Baptist Board to Respond to Misused Church-Starting Funds
An executive session has been called to respond to the more than $1.3 million misuse of church-starting funds in the Baptist General Convention of Texas.
The Executive Board of the convention announced their special meeting for Nov. 13, two weeks after investigators uncovered most of the 258 church starts that were funded for no longer exist or never existed altogether.
Suspicions were raised when one pastor, Otto Arango, began living a "lavish" lifestyle in the Rio Grande Valley. He along with two other pastors, Aaron De La Torre and Armando Vera, had been given financial support in church-starting funds. The funds, however, were misused and directed elsewhere, such as other ministry work, between 1999 and 2005.
Arango had asserted that he made a lot of money "promoting his vision of planting churches," according to the Associated Baptist Press. He said that a number of Baptist associations had given him monthly payments and consulting fees and told investigators that he received $14,000 per month from the associations he had contracts with.
One association leader, however, said otherwise. Tim Randolph, former director of missions for Tri-Rivers Area and now a BGCT congregational strategist, said his association initially talked with Arango about a one-year working arrangement to start new churches, but it never developed, reported ABP. Arango never met with the association's pastors and sent his associate, Gusvato Lopez, instead. The agreement had been cancelled after Arango's associate failed to continue fulfilling his commitment in equipping the pastors for church starts.
Arango had made further claims of other contracted services. But the other associations – Dallas Baptist Association, Union Association, Southwest Metroplex Baptist Association, and Gulf Coast Association – said they never agreed to any contract for church planting that would have amounted to several thousands of dollars a month in payment.
"We had one visit – no contract, no relationship other than ordering books. Nothing," said Donald Hintze, director of Gulf Coast Association.
The misused funds were only recently discovered in a five-month investigation with reports given on Oct. 31. To prevent further misuse and to strengthen accountability, the investigative team offered seven recommendations and while no immediate action was taken, BGCT Executive Director Charles Wade said he plans to implement some of them.
