MinistryWatch Podcast

Today on the podcast, I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Clint Pressley . Dr. Pressley has been serving as the President of the Southern Baptist Convention , the largest Protestant denomination in the United States, since his election in June 2024 — and he was reelected to a second term in June 2025. That means, of course, that he is coming to the end of his tenure as president, and I wanted to sit down w...

On today’s program, families who lost children at Camp Mystic last year are suing Texas state officials for licensing the camp despite its lack of an evacuation plan. We’ll have details. And, fundraising on commission—it may seem like a win-win scenario, but experts say the ethical issues outweigh any benefits. We’ll take a look. Plus, the United Methodist Committee on Relief is closing down one o...

I started getting emails from Elizabeth Carlock Phillips in February of 2021 – five years ago this month. She wanted to tell me about sex abuse and the coverup of abuse at Kanakuk Kamps. That conversation began MinistryWatch’s five-year journey (so far) to cover Kanakuk, Trey’s Law, the use of non-disclosure agreements in Christian environments, and related issues. In today’s episode, Warren Smith...

On today’s program, a judge has denied the request of two Gateway Church elders who were seeking to be dismissed from a defamation lawsuit filed by Robert Morris’ sexual abuse victim, Cindy Clemishire. We’ll have details. Also, three seminaries and one Christian college have partnered with Kanakuk Institute to train Christian leaders—but abuse advocates are crying foul, saying the partnership coul...

Two weeks ago, I was in Silicon Valley, in the San Francisco Bay area of California, to attend a meeting about artificial intelligence and missions. I entered the meeting with a lot of questions, and some of those questions remain – plus a few new ones. But I also got a lot of answers, and I’m excited about what the future holds. Give a listen, and I think you will be too. The producer for today’s...

On today’s program, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has sued a small church in California for legal title to its property—but that small church is fighting back. We’ll have details.   And, a hacker drained $85,000 from an Oklahoma church’s bank account. Then in North Dakota, a woman was indicted for stealing over $600,000 from a church she worked at. Both cases highlight why ordinary ac...

If you have studied what it means to have a Christian worldview or – for that matter – you have just studied the Bible, you know that it all begins with the creation story. “In the beginning, God created.” And if we are made in God’s image, that means we are creative, too, and a part of our maturity in Christ is to more fully live into that mandate to be creators. And I don’t just mean what some c...

On today’s program, WaterStone is being sued by a client who claims that the donor-advised fund cut him off from his family’s account. The results of this case could have larger implications for the rights of donors and other donor advised funds. We’ll have details. Also, the ‘He Gets Us’ Campaign is back for the 2026 Super Bowl—but under new leadership, this year’s ad is less political, more pers...

On today’s program, a report reveals past sexual abuse among the Christian scouting program, the Royal Rangers. Now, the Assemblies of God—who heads up the group—is being criticized for not providing adequate safeguards. We’ll have details. And, the popular Passion Conference attracted some 60-thousand young people to its flagship event earlier this month, bringing in millions of dollars —but a de...

This is a question that should be vital for Christians, especially since the Great Commission makes growing Christianity one of most important concerns. But do we really know? In today’s episode, Warren Smith says we know the answer to this question. It’s hiding in plain sight. It is this:  The church grows when we are fruitful and multiply, and when we raise our children in the nurture and admoni...

On today’s program, Cities Church in Minneapolis is considering legal options after protestors stormed its church service Sunday in response to the government’s immigration measures in the city. We’ll have details. And, philanthropists are turning to family offices to manage their wealth—but what are they, why have they grown so much in the past decade, and how will it impact ministries? We’ll tak...

If you have been a reader of MinistryWatch over the years, you probably know about GRACE. GRACE is an acronym that stands for Godly Response to Abuse in Christian Environments. GRACE is also a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing, addressing, and responding to abuse within Christian institutions. Founded to support survivors and promote accountability, GRACE provides independent investig...

