MY sad ADVENTURES WITH THE SOUTHERN BAPTIST TABERNACLE (IN PARK TIMNA ISRAEL)

 It's been 11+ years since my last post on this blog.  After leaving Ashkelon under intense rocket fire and moving my family to another city in central Israel, I had to deal with the after effects, all the while in a pretty dysfunctional environment, job-wise.  There was nothing I wanted to say anymore, so the blog died.

In the past couple of weeks I became inspired again, only this time I thought I'd write about the craziness lived through.  I have written and spoken about all of this in different contexts, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive, so why not put it all down in writing?

Far be it from me to make problems for anyone, which is why I am only putting this on my insignificant and obscure personal blog (nobody ready blogs anymore).  But I am a firm believer in accountability, ESPECIALLY when gia-normous amounts of offering and donation money are involved and, arguably raised on false pretenses and/or wasted.

This post a speck in the massive internet universe, but if anyone is seeking the truth, I sure hope they will find my perspective.

Nobody's perfect, I know I haven't been (and don't claim to be).  But the truth deserves to be known if there will ever be real accountability.  And if there is never real accountability, there will be compromises of integrity.

So don't take my word for it - make up your own mind.  Seek the truth and know it - and the truth will make you free.

 

THE TABERNACLE IN PARK TIMNA
Early in our time in Israel as career long-termers, I got roped into helping run the Tabernacle model tourist site in the south of the country.  As I stated in the post below, the position I was offered, and accepted, was "church planter", but since I was informed upon arrival that being a full time evangelist and church planter was not an option for International Mission Board missionaries in Israel🤷, now there is a manufactured dilemma: what exactly will I be doing?  I'm a team player so I didn't object.  Besides, if it contributes to people hearing the gospel as they say it does, I'm all for it.  It's what I came to do🤓.

WHAT IS THE TABERNACLE MODEL?
The Tabernacle project is a for-profit business platform which the IMB runs in the south of Israel.  It is a scale model reproduction of the biblical tabernacle as described and built in the wilderness in the book of Exodus.  Originally, a Bible college in Germany built it and used it for teaching purposes, and later the Baptists bought it and set it up in the desert at Timna national park near Eilat.  There are tour guides we hire who give guided tours showing visitors what everything is as it would have been way back then.  It is made of modern materials, but by appearances and size everything looks as it probably did when it was built.

If you haven't seen it, it is pretty amazing.  If you could ever say that Bible comes to life, seeing what the original tabernacle, altar, and the other elements looked like in the same desert it was built and used originally is spectacular.  It is not unusual for Christian tourists visiting to get so overwhelmed that they break down weeping.  Sometimes Israeli grade schools regularly bring their students to see and teach about the tabernacle when they are studying that passage in school.  No need to use your imagination when you're looking at it!

CASTING THE VISION
The real reason IMB missionaries were given the funding to purchase it was the vision that it would be a great tool for evangelism to Israelis here in the land.  It wasn't cheap to buy and have shipped here, but to help reach the lost in Israel it seemed like a no-brainer.  Nobody knows the future and there are risks in anything, but what happens when all doesn't go as planned.  What do you do?  What SHOULD you do?

SLOWING THE SINKING SHIP

Initially I was asked to only be the bookkeeper of the business.  The first day I got involved, the finances were a wreck.  The bookkeeping was behind nearly a year (if you're in leadership, that's a-OK), and employee morale was pretty bad .  In a word: neglect.  All the way around.  Over the next several years, I and another colleague did a LOT of work to get everything as ship shape as possible.  So Israelis could hear the gospel👍.  Right.

DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM
On the financial side, the business was hemorrhaging money on a daily basis.  I dug into the finances to find where changes cold be made and, as things stood, in the very best scenario the status quo was sinking us.

My job was to run the operation, make recommendations, and leave the larger decisions to others.  Immersing myself trying to get the business financially viable, I will never forget a conversation I had with the Israeli accountant.

Exemption period from taxes was about to expire, so I asked about the prospect of paying taxes if we could get to the point of making a profit.  She literally laughed in my face in front of everyone in the office.  She said the truth is that we will NEVER make a profit, showing me how many hundreds of thousands of dollars the business had lost to date.  It was pretty embarrassing, but more than that it was revealing to see what people really thought of what we were doing.

