Saddleback Pastor Andy Wood’s Old Church Defends the Use of NDAs

After Echo Church received sustained criticism and scrutiny over allegations that their former pastor Andy Wood was bullying the staff and acting like a spiritually abusive tyrant before he left to become the new senior pastor at Saddleback Church, an investigation was launched seeking to corroborate these accusations. 

Within weeks the investigation commissioned by Saddleback to put their congregants at ease came up empty and cleared him of any abuse or wrongdoing, along with another independent third-party firm that found similar results. Yet some critics were not assuaged, pointing out the investigation was a farce in light of the use and enforcement of Non-Disclosure Agreements (NDAs) utilized by the church necessarily made it so that current and former staff members were not able to speak their minds. 

In a new update posted on their website, the church put out an FAQ regarding their use of NDAs and the accusations of using them to silence critics, explaining:

“No, Echo does not use NDA’s in this manner. In fact, Echo puts a lot of emphasis on staff safety, care, transparency, and professionalism. Our handbook encourages staff members that “if you believe that you are being, or have been, harassed in any way, please report the allegations of the incident or incidents to a Leadership Staff member or Human Resources within a reasonable time, without fear of reprisal.” In such cases, the situation is immediately investigated.

In order to protect everyone whose information is housed in our database system, Echo does use a traditional NDA every time someone is granted access to our database, whether staff or volunteer. This is because the privacy of our church members’ personal information is very important to us.

We also ask employees that transition off our staff to hold other private organizational information in confidence. Again, this is common practice, used simply so that employees do not inappropriately share passwords and private information with those that shouldn’t have them.

Such agreements are not intended to prevent anyone from sharing their experience at Echo, whether positive or negative. It deals specifically with information, not the individual’s personal experience.

Some of our separation or termination agreements in the past asked employees to agree “to not to disparage or slander the reputation of the church, its directors, pastors and staff, or any church members/attendees” and also stated that the church “agrees to abide by this same condition” toward the staff member. The heart of this was to serve as a reminder for the church and the Christian employee to act in a Christ-like manner, avoiding gossip and destructive slandering that causes division, rather than unity.

Though the documents and verbiage mentioned were designed by a third-party HR company and is standard for many churches in America, Echo is currently having all our HR documents reviewed again by another company to ensure that we are operating with the highest standards possible.”

There is currently a petition on Change.org requesting that the church “release all former employees from any non-disclosure agreements, any non-disparagement agreements, and any documents that prevent former employees from telling their stories” that has garnered 1167 signatures, arguing that these practices “can “act as silencers on victims of abuse.”

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