

In late November 2020, I conducted my second interview on what really happened in late January and February 2019 in James MacDonald's last days at Harvest Bible Chapel. I talked with host Julie Roys on The Roys Report. You can listen here: https://julieroys.com/podcast/harvest-insider-tells-what-really-happened-with-james-macdonald/ 

On Saturday, October 17, 2020, I conducted my first interview on the Harvest Bible Chapel and James MacDonald saga and my story. I talked with host Linda Penn on Today's Living Hope. Our interview is the second hour of the show. You can listen at TLH Recalibrating Vertical_Getting It Right in the Church

Recently, James MacDonald started a 40-day “devotional” video series leading up to a re-launch into "ministry." He started this series exactly one year to the day that the elders of Harvest Bible Chapel fired him for cause. If you know James MacDonald, you know starting his “devotional” on February 12, 2020 was intentional. If you don’t know James MacDonald, you need to know starting on that date was intentional.  The verse MacDonald used in his February 9 Facebook page teaser post caught my attention : … for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries. (1 Corinthians 16:9 ESV) By using this verse and including the second half of the verse, MacDonald hopes to position anyone opposing his return to “ministry” as adversaries. MacDonald regularly portrays himself as under attack or as the victim. He is doing his best to weaponize Scripture here. If you know MacDonald you may share my skepticism. You may share my concern as you see hi...

When my wife and I left Harvest Bible Chapel in the spring after 23+ years, we sent  an email  to inform friends we had made over the years there in small group and other ministries. We received many wonderful replies. In one reply a former ministry partner said they wished we had just left quietly. He wished anyone who leaves Harvest would do so quietly. (The fact that people at Harvest have a position on how people who leave Harvest should do so is informative on its own.) The long-standing Harvest position is that it is more  godly to leave quietly . (This isn't a biblical position. More about that in a future blog post. For now, see Ecclesiastes 3:7. T here is "a time to keep silence, and a time to speak." ) Anyone who talks is somehow against Harvest, sowing discord, or  attacking Harvest . If you are ex-Harvest -- or if you are still there -- you will recognize these descriptions: "(Insert name) went rogue" "The (insert couples name) got side...