She (and the firm) thought we were complete idiots, and I won't dispute that.  But on our defense, this is the price that must be paid in order to get the gospel to the lost - all kinds of costs and sacrifices inherently come with that territory.  And non believers won't understand that.  Anyway, that is what the IMB is all about: making worthy sacrifices for the sake of the gospel.  Right?

BELLS AND WHISTLES, SMOKE AND MIRRORS
You know those times in your life when something happens that you completely don't expect, and you come to the realization you are indeed a naive sucker?  Well, I remember one day when the entire Baptist team was summoned to the Baptist Village conference center because an IMB trustee from America was in country and wanted to hear from each of us what we were involved in, ministry wise.  A veteran colleague introduced the team working with the Tabernacle and presented its ministry: it reaches "around 17,000 visitors a year and about half of those Israelis, who hear the gospel from our tour guides."  

The part about the number of visitors was accurate, but the 50% Israeli visitors who hear the gospel?  Hoo-boy - that was not even in the ballpark.  Not cool to botch something like that to a trustee.  Right there I discreetly texted the lead employee what she thought was the accurate percentage of Israeli visitors.  She texted back and said 15%, maybe 20%.  Doh!

Nothing more was said to the trustee, it would have been extremely awkward so I just let it go.   In the next meeting of the Tabernacle leadership I brought up the fact that we are WAY off what we are report because it's wildly inaccurate.  Obviously, it is of utmost importance that we need be accurate as far as it is up to us.  

I didn't expect leadership wanted to hear the estimate was so far off, but I got arguing in return like I am the bad guy here?  I'm just the messenger, dude.  I wasn't there in the early years of the project, maybe things had changed.  I don't know.  But I do know it would be wrong of me to know the truth and say nothing.  So after some discussion we agreed to track all demographics or every visitor from that day forward.  And as most things go with the IMB, expectation was far worse than reality.

SURPRISE (you, sir, are a SUCKER)
As time went on, the realization that I was the naive sucker started to settle in.  Kickback from leadership was not anything related to disappointment or confusion about the numbers being so far off.  What came to light was that apparently I was expected to unquestionably toe the company line, and not rock the boat.  

Reporting big ministry numbers is proof that the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent is for good reason, and continuing to pump more money in every year is justified.  It is SOLELY because of what is reported that decisions are made where resources go - should money or personnel go to this part of the world, or is it needed more over there?  Good information is vital to justify one need being met while denying others.  Whatever the tabernacle project got, somewhere else a missionary didn't get something funded or the personnel it needed.  Think about that.

LET'S HAVE A ROUND OF KOOL AID! FOR EVERYONE!
It is one thing to give others the Kool Aid you're serving to drink, but when you have developed a taste for your own Kool Aid, apparently it must be pretty intoxicating?  Call me a bit naive and trusting when it comes to those supposedly more experienced and knowledgeable (and I naturally am), but these are missionaries we're dealing with here, the best of the best.  How wrong I was.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN
You may be wondering how a bunch of missionaries could get their evangelistic tool in an Israeli national park.  Israelis are good business people for sure, but when it comes to missionaries they know where to draw the hard line.  However, it is pretty easy to get beyond this barrier if you legally sign away in your contract with the management of the park, promising to never share the gospel with Israelis.  

Sounds harsh but the park management agreed that we will give what we call the "Jewish tour" to Jewish visitors, which strictly follows the book of Exodus and Old Testament.  No mention ever of Jesus or the New Testament.  But when it comes to Christian tourists, we can give the "Christian tour", which talks freely about the imagery of Jesus and the New Testament in the elements of the spiritual tabernacle we have in the Godhead.  If there aren't these different tours for Jews and Christians, they would NEVER let the tabernacle set foot in their park.

CAVEAT
It was made clear to the park that if Jewish visitors ask us or our workers about what we believe, we are free to tell them.  They didn't like this at all but there is freedom of speech in Israel, and it is not legal to restrict us from answering questions to us about our faith.  So if a Jewish visitor asks the guides questions about the Christian tour or why this is important to Christians, the guides are free to say what they want.  And this is how almost all of the Jewish evangelism occurs.  These gospel conversations are almost always limited to individual Jewish visitors or single families because it is too risky with large groups or buses of Jewish tourists, for obvious reasons.

