The executive committee of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board has voted to hire a Nashville attorney to investigate ethics violations by four employees who work with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s 1001 New Worshiping Communities initiative. At the committee’s request, the four employees have been placed on paid administrative leave until the inquiry is completed, most likely in early 2015.
The executive committee met in closed session Nov. 14 (although no public notice was given that the meeting would take place). According to minutes of that meeting, the committee voted to hire as its independent legal counsel George Crawford III of Nashville, a PC(USA) ruling elder, and others from his Butler Snow law firm to conduct an independent investigation of the incident, and to report back to voting members of the executive committee by early 2015.
Those who have been placed on paid administrative leave are:
- Roger Dermody, the PC(USA)’s deputy executive director for mission (one of two deputy directors who serve directly under Linda Valentine, who is executive director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency);
- Eric Hoey, director of Evangelism and Church Growth;
- Philip Lotspeich, then coordinator for church growth, with responsibility for overseeing the 1001 initiative; and
- Craig S. Williams, who is based in California and who staffs the western regional office of the Presbyterian Centers for New Church Development.
The executive committee’s action came a week after the Outlook reported on Nov. 7 on the results of an investigation by the board’s audit committee. The audit committee found that the four employees were involved in an unauthorized plan in which:
- An independent corporation was set up in California, using the name Presbyterian Centers for New Church Development Inc.;
- A check for $100,000 in PC(USA) funds was sent to that corporation and a second was in the works before the entity was discovered and the action halted.
That revelation ignited a furor in the denomination – with opinions about what had happened flying on social media and with Presbyterians voicing their views directly and heated to Valentine as well.
Valentine released a statement Nov. 12 saying that all the funds were returned and that while “mistakes were made,” the employees’ actions “were not for personal gain.” Valentine also said in the statement that while some had called for the four to be terminated, she had decided not to do that, although “strong new measures have been put in place to ensure this does not happen again.”
A report from the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board’s audit committee states that on Dec. 3, 2013, PC(USA) employees formed an independent corporation in California, without authorization from the Presbyterian Mission Agency, under the name Presbyterian Centers for New Church Development Inc. That name is almost identical to the name the PC(USA) uses for its regional centers for evangelistic work, and the audit committee report referred to “explicit misrepresentation (on the website and elsewhere)” and “potential harmful confusion” involving donors and vendors.
The audit committee report says there were unauthorized plans to transfer PC(USA) employees as well as more grant funding to the independent corporation. It said that, if carried out, these plans would have removed a major mission agency program from denominational oversight.
A Presbyterian News Service story regarding the executive committee’s hiring of Crawford to conduct the investigation quotes Marilyn Gamm, a Wisconsin minister who serves as chair of the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board, as saying: “We are seeking ways to begin to restore trust in Linda Valentine and the Presbyterian Mission Agency Board. Since the Audit Committee report went public responses have been mixed, but trust has been broken with a significant part of the church.”
