This is an expanded Twitter thread. See notes at bottom for more details.
The Venue Church in Chattanooga (under Pastor Tavner Smith) filed for bankruptcy yesterday, roughly 9 months after the pastor’s alleged affair received national attention.
Here’s what stood out to me in the megachurch’s filings.
But first, we have to link to some background reading for “y’all readers” just catching up.
A week before Christmas last year, nearly all staff at the megachurch quit after confronting Smith about the alleged affair he was having with a staff member (Smith was married at the time). The mass exodus of staff and controversy (which played out in local, national and international media) caused a huge drop in the number of people attending the church.
We’re talking a drop from hundreds of people a week to a few dozen. The church closed its satellite campus.
Just take a look at the revenue cliff shown in the bankruptcy filing.
And here is the listing of the cash or cash equivalents owned by the church at the time of declaring bankruptcy. Venue was a church known for its lavish services and big gifts/events. They have $440 left.
The bankruptcy filing required the megachurch to list its 20 largest creditors with unsecured claims.
You can see the amounts for yourself.
(Editor’s Note. The total amount owing just with these creditors is $129,159.42). These filings also confirm the church was largely operating without a board of directors to oversee operations. The Times Free Press had reported that much of the board quit during the controversy.
The Chattanooga newspaper also reported when Ron Phillips Sr. of Abba’s House resigned from the board (it occurred in February 2022, not January as the filing suggests).
Someone with sources should really talk to Ron Carpenter, Steven Furtick and Benny Perez about this. But anyways. Another aside: The filings list the vehicles owned by the church, including a 2017 Ford F150 and a 2018 Chevy Suburban, but it also appears the F150 was acquired this year after the church traded in a 2021 Chevy Tahoe.
Also, the megachurch sold a LED screen to Abba’s House (another Chattanooga megachurch) in June for $40k.
That’s all the Chattanooga/megachurch news for today.
Editor’s Note. This post was a collated Twitter stream by Wyatt Massey. Slight editing done for formatting purposes. You can see his orginal thread here .
