What’s Wrong with LBC? Part 2

What’s Wrong with Lake Bible Church? Part 2

“You’re Enabling My Dad to Endanger My Life!”

This article is Part 2 of the Open Letter from Juli (& me) to all current and former attenders/members of Lake Bible Church, or to anyone who has benefited from (Emeritus) Pastor Jim’s radio and books ministries, TFW and JAB. If you have not yet read Part 1, please do so now, as it is intertwined with this article thematically and biblically.

As we will demonstrate in this article, Pastor Jim has taught consistently throughout Scripture that all believers are to hold one another accountable, since we are all part of the Body of Christ. This function is part of the those stemming from the Priesthood of All Believers. These teachings, among others, have been collected and arranged into three Subjects on our TFW website: The Definition and Purpose of the Church, and The Practices of the Church, and Spiritual Gifts in the Church:

Here is a very brief summary of the key passages that Pastor Jim has exposited on this subject:

Eph. 4:3-16:

1) We must never focus on the recipient of the spiritual gift more than the Giver Himself (from 13:00-14:45), 2) We should never use our spiritual gifts selfishly or to over shadow those with smaller gifts (@17:20), 3) We should never use our gifts to tear down other members of the Body; all parts of the Body are to work together harmoniously to serve Christ the Head (@22:00).

1 Cor 12:1-11:

1) We must guard against those with greater gifts, including preachers and other leaders, from getting puffed up (@14-15 min), 2) We have each been given a spiritual gift at conversion by the Holy Spirit, v.7 (@16 min.), 3) We must reject those who try to force all believers to have the same gift; variety is part of His plan! (@17 min), 4) We must not use our gifts to exalt ourselves or manipulate others for selfish ends v.7 (@21 min), 4) We must remember that we are accountable to God for how we use our gifts—see Parable of the Talents in Mat.25 (@22 min), 5) We must recognize God’s sovereign distribution of gifts and refuse to exalt ourselves or belittle others because of their gifts (@22:15).

1 Cor 12:12-31,

1) Pastor Jim reviews the content of the previous program, repeating at @2:40 with an illustration about a weedeater that lacked a small but essential part in order to function, “We need all those little springs in the Church”, 2) We must not envy others’ gifts @4 min, 3) We learn about the organic nature of the Body of Christ, realizing that each gift is necessary for its proper functioning (@6 min), 4) We see the difference between the local church and the Church Universal and the Holy Spirit’s central role in the latter @7:20, @8:55, @11:45, 5) We must accept our responsibility as members of the Body to use our gifts since each one of us is essential and none is autonomous @13-15, 6) We must submit to God’s wisdom regarding the placement of gifts within the Body @15, 7) We must never arrogantly dismiss those with other gifts in selfish pride, @15:30 (remember the “little spring” in the opening illustration?), 8) All pastors should know that the least visible and seemingly unimportant members of the Body are actually the most valuable and necessary, (@17:20), and thus should be more greatly honored (@19 min), and 9) Without love, all the spiritual gifts amount to nothing @23:00.

Thus, Juli & I have used our spiritual gifts of discernment and teaching (which Pastor Jim has identified and developed in us over the past three decades) and have addressed each of our articles to a specific category of leadership at LBC (Senior Pastor, Elders). Pastor Jim teaches in Colossians 3:16-17 and Ephesians 5:21 the principle of mutual submission and accountability in all directions.

In our 3-25-23 letter to the LBC Board of Elders (p.7), we reminded them of Pastor Jim’s biblical prescription for Elders and congregants to hold the Senior Pastor accountable:

Perhaps the best message we have ever heard about a pastor’s accountability to his congregation and lay elders was when Pastor Jim spoke in 2019 on Ezra 7:10 at his grandson’s (Alex Dotson’s) ordination in Roseburg.

(This video may take a few minutes to load and play. Listen from 26:30-53:00.)

@32:00, Jim begins his charge to Alex as pastor to remain faithful to the Word of God, “to Know It, to Do It , and to Teach It.” Then he specifies that Alex must teach without fear of man (44:45-48:00).

@48:30 Jim now begins his charge to the congregation to uphold their responsibilities.

@51:50, Jim discusses his final point under this heading. He says, “And finally, accountability. I would never urge a congregation to stand up for a pastor no matter what. That’s a bad thing. We all need to be accountable, and pastors need to accountable also. I would never want, even though I’m his grandfather, if he (Alex) is in the wrong, if he’s gone rogue, I will not support him, and you shouldn’t either. Pastors need to be held accountable.”

However, since the Board of Elders has failed to hold Pastor Jim accountable for his personal sinful behavior and doctrinal compromise, it therefore falls upon the congregants to do so. Pastor Jim: “I would never urge a congregation to stand up for a pastor no matter what. That’s a bad thing. We all need to be accountable, and pastors need to accountable also.”

This is all the more urgent because this Elders’ culpable negligence has allowed Pastor Jim to descend into extremely dangerous territory morally. And this could have dangerous consequences for the life of his own daughter, Juli!

By way of review, in our previous articles, we have proven, according to Pastor Jim’s own teaching, that he has been disobedient in multiple areas as a consequence of an unspecified health problem:

Part 12: Pastor Jim has willfully partnered with a heretical publisher, Xulon Press, which claims to be “Christian,” but also publishes heretical Catholic and NAR books. This violates his teaching in many passages such as 2 John 5-10, 11-13; Matthew 28:19, etc.

