Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale owes Bank of America $35 million.
The Bob Coy scandal for “moral failure”, which is Calvary Chapel speak for he got caught with a porn addiction and humping women who aren’t his wife according to sources inside and outside of CC, illustrates a major problem with the Pastor-centered mega-church model.
What happens when the rock star guru cult-of-personality demonstrates their non-transformation into Jesus and falls on their face?
I’ll tell you what happens…a lot of people stop attending the show and stop giving their money…and the church is forced to sell off a bunch of their assets to pay back the bank.
Skip the Hagee “Blood Moon!” nonsense, I’ve got a prophetic word….Calvary Chapel Fort Lauderdale best start hanging the “for sale” signs on big chunks of their Disneyland because Bank of America will get their $35 million back one way or another….and now that Smiling Bob is off the stage, it’s gonna be a lot harder to rake in all that Jesus money. Chet’s a good looking likable wholesome guy, but c’mon…he ain’t Smiling Bob. Smiling Bob had that naughty but nice quality about him, that Vegas allure, that “I’m a Vegas bad boy acting like a good boy telling jokes and quoting bible verses wink wink” thing going on. The women loved him (some a little too much, know what I’m sayin’), the men wanted to be him. There’s only one Smiling Bob at CCFTL and that dude is evangelical damaged goods (but at least it was other women and not dudes or he’d be toasty toast, no chance at a comeback).
Big shows require big overhead and bigger rock stars to keep them going.
It would not surprise me to see a Skip Heitzig try to toss his hat in the ring to try and step in and be Coy II. Skip’s got a history of jumping ship from Calvary Chapel Albuquerque and he was recently caught with Paul Smith trying to buy off the Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa stage for a million bucks. What is it with Heitzig? He’s a rock star in Albuquerque but seems to hate the place and is always looking to upgrade. Wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Heitzig make a play for CCFTL and CCFTL’s board will feel the heat of lower attendance and lower giving…so you never know…we could see the Skipster surf on over to that bigger stage.
One thing’s for sure, CCFTL is in big trouble. They can prattle on about how it’s “all about Jesus!” and how they tell everyone to look to Jesus as they continue to deny they are a Pastor-centered mega-church with an over-emphasis on a cult-of-personality like Bob Coy…but time will show that despite their denials…they are what they are…and they will be a fraction of the mega-church they are now in the coming months and years, unless they somehow resurrect Coy from the “moral failure” ash heap and put him back in the saddle.