Leaders at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church say a initial investigation has cleared Warren’s just lately introduced successor, Andy Picket, of allegations of an authoritarian management taste that calls for unquestioning loyalty.
Rick Warren, creator of The Goal Pushed Lifestyles and some of the influential voices in evangelical Christianity, is making plans to retire in September. He named San Francisco–house pastor Andy Picket as his successor at Saddleback, a Southern California congregation that pulls 25,000 folks to worship products and services. Picket, 40, is recently the lead pastor of Echo Church, a multisite congregation based totally in San Jose.
After the general public announcement, a former Echo Church staffer made feedback about problems with Picket’s management on social media.
The allegations didn’t come as a wonder to Saddleback leaders.
Consistent with Saddleback’s remark on Sunday evening, Picket had informed the church’s elders in regards to the former staffer’s claims all the way through his interview procedure and presented to turn them movies of his conferences with the previous staffer. The church requested Vanderbloemen Seek Crew, which did the preliminary background test on Picket, to do a follow-up assessment.
“Our elders have now won a initial 2d record from The Vanderbloemen Seek Crew, clearing Pastor Picket from all allegations,” the church stated in a letter to the congregation on Sunday, which was once additionally despatched to Faith New Provider (RNS).
The hunt corporate was once equipped video, electronic mail, and textual content information, and interviews that Echo accumulated in its assessment of Picket’s movements. It additionally performed one further interview, consistent with Saddleback’s letter.
“They attempted to succeed in out to the previous personnel member and have not begun to obtain verbal exchange again,” the church stated.
Saddleback leaders stated they despatched the letter out as a result of “we felt it was once necessary that you just pay attention the information in this from us now, somewhat than within the information or on social media.”
“Please prevent a second and pray at the moment,” church leaders requested the congregation. “Pray for readability of the reality and for knowledge.”
Picket, in a remark to RNS, stated that Echo “would be at liberty for any present or former personnel participants to proportion their running enjoy at Echo with Vanderbloemen as part of their investigation,” including, “We wish to do the whole lot we will be able to to assist the reality about those allegations come to gentle.”
Consistent with the transition plan introduced through the church, Picket and his spouse, Stacie, will likely be interviewed through Warren and his spouse, Kay, all the way through products and services at Saddleback June 19. The Woods will step down at Echo Church on the finish of June and start main Saddleback on September 12.
Scot McKnight, coauthor of A Church Referred to as Tov, which opinions poisonous church cultures, stated huge church buildings can create famous person pastors who lead in problematic tactics. He does now not have firsthand wisdom of issues of Picket’s management, however expressed issues about what he’s heard. “Giant church buildings draw in giant egos,” he stated.
Based in 2008 as South Bay Church, Echo now has 4 campuses and attracts about 3,000 folks to weekly products and services. The church has grown partly thru merging with smaller, suffering congregations to create what’s referred to as a multisite church.
“Church mergers have turn into some of the efficient methods for suffering church buildings to thrive once more, for rising church buildings to magnify their achieve, and for church amenities to be higher applied to advance the Gospel in a area,” consistent with a piece of the Echo Church website online.
Picket additionally runs an annual management convention, which closing 12 months integrated Mark Driscoll, the disgraced pastor of Mars Hill Church in Seattle who resigned in 2014 after a sequence of controversies involving allegations of bullying, plagiarism, and abuse of energy. Driscoll now pastors a church in Arizona.
Lance Hough, a former personnel member at Echo’s Fremont campus, left the church closing 12 months bringing up an “bad tradition” through which, he alleged, Picket demanded loyal loyalty. Hough have been a part of the management group at Crossroads Church in Freemont when it merged with Echo.
That merger is billed as a “marriage merger” on Echo’s website online, the place “two rising church buildings realign with every different underneath a unified imaginative and prescient and new management.” The merger was once meant to be a partnership, stated Hough, however become extra of a takeover.
“And once our group began to functionally merge, they began systematically killing off the whole lot that made our church distinctive,” Hough stated. He notice that Crossroads’ pastor remained on personnel and disagreed along with his opinions.
Hough stated Picket was once personable and pleasant as a pacesetter, however pushed aside any wondering of the Echo method of working out of hand. He frightened that Picket might use the goodwill created through Saddleback and Warren to impose his personal method to ministry, which Hough believes is inherently bad.
A graduate of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Picket planted a congregation referred to as Leap forward Church whilst in seminary ahead of shifting to the San Francisco Bay house, consistent with a 2009 prospectus for Echo. Some of the founding values of the church have been wholesome relationships and character-driven management, consistent with that prospectus.
“We consider that God is glorified in our midst once we make his love whole through appearing sacrificial kindness to each other,” the prospectus states. “We consider the gospel calls us to position the objectives and pursuits of others above our personal.”
When he introduced Picket as his successor, Warren stated he checked out about 100 attainable applicants. He cited Picket’s enjoy in church planting as a plus, announcing he had “already constructed a church in an excessively tricky position” and had the talents to regulate a posh megachurch like Saddleback, which holds products and services in a couple of dozen places.
Warren additionally stated that personality issues in a brand new pastor, bringing up the record of characteristics required for leaders in 1 Timothy 3.
“If you happen to’re going to steer a church, the ones qualities are non-negotiable,” stated Warren in a video introducing Picket. “And should you don’t have the ones qualities for your existence, you’re robotically disqualified from pastoring and main a church circle of relatives.”
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