Also, Pastor Jim is violating his own biblical teaching about partnering with a so-called “Christian” publisher who is willing to compromise the Gospel for the sake of money (from 1 Timothy 6:5-6):

@16:20 Well, some people back then, as do so many people today, seize upon people’s worship of God as an opportunity to capitalize financially and make a few bucks. For example, you get emails offering us entree to a $4 billion religious market, or you get a catalog from a speakers’ bureau offering us high profile speakers for church events at a handsome price. It’s unbelievable.

Nobody has exploited it so well as the Christian entertainers, whose love of fame and fortune far out distances, to say the least, any love of God. These people would sell their souls to the Devil for their ambition, and many seem to have sold out. The Christian publishing industry and the Christian bookstores don’t publish or sell what needs to be published or sold. Rather, they seize the opportunity to make money, and they will publish and they will sell heresy, if it will make them money.” Ends 17:25

Part 13: Pastor Jim has violated man’s (civil) law by taking possession of two websites he no longer owned, and he has unbiblically revoked financial support from disabled daughter and son-in-law

(These two points will be dealt with later in this article.)

Elders, Part 1: Pastor Jim has committed a serious civil offense of defamation of character against me (Paul) by both explicitly and implicitly falsely accusing me of emotionally torturing his wife, Olsie, including denying her access to her daughter, Juli.

In addition, Pastor Jim has demonstrated heretofore unthinkable abusive behavior toward his own wife, Olsie, pretending to speak for her without her knowledge or consent and publicly lying about me (Paul). Why this behavior is so abusive will become even more evident to you in the course of this article.

(Again, the issues of the civil offense of unlawful possession of the websites will be dealt with later.

LBC (congregation), Part 1: Pastor Jim has allowed pro-LGBTQ curriculum into our Children’s Ministry (and other departments) as early as 2017, and he did not stop it when we confronted him privately in 2020.

Now we have arrived at LBC (congregation), Part 2:

The purpose of this current article is to show that Pastor Jim’s abusive behavior toward his own wife and daughter (and son-in-law) has now resulted in life-endangering circumstances for both women, esp. for Juli:

As you may be aware pastor Jim publicly announced on April 7, 2024 that his wife, Olsie, had been diagnosed with cognitive decline. Unfortunately, he added to the grievous nature of this moment by simultaneously and falsely blaming me, his son-in-law, both explicitly and implicitly, for her current health condition.

In our Elders, Part 1 article, Juli and I have already begun refuting Pastor Jim’s cruel act of civil defamation, but now you will see that this behavior is part of a larger pattern of emotional abuse that Pastor Jim began in 2015 toward his wife Olsie, and his sick, disabled bedbound daughter. For example, early in that year, Olsie shockingly informed *us that Pastor Jim had recently begun unfairly blaming her for two of her health problems that she had not caused, nor was she able to reverse them just because they were frustrating to him.

(*By the way, according to Pastor Jim’s teaching from Scripture, two or three witnesses who are of godly character and of sound mind constitute biblically valid testimony. In the OT, someone could be convicted and sentenced to death by this testimony (Deut. 17:6). Listen to 1 Timothy 5:17-20.)

This news was completely unthinkable to us prior to this. And we would have had no way to know this if Olsie hadn’t told us. Sadly, this not only damaged Olsie physically and psychologically, but due to her own already declining mental health, she then unfortunately perpetuated the cycle of abuse. Olsie soon began mimicking her husband’s abusive behavior by blaming us for things that we could not help either. As we wrote to the elders on 1-30-23:

p.3-4 Let me add here that Jim has even freely admitted twice to being emotionally abusive toward Olsie, both times in 2017 (once implicitly and once explicitly).

Yet despite our desperate pleas for Jim to do his biblical due diligence and seek medical attention for himself and for Olsie, he has refused to do so for both of them. In addition, because he has emotionally abused Olsie beginning in 2015, she has tragically become (like many abuse victims) abusive of others, in this case, Juli & me (because we are disabled and physically/financially dependent on her.)

Pastor Jim also began a heretofore nonexistent pattern of blaming Juli, his own sick, disabled bedbound daughter, for worsening or causing her own mother’s cognitive decline.

In paragraph 1 of the following email, Pastor Jim describes both Olsie’s early symptoms of cognitive decline, as well as demonstrating his cruel tactic of blaming an innocent victim (Juli) for it:

From: Jim Andrews <jima@lakebiblechurch.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2015 6:47 PM
To: Paul Grose <paulgrose1@hotmail.com>
Subject: Olsie

Paul, Juli has to stop.  You all may not realize it, but Olsie is on a narrow ledge as far as her mental health is concerned.  She is not sleeping well.  She is having trouble getting out of bed.  TMJ for weeks has been about to take off the top of her head.  Can find no relief but somehow keeps on going.  Stresses everyday come at her from 19 different directions that you guys have no idea about.  Both of us are showing signs at times of dementia (not really) but neither of us can remember the simplest things, too much coming at us, especially her.  She is literally getting worn out and if things don’t let up soon, she is going to snap.

I realize nobody has it worse than you two, but she does all she can to help.  I am just asking that you guys don’t compound the problem, or she is not going to be there for you one of these days.  I can see it coming.

Jim

Notice that pastor Jim unfairly and cruelly blames the worsening of Olsie’s condition on Juli. What was her alleged “crime?” She was simply begging her mom to take medical responsibility for herself, instead of fatalistically giving up and stopping a medication, since she had been stating recently that she was on the verge of having another nervous breakdown. (Olsie had frequently taken this OTC medicine for the prior 20 years, without incident, and it was necessary to keep her strong enough to function.)

