Calvary Chapel Flagler Beach assistant pastor, Wesley Alan Brown, was arrested recently for a “financial scheme” according to news reports.
Another Calvary Chapel pastor made headlines today….for the wrong reasons.
According to news reports, authorities in Florida said Wesley Alan Brown, an assistant pastor at Calvary Chapel Flagler Beach, was arrested and charged with multiple counts including “seven counts of the sale of unregistered securities, five counts of securities fraud, four counts of grand theft and one count of the sale of securities by an unregistered dealer.”
The arrest details state that Brown solicited money from unsuspecting Calvary Chapel church non-member members and got them to invest in a scheme that took nearly $400,000 from six people.
[Update #1] Senior pastor Mark Convoy says Brown had no prior record and that the church board met immediately when they were made aware of the problem and they contacted the authorities right away and have fully cooperated with the investigation. Pastor Convoy added a good warning in the comments section for those who do wrong in the church, “Your sin will find you out.”
Full article here: http://www.news-journalonline.com/article/20140723/NEWS/140729760/1040?Title=Former-Flagler-Beach-pastor-charged-in-400-000-fraud-scheme&tc=ar
Calvary Chapel Abuse Commentary and Opinion:
Yet another example that dispels the myth that Calvary Chapel pastors are “specially anointed” and not capable of the worst evils you can imagine. CC pastors are capable of doing good…and evil, which is why the Calvary Chapel Association needs to vet their pastors more carefully, needs to mandate Child Protection Policies system-wide and needs to mandate Financial Transparency system-wide as well.
Many times Calvary Chapel pastors are ex-cons, ex-drug dealers, ex-felons, you name it. They’ll tell you their gory testimonies when they are trying to get you to join up…but what they often don’t tell you is that the Calvary Chapel Association and system lacks any checks and balances and accountability measures…and often times CC pastors do very bad things under the cover of “we’re specially anointed! Don’t question us! Don’t ask for accountability measures! Trust us!”
[Update #1]: I appreciate Mark Convoy, senior pastor of CC Flagler Beach, as well as board president Scott Adie coming on the blog and being transparent and addressing the situation. It is good to see and it is good to hear that CC Flagler Beach is an Elder-led church government construct with an active Board…and that the church reported the issue and cooperated with authorities…and that they are also helping the victims of this crime.
A bad situation indeed…and you can’t stop everything…all you can do is make accountability and transparency a priority, have a responsible church government structure in place…and then deal with bad issues in a responsible and right manner when they occur.
In this case, it sounds like CC Flagler Beach did all it could in dealing with a very bad set of circumstances. We wish them the best as they seek to recover from this.