We know how to solve some of our nation’s most intractable problems, but will we? In this Extra episode, Warren Smith examines President Trump’s decision to cut $2 billion to nonprofits , some of them faith-based organizations, that deal with mental health and addiction recovery issues. And this his reversal on Wednesday, when the administration  restored those grants . It is not yet clear what im...

On today’s program, the pastor of Arise Vineyard in California has resigned after old allegations resurfaced of inappropriate behavior. We’ll have details. And, medical debt continues to be a growing burden for many American families—but churches are partnering to help pay it off. We’ll take a look. Plus, a Baptist news publication is sued for defamation by a former college professor who says he w...

Regular listeners to MinistryWatch know that one of the things we like to do here is celebrate what I sometimes call the “non-celebrity” Christian leader. We’ve seen so many of the toxic effects of celebrity leadership that we sometimes forget that it’s a choice, and that it is possible to pursue our calling without pursuing celebrity. A group of people I admire for their approach to their art is...

Still, seeing a Christian leader fall is discouraging. For some it can be devastating. That is why thinking deeply about these stories is important, and ultimately good for us and the church. The producer for today’s program is Jeff McIntosh. Until next time, may God bless you.

On today’s program, Kingdom of God Global Church—the church founded and led by self-proclaimed apostle David E. Taylor—is asking the U.S. government to return assets it seized in its investigation against its embattled pastor. We’ll have details. And, as more pastors are facing criminal charges for not reporting abuse, MinistryWatch took a deep dive into mandatory reporting laws—what are they, how...

MinistryWatch has published more than 30,000 words about ACNA in the past five years, and many of those words have come from Kathryn Post. Kathryn Post is a reporter for RNS and she has done a great job covering a number of controversies in the young and growing denomination. Her words have appeared in outlets including The Washington Post , Sojourners , The Christian Century , Christianity Today,...

Every year, for the past six years, I have presented a forward-looking, three-year strategic plan to the board of directors of MinistryWatch. That plan has not always been perfect. In fact, it has never been perfect. Circumstances change. New funding sources become available, or they dry up. Opportunities and barriers arise. These annual exercises in strategic planning have made real to me a lesso...

On today’s special year-end episode, Natasha Cowden and Warren Smith look at the top 25 stories of the year as voted on by you, the MinistryWatch reader. These are the stories that got the top number of page views for the year. Of course, the number of page views is not the only way to measure the impact of a story. So Warren will be sprinkling in some commentary throughout the episode that we hop...

Because Christmas falls on a Thursday this year, it really cuts into the work schedule of the last two weeks of the year. But we didn’t want to go two full weeks without sharing some content on the podcast. I mean, after all, you can’t watch football non-stop, right? So this week and next we’ll be re-airing a couple of episodes from years past that you may have missed, especially if you are a new...

Regular readers of MinistryWatch know that I’m a bit of a Ryan Burge fan-boy. His weekly Substack column, “Graphs About Religion,” is required reading for me. I cite it often in my weekly “Signs and Wonders” column. That’s why I’m kind of geeking out today, now that we finally have him on the podcast. The occasion for this get-together is his new book. It’s called The Vanishing Church: How The Hol...

On today’s program, the judicial commission of the Anglican Church in North America has handed down its long-awaited verdict in the months-long trial of Bishop Stewart Ruch. And that verdict is, “Not Guilty.” We’ll have details. And, International Servants has been making big claims about its decades of ministry work in Belize—but verifying those claims has proven more difficult. We’ll take a look...

We live in a polarized world today, and one of the hallmarks of that polarization is the tendency to fight what we are against. That’s sometimes necessary, of course. But often fighting what we are against distracts us from clearly understanding and simply saying what we are for. That tendency shows up in our conversations about gender and sexuality. We are pretty good, or at least pretty loud, at...

On today’s program, the Department of Justice is suing the founder of Life Surge, Joe Johnson, for his alleged part in a scheme to cheat the government out of over $46 million in taxes through abusive bargain sale transactions. We’ll take a look. And, a new report reveals the final moments of missionaries Alex and Serena Wurm before their plane crashed on a trip to deliver aid to Jamaica. We’ll ha...