Remember that Pastor Jim wrote extensively about Olsie’s struggles with severe depression, which began in 1992, in his book, Polishing God’s Monuments: Pillars of Hope for Punishing Times. And, of course, Olsie had been our in-home caregiver for the previous 28 years, and we could not afford for her health to deteriorate since there was nobody to take her place.

So then, after I read Pastor Jim’s email, I explained to him potential diagnoses that needed to be checked out for Olsie [see edited excerpts below], but inexplicably, after just stating how worried he was about her mental and physical health, he refused to accept any responsibility for her health and get her the medical attention she desperately needed [see Jim’s response below mine]:

There are AT LEAST 3 major health issues that can affect Olsie’s mood and ability to cope that [Olsie’s doctor] has been unwilling to check into (because Medicare won’t pay for the test).  The first is [one possible diagnosis]. When Olsie watched a Dr. Oz presentation, she recognized that she has many of the common symptoms … Then she asked [current doctor] and it went nowhere.

The other problem that should have been checked into is [another possible diagnosis]. Again, [current doctor] didn’t want to order that.

Also [third option], she has [another possible diagnosis]. Here’s a link. This can cause depression and irritability.

Up to this point, I understand why you’ve continued w/[current doctor] and I want you to continue.  However, since Olsie’s depression is getting much worse, you don’t have a choice right now to do nothing. [bolding added]. But these issues need to be addressed and [current doctor] doesn’t seem able to help, so you need to get someone else also to fix these.  We will do all we can to help as well.

This current situation is making it hard for Olsie to come over, but we need her help.  Please don’t delay in checking this out.

Pastor Jim’s ultimate response several days later (May 11, 2015):

Finally, we have neither the time nor extra money to be running around to any more doctors or whatever.   No more until it is absolutely necessary.  We have much work to do and I am not going to spend the time I am supposed to be working running around trying this or trying that for conditions I either don’t think exist or trying expensive treatments for dubious conditions that I am not convinced make a dimes worth of difference.

So then, as you can see, after just acknowledging the possible onset of Olsie’s dementia, Pastor Jim himself failed to obey his own teaching from God’s Word regarding being a responsible steward of one’s body. Here are just two examples:

A pastor should take care of his body (same for pastor’s wife): 1 Timothy 4:14-16.

The Apostle Paul instructed the sailors to eat and appropriate God’s means of grace for their physical sustenance, instead of expecting a miraculous provision. Same with us . Acts 27:35-44

Unfortunately, he has continued this pattern of denying access to MEDICALLY ADEQUATE (key distinction here!) health care for both his wife Olsie and daughter Juli, contradicting his own teaching from God’s Word in 1 Timothy 5 (multiple sermons, excerpts below):

1 Timothy 5:13-17:

@15:14, In the caring equation a lesson to be learned here is this. I’ve hammered on it before. I hammer on it again. The lesson is that of concentric circles of social responsibility in Christian charity. I’m repeating myself. It’s not that we Christians are to care only or primarily for those nearest us, but it is that our duty, our Christian duty, it is this: to care and to provide begins at home, though it does not end there.

If we, as God’s people, cannot care for those nearest and dearest, it just shows that the so-called “love” that we extend to those remote from us is obviously driven by some motive other than Christian compassion for the needy and distressed. What motive might that be? Well, just to feel good about ourselves, not to honor God, to get a little applause, to get a little write up in the paper, maybe a picture of us doing these things and pat ourselves on the back. There’s a lot of that that goes on in the Christian world. As Paul has already indicated, something is terribly amiss spiritually in those who refuse to care for their own. Start there. @16:30

1 Timothy 5:9-13:

@4:35, Folks, we should love the world, but we should be like God. The love of God extends first to the family of God, and there’s something wrong with any pastor who would go out caring for his flock and caring for the people in the community and neglect his own family. There’s something wrong with the church, and there’s something wrong with people that always want to run out and care for others and neglect the needy right in their own congregations. @5:00

1 Timothy 5:3-8

@22:56 And worse than that, the apostle says, If anyone does not provide for his own… of course, it’s assuming that you have means to provide. What you don’t have, you can’t be expected to give. But if we do not provide for our own, for our own family… I know people that won’t even care for their own wives when they’re sick or their own husbands. They say, “Hey, I didn’t sign up for this. I’m out.” If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially those of his own household, immediate family, he or she (this is serious, you’ve denied the faith. You’re an apostate. You’re worse than an unbeliever. So let’s take all of these things, folks, very, very seriously, because many don’t. Remember, Christian charity begins at home. @23:42

Regarding this last excerpt, Pastor Jim told us about a professing believer at LBC who refused to pay for life-saving medical care for his wife, and this continued for some time. So this particular section is highly relevant to this discussion because he is now exhibiting the same behavior he rightly condemned in others.

By the way, Pastor Jim’s ardent supporters have tried to defend his indefensible actions by insisting that others should provide financially for his daughter instead. However, each of them has failed to make a case from the key passages in Scripture, including 1 Timothy 5:3-8 above. Rather, they have used arguments based on emotions and unbiblical rationalizations, which Pastor Jim has criticized even himself for: (See p.142 in Jim’s Pastors Manual):

Now, to my discredit, there were warning signs ahead of the storm for both of these men [staff members that Pastor Jim hired] that I foolishly ignored, thinking the Lord would surely not let me and this ministry get sidetracked with foxes in the henhouse. I have learned the hard way, however, that God will never enable those who fail to fully discharge their responsibilities to continue in their bad habit without consequences. Take it from me and learn here. By no means did I get it all wrong, but these errors were avoidable and just a little sanctified common sense would have made up for lack of experience. For whatever reasons in the providence of God, some mistakes are bound to happen despite your best efforts. Still, that is no excuse to shrug these blunders off fatalistically and neglect whatever can be done on the human side to minimize the mistakes in hiring.