(Personally, I always thought what a horrible testimony it is to the park management, how readily we surrendered our privilege and obligation to share our faith so we could have our business on their property.  But I guess sacrifices have to be made in order to raise your profile.)

THE HARD NUMBERS
15-20% of our visitors were Israeli was not at all good, but as we tracked demographics over time it became clear that it was much worse than we ever expected.  It turned out that around 86% of visitors were foreign tourists, and mostly all were Christian.  This was no surprise at all because the park was marketing and advertising us exclusively to foreign Christian tourists (because we are Christian) - there was NO mention of the tabernacle on their Hebrew website at all.  Israelis barely knew we were even there.  

And What made the numbers worse was that of those 14% Israeli visitors, more than half of those who came got the "Jewish tour" were large families or groups, which meant it was too risky to mention Jesus or the gospel at all.  So that put us in mid single digit territory of Israelis hearing the gospel - instead of 50%, we're much closer to 5%.  How could this be?

HOW COULD THIS BE?
Reviewing the findings, although the numbers were shockingly lower than hoped, it is what it is.  My take was "but praise the Lord that a couple of dozen Israelis a month were able to hear the gospel".  But that's not the point because it is not the narrative leadership wants.

SO SMART
Now we get to the mind bending rubbish we became familiar with as IMB missionaries, which gets back to the IMB's alternate universe culture of twisting the meaning of normal words and concepts in the post below.  It was decided ex nihilo that Jewish visitors who got the Jewish tour, never hearing anything about "Jesus", "messiah", or "New Testament" (drum roll...) they would be counted as hearing the gospel!?!  I nearly flipped out when I heard that.

Sorry, but no one on this planet with a brain could say in any stretch of the imagination that our presentation of Jewish tour for Israelis could claim they "heard the gospel".  Especially Baptist missionaries who supposedly know better.  I guess that you can be this audacious when you are sure that you will never be questioned or come under scrutiny for these things.

After all, who in their right mind would think to ask a missionary that if they said they shared the gospel to Israelis, that they of course mentioned something about Jesus as messiah, or anything regarding the New Testament?  To a missionary, it is actually a pretty insulting question if you think about it.

I asked several times how this could possibly be done and, apparently, this is the way we do things.  I, for one, flat out refused to do anything of the sort.  I said I was going to report the number "as is", full stop.  This put me on leadership's 'bad list', because I defied them in playing their word games.  And since my of disagreement with them on these matters, I was expected to keep my mouth shut.  But I had no problem being open about the truth - this is not a mind-controlling cult we're in (I assumed).

WILLFUL IGNORANCE?
Should I assume that everyone is in on the ruse?  Even the squish I worked with saw the advantage of being a 'yes man' toadie, so I was odd man out.  And with the mentality of these characters I worked with and under, apparently what is "true" and "right" can be altered by rank and consensus.

But hey, I was like, if this is what we're supposed to be doing, then let's all talk about it freely and openly.  I always say that if you believe something, don't be afraid to shout it from the rooftops.  Or if someone else shouts it from the rooftops for you.  (Who knows, maybe the 'consensus' might not agree with you?😅😉)

SLAVE TO MESSIAH, OR TO "THINGS"?
I originally came to Israel out of obedience to God's calling on my life.  From my experience in the 1990s at the Baptist Village, I determined I would never be like most (not all) of the career folk I witnessed who did practically nothing and shared the gospel even less.  It was like they were on a paid vacation living in Israel - how else could a non Jew live for years in Israel, and get paid to do it?

Instead, I was prepared to be very uncomfortable for the advancement of the gospel.  But what was happening, while was I was giving the best years of my life, the very best of my time and energy, was it's all for an illusion based on falsehoods.  I'm not saying it was lies, don't get me wrong, but every aspect of it was being fudged, misrepresented, and/or devoid of integrity.  

