HARVEST BIBLE CHAPEL joined ECFA in 2013. At that time the Chicago-area megachurch was already embroiled in scandal. Former elders and members were raising questions about Pastor James MacDonald’s leadership, lifestyle, and undisclosed salary. Harvest remained an ECFA member for the next six years as more of the church’s problems became evident. ECFA only terminated Harvest’s membership four months after a December 2018 WORLD story that detailed MacDonald’s abusive leadership and reckless spending, and two months after Harvest fired MacDonald. 

While ECFA says it requires transparency from its members in disclosing financial documents, ECFA won’t reveal details about how it reviewed Harvest’s finances while it was still a member. The Guardian/Busby written statement says, “We believe it is the responsibility of a former member to determine appropriate transparency concerning further details.” 

ECFA has proceeded slowly with ministries getting into trouble. One reason could be organizational structure. ECFA pays its bills by charging membership fees to the organizations it’s supposed to monitor. In 2018 ECFA brought in more than $5 million in total revenue. Nearly three-fourths of that—$3.7 million—came from fees charged to its members.

Annual accreditation fees are based on each applying organization’s revenue: The bigger the organization, the bigger ECFA’s accreditation fee. According to a fee schedule on ECFA’s website, NRB pays a $1,650 accreditation fee based on its revenues. Compassion International, which has more than $800 million in total revenue, pays $16,000 in yearly accreditation fees.

If ECFA terminates members, it cuts off revenue. Since 2017, 150 organizations have left ECFA. Some lost accreditation because of failure to turn in required paperwork, or due to a merger with another organization. Harvest Bible Chapel is the only group in that time terminated for failure to meet ECFA’s Seven Standards of Responsible Stewardship, whose requirements include a written statement of faith, a board of directors not made up mostly of employees or family members, a yearly audit by a CPA, compliance with relevant laws and Biblical mandates, and compliance with ECFA policy on setting a top executive’s salary. 

According to Busby, Harvest failed four ECFA standards—but it took organizations other than ECFA to bring those failures into the open. When problems arise, ECFA’s website says, they “are addressed respectfully, confidentially, and with a redemptive approach.” That approach appears to value the confidentiality of member organizations more than donors’ need to know.

Each year members submit annual fees and a renewal application stating they are in compliance with the standards: “Decisions regarding membership are voted on by ECFA’s board,” Busby’s written statement says. Wayne Pederson, an executive with Far East Broadcasting Company, serves on the NRB board. He also serves as ECFA’s treasurer. Busby’s statement says that’s not a problem: “If any matter concerning NRB came before the ECFA board, Mr. Pederson would be recused from the discussion and any decisions, thus eliminating any conflict of interest.”

Pederson did not return my phone and email messages seeking comment.

Busby himself sits on NRB’s President’s Council, which takes the lead in lobbying lawmakers in Washington. NRB says the council also serves as an advisory board for the organization. Busby didn’t address my question on why his role with NRB’s President’s Council is not a conflict of interest. I again requested an interview with Busby to give him the opportunity to answer questions about ECFA’s overall credibility, but Busby, through Guardian, declined.

SOME SCANDALS under ECFA’s nose go back to the organization’s early days. Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s PTL Club maintained its ECFA membership from 1981 through the end of 1986, even while Jim Bakker was committing the fraud that sent him to prison. Gary Tidwell’s 1993 book Anatomy of a Fraud reported that ECFA sent a letter to Jim Bakker flagging concerns and telling Bakker not to use the ECFA seal on PTL materials—but the organization did anyway. ECFA terminated PTL’s membership only after news outlets reported the scandal.

Some examples are more recent. In March 2014, ECFA revoked the membership of Teen Mania Ministries, a now defunct youth ministry. But as WORLD reported that year, by 2011 Teen Mania had net assets of −$4.1 million. The report detailed extravagant spending and questionable leadership. In December 2015, Teen Mania closed and filed for bankruptcy.

‘Each dollar must be regarded as a sacred trust. ECFA will seek to insure that it does.’ —Olan Hendrix, ECFA’s first executive director

The recent and historical scandals raise the questions: How well does ECFA police its members? Did ECFA membership make wayward ministries more accountable? At least one church—Village Church of Barrington, near Chicago—dropped its ECFA membership because of the agency’s failure to police Harvest Bible Chapel. Senior Pastor David Jones told Religion News Service this year his church sees ECFA membership as a “liability rather than an asset.”

ECFA leaders from the beginning made the agency out as a Better Business Bureau (BBB) for Christian ministries. Both offer seals of approval. Both term their approvals as accreditation. Both have products meant to serve their accredited members. Both have sliding schedules of membership fees. But BBB examines members annually. It gives grades to its members, based on performance. It maintains a forum on its website for consumers to review businesses—positively or negatively. ECFA offers no such forum and wouldn’t reveal specifics of its review of Harvest Bible Chapel.

ECFA USES A PASS OR FAIL CONCEPT in applying the standards rather than a rating system,” Busby’s written statements say—but Harvest is the only already-existing member since 2017 to “fail.” He has previously said the group is not a watchdog. If an ECFA member turns in the necessary paperwork and pays its yearly dues, it retains its accreditation. But some nonprofits that have withdrawn from ECFA say that the limited involvement wasn’t enough to keep them paying, especially when other organizations provide financial oversight.

Geneva College, a Christian liberal arts school in Pennsylvania, ended its ECFA membership in 2017. Geneva director of marketing and public relations Cheryl Johnston said the school is already complying with financial and organizational standards with its academic accrediting agencies and the federal government. Johnston said Geneva considers ECFA’s stewardship standards valuable for ministries not regulated as closely as colleges. But Geneva considered the organization’s services redundant: “We really didn’t have a service at all [from ECFA]. We were just paying for a membership that really didn’t mean anything.”

Geneva has seen no drop in donor revenue since ending its ECFA affiliation. Christian universities Biola and Seattle Pacific have done the same in recent years, both saying leaders decided to end ECFA membership as a cost-cutting measure.

CrossWay International, a small, Texas-based mission and relief work organization, also dropped its membership in 2017. Founder and CEO Dean Chollar told me his board didn’t think the accreditation fee paid to ECFA, which was less than $1,000 each year, was worth the benefit provided to the ministry: “I never quite understood the value of it as time went by.” ECFA provided data on fair compensation and benefits packages Chollar appreciated, but dropping its ECFA membership hasn’t affected CrossWay’s revenue, he said. “We really haven’t seen that much of a difference.”

WORLD’s investigative unit, the Caleb Team, takes its name from the spy who saw giants in Canaan but did not give up, and later drove out of Hebron three of them. Michael Reneau, WORLD’s new deputy editor, heads the team: He’s a graduate of Bryan College and the World Journalism Institute, and edited The Greeneville Sun in Greeneville, Tenn.