In addition, their rationalizations ring even more hollow when examined in the harsh light of the new reality: all other relatives, contacts and resources have been fully exhausted. Yet even though Pastor Jim knows this information, he still refuses to obey his own teaching from God’s Word and provide for his own daughter (to the best of his ability), either directly or indirectly.

So then, does the fact that Emeritus Pastor Jim is no longer receiving his salary exempt him from all responsibility? Hardly. What loving father (and he has always been one, until recently) would coldly ignore his sick, disabled daughter’s upcoming medical surgeries (that stem from her horse-riding accident at age 10) just because he himself wasn’t able to pay himself? He would be calling and emailing everyone he knew to beg them to help her!

Consider this self-description (this excerpt is from p.18; read p.17-22 for full story) in Polishing God’s Monuments: Pillars of Hope for Punishing Times of Pastor Jim’s love for Juli shortly before that near-fatal accident in June, 1976:

Who can describe the horror of a scene like that for a parent? Ironically, only the previous afternoon, as Don and I were chatting in his living room, Juli just happened to prance past us. For some reason, as my eyes followed her happy steps, the thought had flitted across my mind, “My, how I love that kid! I could never bear to lose her.” Now almost exactly twenty-four hours later, the threat of that very nightmare was unfolding before my eyes.

Now, compare that quote with this series of texts I exchanged with Jim on 9/11/24 beginning @5:48 p.m.:

How could any Christian, let alone a pastor, justify his cruel actions of “apostate abandonment” (described in Part 13)? He is not only refusing to obey his own teaching from 1 Timothy 5:8, but he is clearly discouraging those LBC members (who are the primary source of Christian fellowship and ministry opportunities into which Juli & I have invested ourselves for the past 30 years) from giving to us financially because of his refusal to admit his own unlawful actions (as described in Part 13  and Elders, Part 1).

Here is an excerpt from an email from my dad after he and my mom met with Jim & Olsie in July 2024:

We also talked about possible donors to help. Neither family has resources to assist. They explained their finances to us, and that of their family.   Jim believed most LBC people would be reluctant to step in because of the conflict over The Final Word.

Thus, because of Pastor Jim’s decision to continue violating man’s (civil) law regarding website ownership, he has created a cruel legal impasse, using it to blame us and therefore deny us support of any kind, including raising support for us from others.

Therefore, it is now necessary to bring this to the attention of The Final Word Board, which we began to do on 1/30/23 in a letter to a Board member sent by legal courier. Whether or not this man was still a Board member then is irrelevant. We now therefore request the help of the public to identify the current TFW Board members and ask them to direct Pastor Jim to step down as President of the organization. As I wrote to Jim last December (2023):

Jim, based on your 2 requests from 12/15/23 and our 12/25/23 phone conversation, you have given me no factual or legal basis for your contentions and allegations about me having your “intellectual property.” If you hadn’t just confirmed that you read my 11-page legal document, I would have no idea that you had done so, since you continue to refuse to engage with any of the facts or legal principles/laws contained therein in a serious, responsible way.

Your behavior before the law over the past (nearly) 2 years has been a disgrace to the name of Christ, especially since I was forced to hire a …lawyer after receiving your threats of taking away our ministry roles. Your pattern of refusing to acknowledge receiving legal documents makes you look (maybe because it’s true) that you don’t have a legal leg to stand on. This is not how any good citizen should act, and you have no regard for the damage done to your witness and LBC’s as a result…

Even if you were in the right legally (which you have yet to prove), your stalling tactics would be considered cruel by any non-Christian, given our precarious health and desperation to resolve the crisis that you created.

THEREFORE, if you expect me to act upon your request, you will need to answer my legal document, point by point, in a historical and legally relevant fashion to authenticate your claims of ownership, just as I did. But it should be quite apparent that I, as the owner of the website/url, have no obligation to turn anything at all over to you. In fact, it is just the reverse.

So Jim, make your case in the manner I specified, both quickly and accurately. And as you said to me on the phone, “if we go on, we’re going to go into bad territory.” I agree. Love, Paul & Juli

P.S. Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that I haven’t told you yet about the second, independent legal avenue establishing ownership that I have.

What is the “second, independent legal avenue” I referred to nearly a year ago?  Not only is Pastor Jim NOT the owner of the websites he gave me years ago, but in addition, he SHOULD NOT BE the owner, because he has disqualified himself from the ministry at LBC, TFW and JAB, as specified in LBC, Part 1:

But in January 2020, Pastor Jim informed us through a trusted emissary that he was no longer healthy enough to supervise all of the doctrinal content being taught at LBC, as he had always done beforehand. He stated that he was now unable to handle the emotional pressure of holding LBC’s ministry leaders accountable for their strict adherence to God’s Word.

