A megachurch in Alabama is spending $4.5 Million to build a lodge to restore fallen pastors, according to an investigation by the Roys Report which details the complex and lucrative position that Church of the Highlands (COTH) and its pastors find themselves in.
Chris Hodges is the senior pastor of COTH, a 43,000 member non-denominational megachurch that has a yearly operating budget of over $132 Million dollars. Though influential, Hodges has shown himself time and time again to be unable to handle the word of God or preach a sound sermon if his life depended on it, with Chris Rosebrough of Fighting For The Faith documenting years of bible molestin’.
While he cannot preach, Hodges does have another passion, which teaming up with his buddy and fellow pastor Dino Rizzo to ‘restore’ fallen pastors back into the ministry who have experienced moral failing, usually of the “adulterous” or “inappropriate relationship” kind of variety. Currently, the church has about 20 on the go.
The church does not believe that cheating on one’s wife is cause for disqualification from the ministry, but rather their intent is to restore them as soon as possible, sometimes in as little as a few months. Notably, Rizzo himself was restored after having one such relationship forced him to resign from the senior pastor at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, La. After about a year in ‘recovery’, Hodges snatched him up and hired him as the associate pastor.
To this end, they apparently need a dedicated space where this can be done, announcing they are spending four and a half million dollars on a getaway lodge where they can live out and be restored back into leadership in style.
An earlier piece of promotional material described it in glowing terms, saying “The Lodge would serve as a place where pastors, leaders, and their families could come to be mentored, counseled, refreshed, and restored. The Lord upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.”
There are no details on how big will be, how many rooms it will have or what sort of amenities there will be, other than it will cost a pretty penny and will be on the more luxurious side.
Bonus. Roys recounts how Hodges also has a side-gig where he invites pastors to spend a weekend with him teaching and coaching, at the steal of $7500 for singles or $10,000 for couples, with his last weekend netting him between $300,000-$400,000. Not bad for a weekend of work.
