Damian Kyle Joins GFA Board
As some CC pastors are dropping support for GFA and dropping speaking engagements for fellow board member Gayle Erwin, Kyle has chosen to double down on GFA.
Kyle is well respected in the movement, especially among the old guard.
This will send a clear message to Calvary Chapel pastors that all is well with the beleaguered charity.
It will also send a message that should you keep asking questions that need to be answered that you are now in opposition to well respected members of the fraternity.
It is a stunning turn of events and one that will open Kyle up to the same criticisms his affiliate brothers are facing.
Will Kyle give answers to pastors and donors or will he continue the current mode of deflection in favor of PR statements and “reputation enhancement”?
More to come…
Figures. Wasn’t he the bishop or whatever over CCVisalia and failed to do anything about Bob Grenier? If he can overlook that, this endorsement is no surprise.
Just thinking out loud, but could it be that Damien is joining the board to get some first hand intel and try to fix it in case its broken? I don’t know his history with them, if any, just looking at it and hoping for the best, trying not to assume the worst, as easy as that is and as often as I do it myself.
I recently heard that Damian fired 2 or 3 pastors at his church and some members were given a vague scripted reason why the firings occurred. Could this somehow be related to Damian joining GFA’s board?? Just thinking out loud. I get the impression that the leadership model of CC and GFA are similar. People are afraid to asked for fear of being shamed. Where in the scriptures does it say godly leaders are not supposed to be transparent and walk on the light?
@#2. Damian Kyle is close to the Punnose family. KP’s daughter in law, Erika and her parents come out of CC Modesto. I have been told recently that Erika’s father, Javier is now an ordained priest with Believers Church. He also oversees the School of Discipleship at GFA. Damian has spoken at GFA numerous times. I feel certain that Damian was asked to be on the board more because his reputation within the CC world and it could help to keep the money flow from CC churches coming in. Although he knows KP and I believe been to India a few times teaching at the seminary in Kerala, he has not been on staff at GFA and served alongside KP or the other leaders like former staff. I point that out because unless you have been part of daily life at GFA and in the circle of leadership at GFA you simply can’t know the real KP or the other leaders. That same idea exists for David Mains and Francis Chan. These men only know the man KP from a distance, from his books and hearing him speak. Many former staff could testify that KP does not live by what he has written in many of his books. He may have at one time but not over the last several years. I’m afraid these new board members are simply being used for their reputations within the evangelical circle to keep the funds rolling into GFA.
cbx2,
That’s helpful info…thank you.
reading in “John 6 & 7” today and as i read this thread i recall that Jesus was surrounded by treachery everywhere he went… i need to think on wheat and tares and sheep and goats some more… that said, there is every indication in Scripture that we, the Church, are to keep as clean a house as we possibly can, isn’t there?
it is a bit ironic that i sometimes hear the quote from the late Chuck Smith, “keep under the spout where the glory comes out” and yet it seems that his people have a very hard time locating that spigot… you can’t find it by ear, it doesn’t go “ka-ching, ka-ching”
Wow. Digging in their heels, then.
No fear of God whatsoever.
ChainsBroken2x there seems to have been some staff changes around July of this year. Web archived page of staff from July 2015 is different from today’s staff page. Seems a couple of people are missing from that page.
@#8 Fisherman, I know that Damian fired at least 2 pastors. Might have been a third. When some folks asked why, they were read a vague and scripted response. The timing in July could match the timing of Damian, Francis, and David Mains coming on as new GFA board members. The pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together more about what GFA is trying to do. If they add these guys into the mix it makes them look good to ECFA, keeps the money flow coming from CC’s and Chan followers, and it also is a draw for the “main stream” media group that will be writing their “get out of jail free” article painting GFA as the poor persecuted movement that is saving all the unreached people in Asia. The deception plot gets deeper and deeper. God sees and he will not be mocked.
Chuck Smith didn’t say that Em.
It was a saying that Lonnie Frisbee, the youth pastor of CCCM would say.
“Get under the spout where the glory comes out.”
***
A lot of CC pastors have sold out for the wealth that comes.
The waters get murky and obscured until transparency is something of the past.
No one who is truly serving Jesus Christ could ever amass to themselves wealth in the amounts that some in ministry have amassed and are amassing.
If anyone could have done that it would have been Christ.
But He didn’t.
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
Luke Nine:Fifty Eight
Context
The Cost of Following Jesus:
57
As they were going along the road, someone said to Him, “I will follow You wherever You go.”
58
And Jesus said to him, “The foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”
59
And He said to another, “Follow Me.” But he said, “Lord, permit me first to go and bury my father.”…
The cost was to high so the man bowed out with an excuse of why he couldn’t follow Jesus just then.