THE SAID AND THE UNSAID
To be clear: I do not fault anyone for pursuing the idea of purchasing the tabernacle as a tool for evangelism.  It's a great idea and maybe worth all that money to take that chance.  Leaders get to make those decisions and are (well, SHOULD be) held accountable for them.

And I am not saying that funds were misused.  That is, assuming you don't count rank incompetence, which I guess you can't really blame someone if they just don't have any sense to begin with (although, where is the accountability for accidental, habitual waste?).  I never witnessed any intentional misuse of funds.  Unintentional is another story.

What I AM saying is that whenever the realization came that ministry expectations were not being met and numbers were no where anyone's best hopes, "things" were done to ensure the money keeps coming.  Call it exaggerating, embellishing, obscuring, overemphasizing, or whatever - it's deception.  And generating funds (HUGE amounts over MANY years) on knowingly false pretenses is disqualifying.  In my humble opinion.

THE SEAT OF RESPONSIBILITY
Where does the responsibility reside?  It doesn't reside in one person, it lies all the way up and down the line.  There is the lowly nobody do-boy (me) who carries out the work to keep things going.  There is the boss who sets the direction and communicates to superiors what happens.  There is the greater leadership team overseas who gives the decisions for approving funding (or not) for what ultimately happens on the ground across the region and world.  

And there are the people in the churches who give the money which funds everything, which is the lifeblood of the existence of the organization.  There is the loop of communication and feedback which is the accountability which everyone in some way participates.  That's ideal.  That's not how it plays out.

I saw some questionable things and spoke up along the proper chain of command.  I saw daily with my own eyes and heard with my ears how my immediate superiors responded to those issues, so they can't claim ignorance - they knew.  Their supervisors, who have a duty to know what they are responsible for, were silent and nothing changed.  I respect the structure so I did what is appropriate, putting in confidence that the system will ultimately work.

I always gave the higher ups benefit of the doubt that they knew what they have responsibility for.  They they have eyes and ears, they can find out whatever they want to know, whenever they want to know it.  Did they simply take the word of leaders below them and say "Okey dokey, sound all right to me"?  Or did they know and were also in on the ruse?  And the greater leadership back in the States also had to know, because who in those positions takes the reports without questioning?  And the laypeople who keep giving literal millions of their hard earned money to keep the game going.  If you trust your messenger without checking out the basics yourself - you too are the sucker.

IT'S NOT THE ONE THING, BUT THE DISMAL TIDE
Ultimately, I resigned not for one thing, because who among us is remotely close to perfect?  Not I.  Instead, what I have described is not the exception, but it's descriptive of the culture within the organization.  I was never sure if wider leadership ever knew what was going on, or worse, I was not sure that they themselves even wanted anything other than receiving good reports.  Who wants to deal with and fix big problems?  It might interfere with keeping the grist flowing for the machine.

AM I EXAGGERATING?
I can only speak to what I saw myself.  Let's face it, being a missionary carries with it the expectation that every now and then you have to do some missionary-ish sort of things.  You know, to keep up appearances.

One year our supervisor came to us and said that being in the city we lived in, we had to do something to show that we were "reaching our community for the gospel".  Mind you, we were rebuffed on other evangelism ideas we wanted to do, which were deemed too simplistic and doomed to failure  Instead, our supervisor with close to 30+years experience in Israel called a meeting with the other IMB couple in town to plan out the strategy.  I had another idea, but it was shot down without discussion.  Fine, who am I to quibble - at least we will finally be doing something!

His plan was as follows, and I quote: "This year you choose a tract with a certain Jewish holiday theme and put our contact info in it (an anonymous email address)  Just before that that holiday we will put the tracts in mailboxes on a predetermined street in town.  Next year you will do a block of houses.  The next year you'll do a neighborhood.  And then different neighborhoods i the following years after that.  And I will call tell "X" (our in country leader) that it was a success, and he will be happy." 🤣🤔😭 I kid you not.

So we together with the other couple got the small handful of tracts in some mailboxes.  Unsurprisingly, zero response.  But, evangemalsim = check☑️!  Your hard earned missions dollar$ at work😅.

