Statement from CCC Elders (January 10)

The following email was sent to CCC church members on January 10, 2020.

Subject: CCC Member Update

As you know, the review we commissioned into the Sankey Orphanage abuse allegations from 2013 (Lucena, Philippines) was completed in August of 2019. The review provided additional understanding into what occurred at the Sankey Orphanage, including CCC’s own responsibility for missteps and poor judgment in the matter. As we have been moving forward to seek healing and reconciliation, we wanted to give our members an update on the next steps that we outlined during the members meeting in August 2019. As noted in these members meetings and in the FAQ’s we had posted on our web site, there are four primary areas that we have been focusing on: support for the young adults, reconciliation, understanding and auditing the uses of the World Harvest financial gifts, and missions and CCC protocols moving forward.

Progress in these four areas is ongoing and will continue into 2020. In an effort to keep everyone on the same page, below are some specifics on our progress to date:

Support of the Young Adults

The Elders, in conjunction with Stacey DiNardo, are navigating next steps with the young adults in the Philippines. We have connected with a third party that has had relationships with many of the young adults for more than 10 years. Through this contact, we are starting to understand the complexities of the situation and are determining the best ways to offer support and healing to those involved. We expect to make significant progress in this area over the coming few months, and we will report back to you what is appropriate.

Reconciliation

Our goal remains comprehensive reconciliation with all involved, including our own church members who tried to bring this to our attention, the Mauk family, the advocates that have fought to be heard, and the young adults that resided at the Sankey Orphanage. As many of you may have heard, during the members meeting held last August, Pastor Joe and others have asked for forgiveness for areas of wrongdoing with Joe Mauk and all of the advocates who continued to push us to look deeper into the alleged Sankey abuse. In addition, forgiveness was asked for from you, our members, for not digging into these allegations in a much more expedient and comprehensive way. Pastor Joe and several elders took the additional step recently to meet with one of the advocates to discuss the reconciliation process and promote healing. Also, as part of our process, the elders sought the advisement of other ministries and initiated contact with a Christian Conciliation Company to bring in experienced professional support to achieve reconciliation and healing. As standard practice, the Christian Conciliator requires that all parties sign a non-disclosure agreement designed to make the discussion room safe for all involved and allow all to speak their minds knowing that what is shared in the room is confidential. At this time, CCC is willing to sign this agreement but has not reached consensus with the advocates in order to move forward with the Conciliator.

Accounting of the World Harvest Funds

The audit of the World Harvest funds has been completed, and our external audit team is satisfied that we properly accounted for the funds that were donated to CCC in late 2014. One clarification we want to make is that CCC was never a fiscal agent for the World Harvest funds. The World Harvest funds were given to CCC as an unrestricted gift by the World Harvest board, which allowed CCC to use this gift as we saw need to serve God’s kingdom. Since the gift came from World Harvest donors, we continued to let Tom Randall administer funds as he saw need to the ministries he knew and supported over the years until his exit from CCC in June of 2019. Below is a general accounting of those funds:

* World Harvest funds deployed include all giving sent to the Philippines, projects initiated by Tom in the USA and abroad, Aurora campus renovation ($918,667), The Block student ministry building renovation ($400,000), salaries and other expenses to support these ministries.

In the recent December Elders meeting, it was decided that the remaining gift balance of $539,282 would be split between two ministries that we all know and love: Restore Addiction Recovery and RAHAB Ministries. Restore Addiction Recovery will be using the funds to complete construction on their Christ-centered drug treatment facility, which will allow them to serve young men working from addiction to productivity with Jesus as their foundation. RAHAB Ministries will be using the funds to expand care opportunities in their facility called Rebecca’s Place, which is designed to support girls between 12-17 years old who have been abused in the sex trafficking industry.

CCC Internal Protocols and Missions Moving Forward

The CCC leadership team strives for CCC to operate at the highest possible level to encourage any seeker who enters our community to get to know, grow, and eventually serve Jesus. CCC has always worked to support sharing the Gospel both locally and abroad, to fight for Justice and Mercy and to help whenever and wherever we see a need. This at times may mean taking risks where quick decisions are essential but even in these situations, we will follow our own internal controls and we will follow up and work to minimize any risk we become aware of.

Due to the recent events, we promised our Church family that we would assess where we failed you by not listening and acting on the allegations in the Philippines as soon as they were reported. Our promise was to review current processes, understand what broke down and put controls in place to ensure we never repeat this failure. This assessment has been completed and procedures have been reviewed across our ministry teams and through the Elders with checks in place to ensure conformity.

Thus far, CCC has partnered with the Child Safety and Protection Network and asked each ministry partner to provide their Child Protection Policy. Members of the CCC leadership team and Care team attended the Caring Well conference in October (designed to help churches recognize and confront abuse: caringwell.com) to receive education around the topic of abuse and give us an understanding on how CCC can care for those that have experienced abuse and work to prevent abuse. We are significantly improving our screening process in 2020 through tools that we learned about at the Caring Well conference.

Thank you for the continued support and confidence you have shown us all during this difficult time for our church. We really do appreciate your support and look forward to a new beginning in 2020.

Sincerely,
Your Elders
Chris Gurreri – Elder Chair, Joe Coffey, Bill Fitzgerald, John French, Jake George, Tom Heginbotham, Kris Jaenicke, John Jones, Dave Tiley, and Frank Williams