… Therefore, based on Pastor Jim’s consistent, lifelong teaching all throughout Scripture (including the above passages) on the primary responsibility of pastors to protect their flock from error (See also Pastor Jim’s Pastor’s Manual, p.173-190, #20, “Pathogens in the Pews,” and this article summarizing the key passages about the need for pastors to be vigilant regarding false teachers,  https://help2needy.com/do-not-participate-in-the-unfruitful-deeds-of-darkness/ ) , he had just indicated to us by this statement that he was no longer medically or spiritually fit to hold the high office of Senior Pastor. Thus, he had just disqualified himself from the pastorate.

This where the Body of Christ must step in and prevent Pastor Jim from irreversibly endangering his wife’s and daughter’s health. First, regarding Olsie, in 2015, he refused (as demonstrated above) to ensure that she received MEDICALLY ADEQUATE health care to address her cognitive decline symptoms. Tragically, Olsie lost her job in January 2024, depriving them and us of much-needed income. Jim has continued this mistreatment up to the present, even refusing to read a lengthy, detailed letter that Juli wrote, trying to prevent her mom from getting severe dementia (which ultimately happened):

As we wrote to the unnamed TFW Board Member on 1/30/23:

In addition, consider the horrible torture inflicted on a bedridden, disabled 57-year-old woman when her father Jim, was unwilling to read the 22-page letter (sent May 2022) that she had researched for a full 2 years and written at great physical sacrifice in order to inform [Olsie]…about the very latest medical advancements [regarding cognitive decline]…

And for the past year (off & on), Juli & I have been working assiduously to help Olsie implement the diet and treatments that researchers from Harvard, UCLA and others have discovered treat cognitive decline, yet Pastor Jim recently refused to even watch a video that Juli had requested so that he could help Olsie better.

Olsie has had many falls in the past few years, beginning in April 2022, when she fell and broke her ankle. But Pastor Jim has refused to immediately check into recently uncovered diagnosis of a hypercoagulable condition that a clotting expert, David Berg, M.S., founder of Hemex Labs, had identified in her bloodwork about 20 years ago. Mr Berg, who eventually sold his company to LabCorp for about $1+ million in 2020, had taken a special interest in Olsie due to this unusual finding, and he charged me with the responsibility of monitoring her long-term in order to prevent a cardiovascular incident.

And finally, Pastor Jim has also denied his desperately ill and trauma-injured (brainstem & upper cervical spine) daughter from receiving the emotional and financial support from others, not just himself. This is beyond cruel, and nobody is willing to stand up to him and confront him with his unbiblical actions. As stated above, her condition is so severe that she requires multiple surgeries, but those in Pastor Jim’s circle of influence (LBC members, TFW listeners, and former students) have all refused to listen to our warnings about his health and the destruction he is causing, and have turned a deaf ear to Juli’s cries for help.

Here is a recent video showing Dianna Cowern, a former MIT graduate and YouTube science influencer (with millions of followers) with M.E. (from Long Covid) during an 11-hour fundraiser for OMF, led by Stanford Professor of Biochemistry, Dr. Ron Davis.

The 35-year-old MIT-educated science communicator, known for her popular Physics Girl YouTube channel, has been confined to her bed in a dark room, unable to use the bathroom on her own, read, or watch television. She can only communicate with her husband, Kyle Kitzmiller, through occasional whispers, notes, and hand signals.

The difference between Dianna and Juli is that Juli has been diagnosed with craniocervical instability, requiring surgery. Therefore, she is even more disabled. In addition, Kyle is healthy, and I (Paul) had to go back on full disability due to a relapse with my M.E. disease.

So, unless someone stands up to Pastor Jim, Juli will not survive. He could “call off the dogs” instantly and repent, walking obediently again as he had done for so many decades.

P.S. A footnote to the Board of Elders at LBC: Pastor Jim’s spiritually abusive actions in 2017 led him to falsely accuse us of somehow “trying to divide this church” and “backdooring” him (two separate occasions). He subsequently discovered that he was acting on incorrect information, and he apologized. This led to our temporary recusal from TFW, JAB and LBC for about 10 days in May/June 2017.

However, once this was resolved, we resumed work with all three entities (at various levels), and we helped Pastor Jim fend off the infiltration of false teaching in September 2017, leading to his decision to preach “one of the most important sermons of my pastorate” in October 2017. He credited us privately with saving the church from a serious upheaval due to the threat of the false doctrine.

So therefore, we were unfairly demoted to “inactive” member status without our knowledge. And we were never afforded biblical due process to understand what was stealthily being done to us, since it was not handled properly by Pastor Jim himself, as it ought to have been. Yet we have continued to serve LBC up to this moment, funding the website ourselves where many research & discernment articles are housed, in order to provide a resource for LBC people.

Reader, are you going to let Pastor Jim “sentence to death” his own daughter for simply obeying his own teaching? If you do not act, that’s exactly what will happen.

(Commenters acknowledge by their participation that they have read both Parts 1 & 2 beforehand.)

What’s Wrong with LBC? Part 1

This article consists of Part 1 of our Open Letter to all current and former attenders/members of Lake Bible Church, as well as to anyone who has benefited from (Emeritus) Pastor Jim’s radio and books ministries, TFW and JAB. As we will explain in greater detail in Part 2, it is your responsibility as a member of the Body of Christ, based on his biblical teaching about holding one another accountable in right doctrine ( Listen to Colossians 3:16-17, from 12:22-13:30) to take immediate action. In order for you to fully understand the urgent circumstances facing Pastor Jim’s ministries and his family right now, you will need to read both Part 1 and Part 2.