Again, not just one thing but the entire charade, as a whole, was just a sick joke.  I didn't hang around long enough to know what has happened since, and at this point I've moved on to bigger and better things.  If this bursts you bubble about some missionaries, so sorry🤷

THE FOREST OR THE TREES?
These examples of the tabernacle, evangelism, Baptist Village, and children's camps (post below) are individual trees in the larger forest - but they ARE what makes the forest.  It's not at all about burning down the forest because of a few rotten trees.  But rot is contagious and should be rooted out.  And continuing to pipeline massive amounts of money to anyone without proper oversight and accountability (as exists in certain places) is putting the junkie in charge of the medicine cabinet.  The rot only grows.

IT'S NO LONGER MISSIONS
This isn't missions, this is big business.  Put a dollar figure to it all - the salaries, all of the expenses involved for personnel, all of the administrative personnel to support all of these people and properties, all of the taxes, lawyers, accountants, not forgetting materials and supplies for the hired workers to repair and maintain the assets - add it all up for each year and you will blown away at what is spent for the IMB to operate in Israel.  It's big business.  And with the rare exceptions it is all for the believers in the land.  Don't believe me?

The tabernacle is a supposed evangelistic tool of the IMB here, but I've already gone over that farce in the post below.  Everything at the BV (Netivah, Lech Lecha, camps, conferences) is for believers.  The "sports ministry" only stays in use by Israelis because it is understood by both Baptists and Israelis that to talk about Jesus there, the patrons will boycott the place.  

And don't tell me the missionaries don't know their place in all of this - just take a survey of actual sharing the gospel (not the fake Orwellian word games-type 'spiritual conversation' pretend evangelism) they engage in regularly.  And this definitely doesn't include the shameful and scandalous credit-taking that IMB missionaries are encouraged to report which makes them look like they are deeply involved in outreach projects of others I mentioned previously (another subject I'll probably go into soon).

THE GOSPEL, OR MAMMON?
But to take a step back for a different perspective and ask a different question.  Forget the money element all together and imagine that both the BV and the tabernacle are financially neutral (receiving no financial subsidy/offering money).

The question is this: What would happen if we took all of the missionaries involved in these platforms and properties and turned them loose to simply share the gospel with the lost?  Would we begin to see this country transform as a result of the faith that only comes by hearing?  We can only wonder.

So, for the sake of argument, let's say that no money is lost running the tabernacle.  The question is: why not keep using it to share the gospel?  Instead of that, how about this: take all of the people involved in the business (workers, managers, etc) and have them do regular, intentional evangelism (like, say, a missionary?).

To give a little perspective, there are days here in which we reach more Israelis with the gospel than were reached in an entire year from the tours at the tabernacle in Park Timna.  And I would argue that we are able to reach them far, far more effectively.  

The issue is if we are willing to rid ourselves of those "things" which, instead of helping get the gospel out, in the end only weigh us down (Hb 12:1-2).

THE BOTTOM LINE
Basically, the SBC sends dozens of personnel and millions of dollars to build up the Body of Christ in Israel.  A good thing to do, but it isn't missions.  And it sure doesn't take into account the lost who have never heard the gospel preached to them by a believer.

Big money corrupts missions, it corrupts the missionaries, it corrupts the local pastors, and it does harm to the indigenous church.  But hey, everybody is doing it, right?  So it must be OK.  And you, the donors, are happy and keep feeding them the cash so nothing will change.  Grist for the machine (or more accurately, it's GRIFT).

THE CHOICES WE MAKE
Ultimately we made our choices for a combination of reasons, and looking retrospectively it was an easy decision.  Either we could keep sacrificing the best years of our lives, our strength, and some degree our integrity to keep those missions dollars flowing to man's "things" which blessed and build up the body of Messiah in Israel.  Or we could make sure as many lost souls will hear the gospel preached from a believer as we can with the little time we have on this earth.  It couldn't be "both/and" (believe me we tried), sadly it had to be "either/or".

We made our choices.  If you support missions, be sure you make the best choices based on the best information you can get.  Never throw money to an organization, they will squander it.  Give to those missionaries who do the work of the Great Commission with no excuses.  Otherwise you are part of the problem too.

1 Cor 3:9-15
9 For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. 10 According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it. 11 For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, 13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is. 14 If anyone’s work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.