Lonnie Frisbee died penniless.
If it were not for the benevolence of John Wimber of the Vineyard, Lonnie would not have had a roof over his head and food when he passed away in Newport Beach CA.
Lonnie never used his position in ministry to amass wealth what so ever.
If anyone gave to him, it all went into the ministry to others.
Can this be said of some of the pastors of today?
The allure of the good life with all of it’s trappings is too strong for these weak men of the ministry…
They get a taste of the respect wealth and power gives in our upside down society and began the road to amass wealth.
I would like to reveal the heart of a man here.
I sent him some funds through paypal.
He then thanked me for the funds and proceeded to tell me that some children would have socks and such that winter as a result.
He didn’t use the funds on himself as I had intended but used them for others.
I was totally impressed with the heart of the man.
If CC had men in ministry like this man I can only wonder what it would be like today instead of the fractured feuding mess that exist today.
And also the related ministry Damian is lending his integrity and reputation too.
It is a sinking ship and he should know better than to get involved with it.
Shame on him.
As one who has never heard Lonnie speak, I can testify Chuck said it many times.
Chuck Smith references the “I’m under the spout where the glory comes out” in his sermon notes. He says the line comes from an old hymn.
It’s here if you care to verify it. https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/smith_chuck/SermonNotes_Jon/Jon_7.cfm
Gosh…heard Lonnie say it but never Chuck…
Surfer,
You always bring an interesting perspective. I’m sure we sat together in many a church service.
“If CC had men in ministry like this man I can only wonder what it would be like today instead of the fractured feuding mess that exist today.”
There appears to be a few principles at work here.
I would rather see disagreement than to see everyone walking in cadence toward their own demise.There are a few good men still left in the movement.
It is also evident that God gives people what they want and we are seeing the fruit of their desires.
CC is being purged as through fire and in many different ways. Some of it is through those who have fresh visions, which must be distinguished between the same format wrapped in newer packaging. Some are actually interesting in things like ethics and moral theology, and I hope that like spark ignites into a flame.
It will be interesting to see where CC ends up, I don’t wish them ill, but I do wish to see them move beyond their infancy and truncated form of spiritually. The trouble is, when you speak that way about any group, all hell breaks loose in their self defense of why you are wrong to bring such accusations. You never grow in the faith unless you realize you own deficiency.
In some ways, CC has become many of the things that the early Jesus Movement was seeking to change, both in themselves and the church at large. Seems like it was in many areas, a failed reformation. We have descended from our high church heritage, where things were thought deeply through, to a low church that has a short attention span with a limited capacity of retention. But then again, such conditions are not limited to the church.
And so when a ministry comes under scrutiny, they don’t clean up and repent of their transgressions, but simply add seasoned, respected players to the roster as an attempt to bolster their falling credibility. And the problem is, it will probably work. It is an expedient way to avoid accountability and as you said, it is shameful.
Chuck nor Lonnie invented the saying under the spout where the glory comes out. It was a popular hymnal in the 1950’s. I cant find the reference but I think one of the early great awakening preachers is where the term as first used.
Glory Spout
One dreary, Sunday Morning,
Sitting bored as I could be
An old grey haired preacher man,
Started preaching straight at me.
He opened-up his old black book,
And took his text at me.
But he opened up my blinded eyes,
And now I can see.
Chorus
(Since), I got the victory,
Brother I found it out.
(It’s so), good on the inside
That the outside has to shout
(Since) I got my want to fixed
I’m happy and glad
(I got) under the spout
Where the Glory comes out.
Now preaching, praying, singing
Once meant nothing to me.
And them old shouting sisters,
Well they mad me want to flee
But now I got something brother,
I can shout about
I got under the spout
Where the Glory comes out.
Tag
(Since) I got my want to fixed
I’m happy and glad
(I got) under the spout
Where the Glory comes out.
“Just thinking out loud, but could it be that Damien is joining the board to get some first hand intel and try to fix it in case its broken? ”
__________________________________________________________________________
Couchpotato, this sounds like the least plausible possibility given that Damien did have a seat on the CCA board and for some reason left it. He could have stayed in to try and fix CC if he wanted to but maybe he felt its unfixable. But as I have said here before, I’m not sure who has bigger problems CC or GFA. Who cares if CC endorses GFA? Its the same as GFA endorsing CC.
Anything done now by GFA will be suspect. They just need to come clean with the money, but maybe once it gets past a certain point, there may be “too much at stake” to do so.
God raises and lowers a man. We only see the current state of what men try to do without God.
For a CC pastor to come onboard the GFA is like a rooster guarding the henhouse.