As you may have noticed, we have periodically changed the title of our articles in order to hold different categories of leadership accountable (Senior Pastor, Elders, etc.). Now the focus of this article is on the congregation itself (and wider Christian community). So we will ask you below to carefully study two previous articles that we wrote in late 2022 (after 5 years of intensive research) about one of the greatest threat to our church: the targeted indoctrination of our children with the “Christian” LGBTQ+ agenda.

But first, we would like to explain why we felt compelled to undertake this massive project. Over the past three decades, as we explain in this article, Pastor Jim has tutored us privately in theology, both formally and informally, because of our inability to complete our seminary training in missions due to becoming disabled with M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis). Thus, we have used this training, at varying levels of involvement during different times, to assist Pastor Jim in each of his ministries (LBC, TFW and JAB) throughout the decades since we became members of LBC over 30 years ago.

The primary area in which Juli & I have served Pastor Jim has been in theology and discernment. As we wrote to the Elders in our 1/30/23 letter, p.6-7:

Over the decades since her dramatic improvement with her MCS (multiple chemical sensitivity) and M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis) after her successful 1995 cancer treatment in Mexico, Juli & I were able to become involved in the ministry at Lake in various areas: Music, Teaching Sunday School, etc.

When I was able to return to work in 1996 due to the same treatments as Juli, I began teaching piano lessons, until various factors in both of our health got worse in 2013. At that time, the Lord clearly led me to switch my focus from teaching piano to taking over and running Pastor Jim’s books ministry… Juli & I devoted all of our available energy (literally, often just a matter of a few minutes/day) to revising and republishing the…books, and to completing new ones, for a total of five.

As you [know]…, we have become quite well-read in current theological issues as a result of our online research, done to help protect the flock at Lake, beginning in 2009. Then in 2015, [a women’s ministry leader] asked Jim if we could help her research the IF: Gathering, which we were happy to do.

It is through the extensive research that we have done over the past ~14 years for Jim’s books and TFW program editing that has enabled us to support all three ministries: LBC, radio & books in the area of theological discernment.

In addition, Pastor Jim commissioned us in 2013 with a massive project—to research and collate all of his TFW programs on key subjects of common interest into an easy-to-use guide for the website. This was completed, finally, in 2020.

The relevance of this historical information is to explain our extensive knowledge of what Pastor Jim has taught about most subjects, and also where those programs/sermons are located in his massive archives (TFW & LBC). He has often commented that we know what he has covered (subject-wise) in his sermons better than he does, since he has been preaching for nearly 60 years and has often repeated books during that time.

Over the years, then, we have interfaced Pastor Jim’s teaching and the information about false teachers that we have researched who have unfortunately infiltrated into the church. We have then communicated with him about which resources are no longer sound.

Next, we would like to explain the above subtitle: “You’re Flying the Gay Rainbow Flag over Your Building!” As you will discover from reading the 2-part series below, both Pastor Jim and the Board of Elders have failed to protect LBC from the dangerous LGBTQ+ agenda. You will discover that many of the popular parachurch ministries that churches have relied upon for many decades have been taken over by homosexual activists and propagandists who want to brainwash our children. And since Pastor Jim failed to take appropriate action in 2020, when we not only gave him this information but also gave him possible alternatives, our church has been openly partnering with evil (See Part 13 for passages such as 2 John 9-11 and others) and financially supporting now-heretical ministries. Hence the subtitle of the article, which was inspired by this picture from Lake’s website showing an actual rainbow over the building:

Therefore, after you read these two articles that we designed to inform Christians everywhere about this insidious danger, we will present the evidence about the failure of LBC’s leadership to protect our church from this heretical agenda.

https://help2needy.com/they-are-coming-for-your-kids-part-1/  25-minute read

https://help2needy.com/they-are-coming-for-your-kids-part-2/ 20-minute read

[By the way, the Christian discernment Substack channel, The Dissenter, republished these articles in September 2023. Also, we have nicknamed them, “Kids, Parts 1 & 2” for easier reference in the remainder of this article.]

Now that you have read these two articles, we will explain how and when Pastor Jim and the Board of Elders have failed to address this serious danger. This will provide further documentation of the inexplicable changes in Pastor Jim’s doctrine and behavior (that we have detailed in our previous 4 TFW articles) after his prior 56 ½ years of obedience (June 1963-January 2020).

We will cite again the opening of our first letter to the Board of Elders on 1/30/23 (bolding added):

Juli and I are writing to request an immediate investigation by the appropriate LBC elder(s) into Pastor Jim’s medical and spiritual competence to continue performing the role of Senior Pastor at Lake Bible Church. As we will explain, the reason for our urgent request is that we desperately want him to be able to remain at Lake. However, due to a new, unspecified medical condition, Pastor Jim began in 2015 to exhibit an uncharacteristic pattern of overt disobedience to his own teaching from God’s Word, both in his personal behavior and his teaching…

As one might expect with a health-related problem, Pastor Jim’s disobedience was neither total nor uniform at the outset (from March 2015-Jan 2020). But according to LBC’s Constitution (p.16-17), a pastor may bring reproach upon Christ and the church by violating scriptural commands contained in these passages, among many:

1 Tim. 3:1-7, Phil. 2:15, Col. 4:5 and 1 Timothy 4:5 (this is a probable typo; 2 Tim. 4:5 was probably intended)

According to the Apostle Paul’s teaching in 1 Timothy, a pastor is to be an overseer of the doctrine and behavior of the church. In 3:1-2, he says:

1It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do. 2An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

And at the end of Paul’s second epistle to Timothy (4:5), he says:

“But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

But in January 2020, Pastor Jim informed us through a trusted emissary that he was no longer healthy enough to supervise all of the doctrinal content being taught at LBC, as he had always done beforehand. He stated that he was now unable to handle the emotional pressure of holding LBC’s ministry leaders accountable for their strict adherence to God’s Word.  

This news represented a grave departure from Pastor Jim’s lifelong biblical commitment to prioritizing the teaching component (including correcting false doctrine) of pastoral ministry. In 1 Timothy 5:13-17, he explains:

@21:05, So here in chapter five, verse 17 and verse 18 will seal the case. The idea is that within the class of men who govern local bodies who are their shepherds, those who apply themselves diligently to preaching and teaching, those should be more amply supported than those not as intensively engaged in this work, hence our word, ‘honorarium,’ as a material symbol of honor. Now this bifurcation, what do I mean, this separation that’s referred to here, let those be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who work hard at preaching and teaching, implying that some were not so involved. This bifurcation suggests that in the primitive organization of the local churches, there may have been those shepherds who were more focused on running and maintaining the churches than on teaching the church and devoting themselves rigorously to that ministry.

In fact, we still see that today, often times where a pastor is a better administrator of church life than a teacher or mentor in Christian faith and practice. The former pastor, who’s a good administrator of church life, is not without value, but the latter requires the most investment of time and does the church the most good in the long run. I’ve always said, as a pastor, in a church of any size, and mine is no mega church, but a church of any size, a pastor is the functional equivalent of a CEO as well as a shepherd. If I’m going to neglect one or the other, it’s going to be the CEO aspect. I’m going to be a shepherd first, God willing. Paul says, of those who excel at preaching and teaching, take good care of them, double care. For these are not weekend warriors, as the saying goes. By necessity, they have withdrawn themselves from the marketplace for the sake of your souls. So you, as a church, you allow them the freedom to do that. Honor them amply. That seems to me to be the spirit of his direction. And we should remember that. @23:16

And in 2 Timothy 1:13-18, Pastor Jim again stresses the crucial role of pastors and lay elders to protect the flock from false teaching:

@12:49, Then he tells Timothy, “Guard the deposit of the truth entrusted to you as a steward. Guard through the Holy Spirit, who indwells us, the treasure or good deposit which has been entrusted to you.” Here, the good deposit refers to the Gospel. Folks, it is not enough for us as ministers of Jesus Christ to adhere to the faith, the body of doctrine, the body of belief, once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3). It’s not enough for us as ministers also to teach it to others. This is a large part of our stewardship, to be sure, but another trust, another charge we have, is to be gatekeepers. And by that, I mean part of our responsibility, part of our stewardship, is to guard the gospel. And this is consistent with what was in the last verse (v.13), to guard the gospel or the good news from corruptions. Corruptions through devilish accretions or subtractions or also obfuscations that befog it.

As much as we Americans are conditioned to be positive, there is a negative side to our job as ministers of the Lord Jesus Christ. We, not just us pastors but elders or deacons or whatever your church leaders are called, we must be vigilant. We must always be on the lookout for predators and purveyors of false doctrine, and we must be ready to expose and rebuke their errors. Now, some people don’t like to hear that. They don’t want to hear anything negative. We can’t worry about that. We’ve got to do our job. Ends @14:27

Therefore, based on Pastor Jim’s consistent, lifelong teaching all throughout Scripture (including the above passages) on the responsibility of pastors to protect their flock from error (See also Pastor Jim’s Pastor’s Manual, p.173-190, #20, “Pathogens in the Pews,” and this article summarizing the key passages about the need for pastors to be vigilant regarding false teachers), he had just indicated to us by this statement that he was no longer medically or spiritually fit to hold the high office of Senior Pastor. Thus, he had just disqualified himself from the pastorate.

However, Juli & I would not allow Pastor Jim to abdicate his responsibility to provide doctrinal oversight, so we continued to monitor the LBC website for false teachers. A few months later, in early April, we alerted him about a children’s book for Easter that a staff member had posted on LBC’s website for parents to read to their children. It was written by Jared Kennedy, a pro-LGBTQ author for Russell Moore’s ERLC website, who had also recently penned (July 9, 2018) an article entitled, “What Do I Do if My Child Doesn’t Seem to Fit with Typical Gender Norms,” positively citing, three times, a known heretic, Dr. Nate Collins.

As we detailed at the end of Kids, Part 1, Collins was a key leader in the “Same-Sex Attraction” movement, having spent 15 years at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (SBTS) under the guidance of Drs. Albert Mohler and Russell Moore as a student, a teaching fellow, an instructor, and finally as a PhD recipient in 2017). Collins also was the co-founder of the perverted Revoice Conference (promoting “Celibate” Same-Sex relationships) in 2018 with Preston Sprinkle.

Pastor Jim insisted that Kennedy’s book be taken down from the website, but the staff member simply replaced it with another heretic’s children’s book instead, TGC’s Kevin DeYoung.

Then we wrote Pastor Jim on April 13, 2020, “So there’s no way that he [the staff member] can plead innocence about who these people are [referring to other false teachers that he had associated with and publicly endorsed, such as Trevin Wax, the Alistair Begg family, and Thabiti Anyabwile]. And if he was just ignorant of what he had promoted [Kennedy’s Easter book for children] and sorry for it, why hasn’t he taken down The Gospel Project … [or] LifeWay’s VBS, and promoted yet another false teacher, Kevin DeYoung, just in the last week?” “[He] is promoting pro-gay, pro-NAR heretics by using these materials.”

So while DeYoung’s popular 2015 book on homosexuality, What Does the Bible Really Teach about Homosexuality?, pretends to take a conservative stance in the main body of the work, the only resources he lists in the appendix are those of the pro-LGBTQ movement, not the biblical conservatives. In addition, DeYoung clearly accepts the worldly psychological concept of a “sexual orientation,” stating that it is not addressed in the Bible. While he condemns homosexual acts as inherently sinful, he does not do the same for the “orientation” or the desire itself, calling it simply “disordered.” By 2020, DeYoung had become a key player, and eventual successor, in the pro-LGBTQ wing of the PCA.

As you know from reading our articles above, Kids, Parts 1&2, this is the “Same-Sex Attraction” Trojan Horse heresy being peddled by the TGC, ERLC, and much of the SBC, including LifeWay publishing.

However, when we presented this information about DeYoung to Pastor Jim, he refused to take this children’s book down from the LBC website.

This was inexplicable to us, since Pastor Jim had just recently denounced proponents of the SSA heresy, as we quoted him in Kids, Part 1:

“Along with that, they [the ‘Christian’ advocates for the LGBTQ+ ‘community’] condone the effort to “naturalize” homosexuality and to declare homosexual affinities just another example of human diversity rather than another sad example of the whole garden of human perversities. Some of them are so anxious to placate the culture and court its affirmation that they even come forward, if you can believe it, with proclamations of repentance and confession for their historic sins for doing injury to the “alphabet community” with their “judgmental” stance inherited from the past (meaning the Scriptures). This biblical stance proclaims that so-called same-sex attraction is a lust to be progressively mortified by the Spirit working through the Word, just as other sinful desires should be. Notice that it is a temptation to be rejected, not proof of an unchangeable orientation. Yet I fear we are not done with these ever-evolving travesties. The same cultural sycophants can be expected, as it gathers momentum and on the same specious logic, to jump up in support of normalizing pedophilia. It’s coming.”

Then in early May 2020, we noticed in the LBC Bulletin that pro-LGBTQ advocate Ed Stetzer (whom you read about in Kids, Part 2 above) had been tapped by AWANA as a speaker for their free online Child Discipleship Forum :

So we followed Pastor Jim’s preferred procedure for bringing problems to his attention. He frequently says, “Don’t just tell me what the problem is; come up with a solution as well, if possible.” So we did just that, contacting a respected pastor and obtaining two viable alternatives to replace the AWANA curriculum that were compatible with Pastor Jim’s Reformed theology.

However, when we passed along this information to Pastor Jim, he merely indicated that he had forwarded it to the appropriate person, and we never heard about it again. It has now been 4 ½ years, and LBC is still funding this pro-LGBTQ+ “ministry” (AWANA) to the tune of $100/child per year (2022 figures).

Another infiltration of the LGBTQ+ agenda we described in Kids, Parts 2 was LifeWay’s The Gospel Project (Sunday School Curriculum), announced by the LBC youth staff in September 2017 (begin listening @1:02:00, listing of resources for parents @1:14:49, mention of The Gospel Project Curriculum @1:15:37; @1:16:33, Parent forum with ERLC’s “Christ-Centered Parenting” (led by pro-LGBTQ Russell Moore); 1:18:17, Gospel Project Curriculum is the same for all ages).

(Here is the archived link, if video fails to play: https://web.archive.org/web/20240505015100/ )

Not only does LifeWay itself promoting pro-homosexual resources (including children’s books!) from “Celibate Gay priest” (and now Associate Pastor at Russell Moore’s church, Immanuel Nashville) Sam Allberry and his fellow leader, “Pastor to Pastors” Ray Ortlund (who recently endorsed Kamala Harris for President, a woman who is anti-Christian and pro-abortion all the way until birth), but The Gospel Project itself was co-founded by pro-LGBTQ activists Ed Stetzer and Trevin Wax (as detailed in Kids, Part 2). Remember that Matthew 7:18 states, “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.”

So then, is this the type of leader whom you want to create your children’s “Christian” curriculum? Well, that’s what LBC continues to teach, to this day:

Also, why was Pastor Jim now willing to accept LifeWay resources to be used all over his church after just recently challenging SBTS President Dr. Albert Mohler in 2018 to speak out against the heretical publisher (in this email excerpt below)?

From: Jim Andrews <jima@lakebiblechurch.com>
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2018 10:40 AM
To: presoffice@sbts.edu
Subject: Your wrath of God article

Dr. Mohler –

[Pastor Jim wrote this challenge to Dr. Mohler in paragraph 3 (a total of 60 words) of this email to use his voice and influence against LifeWay.]

Therefore, since Pastor Jim abdicated his responsibility to fully supervise the doctrinal content of all LBC ministries in early 2020, and the Board of Elders failed to hold him accountable for his own personal sinful behavior (as described in our communications with them) in 2023-2024, it is now the duty of those who care about the direction of Lake Bible Church to hold their leaders (both current and former) accountable for these decisions and to insist upon biblically sound replacements. (By the way, the Reformed resources we had located could have been used to replace both the AWANA and The Gospel Project curricula.)

We will give further details on what this means and how it should be done biblically in the next article, “What’s Wrong with Lake Bible Church? Part 2: You’re Enabling My Dad to Endanger My Life!” 

No comments will occur except on part 2

What’s Wrong with LBC’s Elders? Part 1

Jim Andrews (1990, 2024) to LBC: “Consider Your Ways”